 "The
Secrets to Playing Piano By Ear"
300pg Course - Learn the secrets to playing literally any song
on the piano with a few simple, "easy-to-understand" techniques and
principles! Join Jermaine Griggs in learning tons of music theory,
concepts, and tricks that will help you to learn piano by ear! Thousands
of musicians have already taken advantage of this excellent program ...
why not you?
"The Secrets to Playing Piano By Ear" is full of easy-to-understand tricks, tips, techniques and secrets to playing piano by ear! For this month only, I've also been able to throw in a few bonus items (3 additional piano software programs). Click here to learn the secrets to playing absolutely any song on the piano in virtually minutes! You won't regret it! |
2004/05 Newsletter Archive Available at https://www.hearandplay.com/newsletters ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Online Classroom: "How to Harmonize Melodies to Create Full-Sounding Songs" Part One Check your e-mail box for part two in next week's newsletter. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note: You might want to print this lesson out for easier reading... (Part one of a two week series on harmonizing melodies) Harmonizing melodies is different than laying chords beneath a melody. You may have heard of fake books and chord charts where you are given chords to play under various melodies. Jazz standards are usually notated this way. For example, the chord chart may display a "Cmaj7" over a particular bar with a melody line beneath it. To some extent, you have to know how to read sheet music (at least to read the melody line). Harmonizing melodies, to me, is much easier. This is how hymns and popular music are played. I'll give you some songs in the next newsletter, but just to demonstrate my point, let's take "Mary had a little lamb" since everyone knows this nursery rhyme (and its a lot easier to make my point clear with a simple song like this)... With this method, if you can sit at your piano and pick out the one-note melody, then you're 30 seconds from playing it as a full-sounding song. Because the chords that harmonize notes NEVER change --- only the notes themselves. So if there are 8 notes in a major scale (really only 7 unique notes but the octave note makes 8) --- and you know the "matching" chord for each one of those notes, then you have what it takes to play full-sounding chords in place of your one-note melodies. Let me explain... Say, after 10 minutes at the piano, you've managed to learn "Mary had a little lamb" (and believe me, it's not that hard to pick out a melody --- small children do it if you leave them at the piano long enough). It's not rocket science. I believe everyone has the ear to sit down and pick out a melody (especially if you know your major scales because most melodies come directly from the scales). So if a major scale has eight notes and most melodies are formed with a combination of passing tones, upper and lower neighboring tones, and chord tones, then it shouldn't take hours to learn melodies of popular songs. Passing tones...? Upper neighboring tones...? Lower neighboring tones? Chord tones? You're probably wondering what these are. I discuss these things in detail in chapter 17 of my 300-pg course, but for now, I'll explain them briefly: Passing Tones Melodies include tones that are not a part of the chord used for the harmony. These non-chord tones are called non-harmonic tones. When a melody passes from one chord tone to a different chord tone with a non-harmonic tone (a half or whole step) between, the non-harmonic tone is called a passing tone (pg 252, "The Secrets to Playing Piano by Ear"). What does this mean? Simply put, if you were playing the beginning of "Mary had a little lamb" (E - D - C - D - E - E - E) over a Cmaj chord, the 'D' notes in this sequence would be passing tones because they are not a part of the C major chord (C + E + G). Notice the 'E' and "C' notes are a part of the C major chord so they are not called passing tones --- they are called chord tones. Neighboring Tones When a melody passes from one chord tone back to the same chord tone with a non-harmonic tone (a half or whole step) between, the non-harmonic tone is called a neighboring tone. What does this mean? Basically, passing and neighboring tones function similarly but have one minor difference --- the next note. If the melody is going to a different note and just "passing by" a non-harmonic note (again... simply a note that ISN'T a part of the major chord being used with the melody), then it's called a passing tone. As simple as that. If the melody is moving from one chord tone to a next door neighbor tone, then immediately back to the original chord tone, the "in-between" tone is called a neighboring tone. If you don't get this, it's better illustrated with pictures. I strongly recommend my course if you think this is interesting and want to learn more. Whether you call them upper or lowering neighboring tones depends on which way the melody is going. It is an upper neighboring tone when it is above the chord tone and a lower neighboring tone when it is below the chord tone. Let's see how well you understand this: ________________________________________________________ Is this an example of a passing tone or neighboring tone? Chord: C maj (C+E+G) Melody: C D C Answer: This is an example of a neighboring tone relationship because the "D" is not a part of the notes of the chord AND because the melody is going from the "D" back to the original "C" chord tone. Whenever the melody uses a note to return back to a previous chord tone, then a neighboring tone relationship exists. The "D" is specifically an upper neighboring tone because it is higher than the original "C" chord tone. _________________________________________________________ Is this an example of a passing tone or neighboring tone? Chord: D min (D+F+A) Melody: D E F Answer: This is an example of a passing tone relationship because the E is not a part of the Dmin chord (so it's non-harmonic) AND because the melody is moving forward to a different chord tone ("F"). For example, if the melody was D E D, then a neighboring tone relationship would have been the correct answer. However, since the "E" is used to move forward to "F", another chord tone, this creates a passing tone relationship between the "E" and the other chord tones. How does knowing this information help you to determine melodies? For starters, it helps you to understand that melodies aren't just randomly played notes that you have to figure out... they generally use notes that are right next to each other. Let's analyze "Mary had a little lamb" to see what I'm talking about: E D C D E E E (Ma-ry had a lit-tle lamb) D D D (lit-tle lamb) E G G (lit-tle lamb) E D C D E E E E (Ma-ry had a lit-tle lamb, her) D D E D C (fleece was white as snow) Now... ask yourself a few questions? Are these notes randomly spread out or do you see patterns here? Do you see a bunch of passing and neighboring tones like I do? Are the notes generally right next to each other (and not more than one note a part when there is a jump like from the E to G in the third line)? Let's analyze another easy nursery rhyme / lullaby: "Are you sleeping" C D E C (Are you sleep-ing) C D E C (Are you sleep-ing) E F G (Bro-ther John) E F G (Bro-ther John) G A G F E C (Morn-ing bells are ring-ing) G A G F E C (Morn-ing bells are ring-ing) C G C (Ding dong ding) C G C (Ding dong ding) So how do I harmonize these melodies ... already?!!! I'll cover more popular (and non-nursery rhyme) songs in the next newsletter but for now, I will introduce the "harmonization" chart. But first, here are some rules to keep in mind: 1. Every note in a major scale has its own harmonizing chord 2. Whenever a note is played, simply replace it with its harmonizing chord 3. When all one-note melodies have been replaced with harmonizing chords, you have a full-sounding basic song. Let's take the C major scale (but keep in mind that every major scale has its own harmonizing chords).
| When melody note is: | Simply play this chord: |
| C | E + G + C (played all at the same time) |
| D | F + A + D |
| E | G + C + E |
| F | A + C + F |
| G | C + E + G |
| A | C + F + A |
| B | D + G + B |
| C | E + G + C |
Chords to study for future online classroom lessons:
- Major triads; see pg chapter 5 of 300pg course
- Minor triads; see pg chapter 8 of 300pg course
- Major sixth chords; see pg chapter 13 of 300pg course
- Minor sixth chords; see pg chapter 13 of 300pg course
- Seventh (dominant) chords; see pg chapter 10 of 300pg course
- Minor seventh chords; see pg chapter 10 of 300pg course
- Major ninth chords; see pg chapter 14 of 300pg course
Well, I hope you enjoyed my July newsletter and I'll be back soon! Practice hard until then!
This concludes your July Online Classroom Lesson If you were intrigued by the online classroom lesson above, then you would definitely benefit from my course!
Enjoy this edition? Visit our message board and let us know! https://www.hearandplay.com/board Please Let a friend know about HearandPlay.com! PLEASE FORWARD THIS NEWSLETTER TO YOUR ENTIRE E-MAIL ADDRESS BOOK.
Yours Truly, Jermaine Griggs www.HearandPlay.com www.GospelKeys.com
Further References"The Secrets to Playing Piano By Ear" 300-pg Course [5] Chords & Progressions: pgs 65-78, 105-130, 147-165, 182-227.Do you know what a “2-5-1” or "3-6-2-5-1" progression is? Or perhaps the famous 12-bar blues chord progression? In this piano course, you will not only learn how to play gospel, blues, and jazz progressions, but how to recognize them in songs. In addition, you will learn the simple techniques to playing these progressions, hymns, and songs in all 12 major keys! ... Enjoy learning:
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The famous "2-5-1" Chord Progression:
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"The
Secrets to Playing Piano By Ear"
300pg Course - Learn the secrets to playing literally any song
on the piano with a few simple, "easy-to-understand" techniques and
principles! Join Jermaine Griggs in learning tons of music theory,
concepts, and tricks that will help you to learn piano by ear! Thousands
of musicians have already taken advantage of this excellent program ...
why not you?
"The Secrets to Playing Piano By Ear" is full of easy-to-understand tricks, tips, techniques and secrets to playing piano by ear! For this month only, I've also been able to throw in a few bonus items (3 additional piano software programs). Click here to learn the secrets to playing absolutely any song on the piano in virtually minutes! You won't regret it! |