Category: Music

A Nice Run to Play Before the 1 Starting Chord

Hi folks,

In this post I will talk about a nice run to play before the starting 1 chord of slow gospel chords.

On the left hand, you go

3 4 5 6 7 1

e.g. in the key of C major, you will go

E F G A B C

On the right hand you will harmonize the following melody:

3 4 3 2♯ 2 1

by using the following chords:

1 4 3minor 2♯-minor 2minor 1.

In the key of Cmajor these chords are:

G+C+E A+C+F G+B+E F♯+A♯+D♯ F+A+D E+G+C

That is:

First chord you harmonize the E using a Cmajor chord
Second you harmonize the F using a Fmajor chord
Third you harmonize the E with a Eminor
Then you go down a half step with the same chord shape to harmonize the D♯ with a D♯ chord
You then harmonize the D with a Dminor
Then you harmonize the C with a Cmajor chord.

To make it more melodious, on the right hand you can insert a 1sus4 chord before the last 1chord. That is, insert a Csus4 chord before the last Cmajor chord. So instead of going from F+A+D to E+G+C on the right hand, you can play it like this:

F+A+D  F+G+C  E+G+C

Furthermore, you can make the left hand run a little more melodious by quickly adding a 2 before the 5 since 2 normally has a strong pull to 5. So the left hand run becomes

3 4 2 5 6 7 1

To summarize, on the left hand you play the following notes

3 4 2 5 6 7 1

while on the right hand you play the following chords:

1 4 3minor 2♯minor 2minor 1sus4 1.

In the key of C, on the left hand you play:

E F D G A B C

while on the right hand you play:

G+C+E  A+C+F  G+B+E  F♯+A♯+D♯  F+A+D  F+G+C  E+G+C

Below is a recording.

Enjoy.

The 9 (add 6) Chord

Hi folks,

I will like to talk about the 9 (add 6) chord. This chord is a nice one to use in worship songs.

You can use this for the 2 chord or the 1 chord.

E.g When playing a 6-2 progression, you can play a minor 9 for the 6 chord and a 9 (add 6) for the 2 chord. Similarly, when playing a 5-1 progression that does not end a song, you can play a 5 minor 9 chord, then a 1 9 (add 6) chord.

Here’s an example of such a chord.

D♭ 9 (add 6)

To play it, you play D♭ on the left hand. Then play F B♭ B and E♭ on the right hand.

An easy way to think about it is to play the root note of the chord on the left hand, then play a quartal 3 chord with an added ♭5 on the right hand.

For example, F is the 3 chord on the D♭ major scale. F B♭ and E♭ is the F quartal chord. And B is ♭5 on the F scale.

Using this trick, it is easy to play 9 (add 6) for any key. That’s all for now. Enjoy.

An Interesting 2-5 Progression

When playing a 2-5 progression, here’s a way to add a few interesting chords in between.

The principle is that you walk up from the 2 chord to the 5 chord.

i.e. 2 3 4 ♭5 5.

Alternatively, to make it easier, you can take out the 4 and walk up as follows:

2 3 ♭5 5

An example of this is:

2minor7 1maj/3 4maj7 ♭5(with a quartal chord of its flattened 7th note) 513

The fourth chord there deserves more explanation.

Let’s assume we are in the key of D♭, what does a ♭5 (with a quartal chord of its flattened 7th note) mean?

Well, first ♭5 tone of D♭major will be G.

The 7th note of G major is F

Then we play a quartal chord of F (F B♭ E♭) on the right hand over G on the left hand.

In the key of D♭ the walk-up will be as follows

Chord LH RH
E♭minor7 E♭ B♭ D♭ G♭
D♭major / F F A♭ D♭ F
G♭major7 G♭ F B ♭ D ♭
G (with a quartal chord of its flattened 7th note) G F B♭ E♭
A♭13 A♭ G♭ B♭ D♭ F

Below is a recording of the first variant:

And of the second variant.

I use the second variant in Thank You Lord posted earlier. See if you can spot it!

Enjoy.

An Interesting Way to End Worship Songs on 1 Chord

Hi folks,

Today I’m going to talk about a cool way to end worship songs when the last chord is a 1 chord. The idea is that instead of just playing the 1 chord and stopping, we play a short progression.

First, play 5 and 1 notes simultaneously on the right hand while you play the 7 note on the left hand.

Then play the 4 and 1 notes simultaneously on the right hand while you play the 6 tone on the right hand. Essentially you’re moving your first left and right fingers down one whole step.

Play the 2 and 1 notes on the right hand while you play the ♭6 note on the left hand.

Finally, play the 3 and 1 notes on the right hand while you play the 5 and 1 notes on the left hand.

In the key of D♭major, here are the steps:

Play A♭ and D♭ on the right hand and C on the left.

Play G♭ and D♭ on the right hand and B♭ on the left hand.

Play E♭ and D♭ on the right hand and A on the left hand.

Play F and D♭ on the right hand and A♭ and D♭ on the left hand.

Below is a recording of the progression.

 

And below is a recording of the end of the song ‘Thank You Lord’ using this progression.

Understanding Number System in Music

Hi folks,

In this post I will briefly talk about a concept that’s very important to know in order to easily play songs in all 12 keys. It’s called the Number System.

Before learning the Number System, I used to find it quite challenging to transpose songs since I thought of each key as its own distinct set of notes. But by thinking of the tones of a scale as numbers, you create a common language to describe what you need to play regardless of scale. This made it significantly easier for me to play in all 12 keys. Here’s a quick example. Suppose you want to play the melody of the first line of Mary has a Little Lamb in the key of C, one can describe this as

E D C D E E E

In the key of G, it will be:

B A G A B B B

Now, instead of thinking of the tones distinctly when trying to play the song, we can use the Number System to abstract this to

3 2 1 2 3 3 3

To make this system effective, one will need to know for each key what tone corresponds to what number. E.g. C is the first tone of C, D is the second tone of C, etc. Once you master the Number System, you can apply it to chord progressions to quickly understand common patterns in music, e.g. the 2-5-1 or 7-3-6 chord progressions.

An Interesting Way to Start Worship Songs

Here I go over a cool progression for beginning worship songs. It is as follows:

1 7 4major(third inversion)/6 1 5major(third inversion)/7 5

E.g. In the key of D♭, suppose your song starts with the 1 chord D♭major(add 9), you can preceed it with the progression by playing

D♭ C G♭major(third inversion)/B♭ D♭ A♭major(third inversion)/C A♭ D♭major(add 9)

Below is a recording.

Diminished Chords

Recently I was watching a tutorial on how to transition from first to second tone chords (or 1-2 couples). The instructor said one could go from the 1 chord to a ♭2 diminished chord and then the 2 chord. This got me thinking. If diminished chords could be used in transitioning from the 1 chord to a 2 chord, is there anything else it could be used for? Curious, I decided to do a bit of research on the subject and ran into an excellent Youtube video that threw more light on it. Here I will discuss briefly what I have learnt about diminished chords: how they are formed and when to use them.

Diminished chord is one of four basic chords, the others being Major, Minor and Augmented. To form a diminished C chord for example, you start with the C note, then place the next finger on the note one minor third away, i.e. E♭, and the last finger on the note one minor third further, i.e. G♭. So, C E♭ G♭ are the notes in the C dim chord. If you want to extend it, then you can go a further minor third away to A and you have C dim7. So, generally, tones of diminished chords are minor third intervals apart.

Something interesting to note about diminished chords is that the diminished 7 chord of each tone in a given diminished 7 chord shares the same notes as all the other tones in the chord. For example. Consider Cdim7 comprising C E♭ G♭ A. Considering the second inversion of the chord E♭ G♭ A C, we have E♭dim7 chord. Taking the third inversion G♭ A C E♭, we have G♭dim7 and the fourth inversion A C E♭ G♭ is simply the same as Adim7. A consequence of this is that for all twelve tones of a scale, there only three types of dim7 chords to learn in terms of tone composition .

Now to the fun part. How can we use diminished chords to spice up our music? One way is by playing a diminished chord one semitone before the key of the chord you want to play, then playing the desired chord. E.g. if you want to play a Cmajor chord, you can preceed it with a B♭dim7 chord. This works for both major and minor chords.

Another way to use it is to first play a diminished 7 chord of the same chord tone you want to play, then play the desired chord tone. E.g. if you want the Cmajor chord, you can precede it with a Cdim7 chord.

A third way to use it is to first play a diminished 7 chord one semitone after the your desired tone, then play the desired chord. E.g. if you want to play an Aminor chord, you can precede it with a B♭dim7 chord. This method is good especially for minor chords.

Here is an excellent Youtube tutorial that explains all these in great detail.

By making use of diminished chords, one can fill some of the empty space between chord progressions and also introduce a more interesting sound to one’s playing. That’s all for now.