I’ve done several blogs in the past covering chords and how important it is to know them and their inversions, but there is so much more benefit to them than you may initially realise.
Whilst it’s true to say that a lot of contemporary music does indeed have chords written above the melody line, you’d be forgiven for assuming you didn’t need or couldn’t benefit from the knowledge of chords and their positions in other types of music - such as classical.
But - as demonstrated in my last couple of blog posts, including my introduction to chords I, IV and V last week - the structure of much music, such as classical, is based around chords to the point that not knowing them can cause certain limitations to your learning. At the very least, they can slow your progress when learning to play or even read a particular piece of music.
Let’s explore some cases in point!
The Basic Chords: Deluxe Edition
The basic chords are just triad chords: C major, G major etc.
And when we start to learn these chords, we do so by learning three notes. Usually starting with the root and then a third above that and a third above that e.g. C major is C - E - G.
This is a great start.
Then we may start to learn about inversions, which is also great as it introduces us to the fact that there are a few more ways to play this chord across the keyboard:
E - G - C is first inversion,
G - C - E is second inversion.
If you need a refresher in finding chords, read this blog. For more details on inversions, read here!
Now that we have identified what makes a chord, we can start to think of the ‘deluxe’ approach! This is not a technical term, but it certainly is more interesting than just playing a simple triad like those demonstrated above.
When we learn about inversions we learn that there are a fair few ways of playing the chords across the keyboard, however when we know the three notes that make up a chord we learn that the possibilities of how to play them across the keyboard are, in fact, unlimited!
Why?
Some or all notes may be doubled up.
Notes don’t always have to go in ascending order.
Both hands can be used.
So even if I were to take my humble C major chord and continue playing, say, C - E - G in the right hand, I can variate that one of several ways by different approaches in the left hand:
C - E
C - G
C - E - G
C - G
E - G
G - E
G - C - E
etc. - there are loads!
The important thing to remember is that these chords will always be these chords regardless of what order the notes appear and no matter how many times one of the notes appears.
So just imagine that you have an incredible stretch and allow me to introduce you to this:
C - G - E Left Hand
G - C - G Right Hand
Still a C major chord, but definitely a ‘deluxe edition’.
You may be wondering;
“But Jack, this is all very exciting and all…but when will I actually need this very specific layout of chord and how does it help me overall in my musical learning journey?”…
…or words to that effect.
Well, learning about chords isn’t just as important as learning how to find and play a single chord.
It’s about being able to move your hand from one chord to the next as well as being able to develop your ear so that it can perhaps a little better hear progressions.
Even if we don’t focus on the ear, we need to be able to move between different chords. It’s a basic necessity of playing piano. This goes for both hands too - don’t get sucked into the thinking that chords are just for the left hand as they are for the accompaniment alone!
To demonstrate how valuable an asset chords are to our musical knowledge, here are some cases in point!
Cases in Point
Canon in D
One of the most famous openings of any classical piece ever (Baroque, in fact) is that of Pachelbel’s ‘Canon in D’. A Canon is a piece of music that repeats the same idea over and over again but adds to or variates on it each time. In many piano transcriptions of ‘Canon in D’, this actually means that the first 4 bars in the left hand are often repeated several times throughout the piece, with only the right hand doing any work!
Anyway, I digress.
We know that Canon is in D. This means D major (remember it’s always major if it doesn’t specify otherwise!).
If we chordi-fy the D major scale, which is made up of the notes:
D - E - F♯ - G - A - B - C♯
We create the triads
D major - E minor - F♯ minor - G major - A major - B minor (relative minor) - C♯ dim.
So unless the score suggests any accidentals (one off sharps or flats in the bar) - which it doesn’t - then these are the chords that we are playing with in Canon.
Take a look at the first passage below and see if you can work out the chordal structure:
Just from the root notes (the notes in the bassline) alone, but using the intervals in the right hand to confirm, you should be able to work out that the chords are:
D - A - B minor - F♯ minor - G - D - G - A
Now let’s have a look at a couple of bars a little later on in the piece:
Can you confirm that the chords are the same?
If so, how can our learning of that chord sequence help us to learn the bars above?
Again, consider the notes that make up a chord and where the chords change.
This is especially powerful if you want to start committing the music to memory rather than just relying on muscle memory (on its own a hugely unreliable thing), but can also benefit the speed at which you learn if you’re happy keeping the score safely in front of you as well: talk yourself through and learn the piece through intervals:
The first bar in this snippet - which starts where our D major chord would be - starts with the note D, rising up to F♯ (logical, as this note is also in the D chord), then when the left hand moves to A, this is identical to the note the right hand has moved to. The next bar starts with the B minor chord and for us we are playing a fifth interval (although not one directly above the other - this is called a compound interval, where the interval is still recognised by the notes but is separated by an octave). This goes down to D, which again is logical as it fits within the realm of the B minor chord that is represented by the left hand root. When we reach where our F♯ minor falls, we are just duplicating the root note of F# in the right hand.
It may seem convoluted, but the more familiar you already are with how chords and intervals work the more powerful this approach to learning music will be.
Prelude in C
Bach’s introduction to ‘The Well Tempered Clavier’ is one of his best loved keyboard works, but despite sounding rather straightforward it is a deceptively difficult one to play well; keeping a regimented rhythm going throughout all those semiquavers can be a nightmare! But regardless of that, the exciting thing about this piece is that it is entirely based around chords!
Once you have mastered the basic setup of the pattern in bar one you have cracked the principle on which the rest of the piece is based, but obviously the notes change in each bar. But where do they change to?
They change to other chords!
Can you identify the chord in the first bar:
This is indeed a C major. Across both hands it is a C major because the left hand gives us C - E and the right hand gives us G - C - E. Altogether that creates a root position, but if you take the right hand alone then the notes it plays is a broken C major second inversion (note only the stems pointing up in the right hand are played in the right hand).
Taking the right hand separately is a really good thing to do with this piece because the left hand doesn’t necessarily correspond to the chord that is in the right, so let’s see if you can identify the chords in the right hand of the first four bars, inversions and all (clue: the first one is C major second inversion - we’ve just done that!):
ANSWERS:
Bar 1: C major second inversion
Bar 2: D minor second inversion (A - D - F)
Bar 3: G7 root* (G - D - F)
Bar 4: C major second inversion
*as I have said what seems like one million times in the past, a seventh chord is typically a four note chord because it is your triad with an extra note on the top. G7 would therefore be G - B - D - F however it is common in music theory (and considered better practice) to drop one of the middle notes. Thus G - B - F and - as in this case - G - D - F - are both viable G7 chords. This is considered better music practice on the basis that it keeps the harmonic voicing consistent with a typical triad chord. Four notes (voices) to three sounds less even than three to three for the simple reason that the latter has the same number of notes progressing / modulating / resolving to…the same number of notes!
Just imagine for one second that you didn’t have quite the genius understanding of chords as you do and imagine trying to navigate your way around this piece:
C - E - G - C - E - G - C - E
C - D - A - D - F - A - D - F
B - D - G - D - F - G - D - F
It just looks like random letters and would very much play the same: random notes.
But because you know how chords are put together, hopefully that can help you to better understand the logic in which notes follow which and even which chords follow on from each other.
Sarabande in D Minor
This piece of classic Baroque music by Handel is almost too perfect to demonstrate chords because it’s opening theme is virtually a masterclass of how chords, chords and chords can make the entire piece!
Take a look at the opening bars below and see if you can work out the first right hand chord of the first four bars (complete with inversions):
ANSWERS:
Bar 1: D minor second inversion
Bar 2: A major root
Bar 3: F major second inversion
Bar 4: C major root
When you know these chords, learning and playing these opening bars becomes a dream! But even if we jump to the first variation, we can use our knowledge of these chords on which the variation is based to work some information out:
The first three notes of the first bar is just the D minor second inversion but played in a specific order (top - bottom - middle: F - A - D), whereas the minims in the second bar are E and C♯ which are - you guessed it - the top two notes of our A major root position. These two principles translate respectively across the next two bars for the F major second inversion and the C major root position.
Eagle eyed readers will, of course, have spotted that that isn’t the be all and end all of these bars, however. The first bar, for example, features those three crotchets at the end: A - G - F. They’re not chord-ified.
Perhaps not, but whilst it’s worth remembering that not every single individual note can be assumed to be from the triad, we can also consider the journey that it is taking. How many notes are we working down?
Three in this case.
And then the first note at the beginning of bar 2 is E.
So the run is A - G - F - E. In essence, we are starting from the top note of a D minor (root position) and then just working down the scale in time to resolve to the E - the top note of our new A major triad.
Similarly, the B in the right hand of the second bar is seemingly unrelated to the A major chord, but when we consider the A just below it in the left hand, it’s actually the note between that and the C♯ that it resolves to in the right hand. This again creates a partial scale of A.
Fun fact: I recorded myself playing this for educational purposes. And because this blog is of an educational persuasion, here is is. Subscribe to my YouTube channel for more videos of me showing off!
Wrapping Up Chords in Piano Music
In conclusion, having a working knowledge of chords is an incredibly powerful thing to have and to develop and whilst it’s fair to say that knowing them can really help you to develop your learning of a piece of music, it’s also important to say that if you’re less confident it’s worth making a point of trying to identify them within pieces of music so that you feel more confident with them!
As part of your practise, explore different chords and find different progressions (a fancy word for different orders of chords) and try playing them with different inversions, different rhythms and even try creating a more melodic approach such as broken chords in one hands vs. vamping triads in the other. The speed and effectiveness with which you can change between chords is as important to all of the above as the playing itself!
Jack Mitchell Smith is a piano teacher based in Macclesfield, Cheshire. Click here to find out more.
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