There's some great piano tutorials on the sister site that cover music theory, in the mean time this should help you out, best of luck on your musical journey.
Harmonise the notes of a diatonic scale with I, IV and V chords. EG In C. Chords C G C F C F G C Lowest note of chord thru major scale. C D E F G A B C Inversion R 2 1 R 2 1 1 R Make sure the fingerings are correct. RH - all are 1-3-5 except 1st inversions are 1-2-5. ...I think. The relative minor is exactly the same physically, just starting from A. Also worth trying from D for Dorian. I'm stll beginner but I think also avoid the thumb on accidentals. EDIT - C F and G are all the Major. A D E are all the minor. The modes will mix them up a bit.
Get Scaler 2 & ChordPulse, and spend the time saved learning how to write killer melodies. PS ignore this advice if you want to become a concert pianist! Last edited: Aug 24, 2021
Practice playing actual Music, either playing diatonic chord types in a given tonality.. Like, choose a Tonality, choose a Style and rhythm/Time Signature, and then just try to make chord progressions in that context.. (later you can add melodic improvisations with your right hand) Or practice interpreting jazz Standards from a Real/Fake book, a Bossanova Realbook, or in whatever other style, there's real/fake books in many different styles.. Jazz uses very Decorated or Altered chords, so it will help you get familiarized with it, same goes for Bossa, which is very accessible and easy to play, but very Sophisticated in its use of harmony.. Last edited: Aug 24, 2021
You don't need role models, you don't need to act out, you don't have to read books. You do not have to or should not be or become a copy of the other person. It is enough if you can finger all the chords and then play them for about 1 hour every day. Have fun with it - if you were supposed to have become a pianist - you would have started as a child. In the past there were no computers and digital audio workstations, so you had to choose an instrument. Today there are so many tools and virtual instruments. Play an instrument / VSTi that you enjoy and when it gets boring play another virtual instrument. So playing on the keyboard is fun and that drives you forward, you will automatically get better and better and find your own style and rhythm. Above all, practice fingerings / chords / changes that are difficult, but do not practice excessively. You will then develop into your own musical personality. It takes about 9 years to master an instrument perfectly. Longer or shorter depending on talent and time invested.
So this is my own made up notation for trying communicate inversions. Though others probs use it as well. There are other ways of expressing this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figured_bass Or you could use slash chords. (Notes of chord. Low to high.) R = Root Inversion = R-3-5 CEG 1 = 1st Inversion = 3-5-1 EGC 2 = 2nd inversions = 5-1-3 GCE Practice moving between each inversion of the chords needed if your hands are still finding their way. RE: The excersise See this as a table. Each column is a single bar. Chords - edit - think as this as an 8 bar progression. C G C F C F G C Lowest note of chord thru major scale. C D E F G A B C Inversion - order of notes in chord. - see above R 2 1 R 2 1 1 R So the lowest note is moving through each note of the C Major scale. In the RH this will always be played with the thumb. The notes above make up either a I IV or V chord. I find it's a good way of learning Diatonic harmony and giving hands a warmup. It's really handy for learning new keys and it's really easy to find variations on this idea. IE put the Scale, CDEFGABC on the top, in my example they're on the bottom. EDIT - you can practice this ascending and descending. Last edited: Aug 24, 2021
Figured bass is more complicated, it reads like it also helps define a particular voicing. Nevertheless, hopefully you get the exercise I'm trying to explain.
Exactly! Thank you for clarifying. Make sure the fingerings are correct. I followed what a friend who teaches/performs piano told me RE fingering. Make sure you descend as well. If you get bored, then make a rhythmic motif. Eg Arpeggios. Or try placing the Scale notes on the top rather than the bottom. You can also swtich the C in the middle of the progression with a G. Exact same phsyical positions for A Minor too. So if you're sick of C then try A minor. (Or even Dminor for a dorian feel. You could choose any mode). When I am trying to learn a new key, EG G, then I will apply the same thing but also include the relative minor, which is E.
Re: descending. Nope not circle of 5ths. Just go back down the chord progression you explained earlier. So instead of being an 8 bar progression it would then be a 15 bar. (I don't double up on the C chord at the end) [or should that be middle ??] Go from C all the way through the scale to C and then back to the original C. Yep, because the physical positions are the same for the relative minor as they are to the Major. It's just more milage. I think they're the same physical positions for the other modes. The I, IV and V chords of a key are super important. It's just a name for a type of diatonic scale. Each of these scales has a different vibe. It's perhaps easier to understand if you transpose them all into C, but i'll leave that up to you. C Major - CDEFGABC I = CMajor 4= FMajor 5= GMajor A Minor - ABCDEFGA 1=Aminor 4=Dminor 5=Eminor Notice how this mixes major and minor. D Dorian- DEFGABCD 1=Dminor 4=GMajor 5=Aminor Hope that helps. I just use these as 5 minute warmup/mental excersies. In the Left hand I like to play the root and fifths of each chord. Honestly, I think this one excersise has helped me so much for doing what you asked. It helps muscle memory, ears, voice leading, diatonic knowledge. The I IV and V are super important chords. Last edited: Aug 24, 2021
Don't look at charts, don't count notes, learn the actual basics of music theory! They didn't teach you math in school by making you memorize results to equasions either, or did they? No, you learnt the system of what math is (hopefully). Same goes for music. All these charts, counting half steps is for people who don't understand the underlyig concept and systematic relationship between the notes themselves. You can do that of course but it won't get you far in terms of composing dope music. So the aim should be to learn, HOW major and minor cales are actually constructed and how chords are actually a result of layering notes, more specific thirds. You know this, right? The C major scale: C––D––E-F-–G--A--B- Because Chords are based on thirds composed of the notes of a scale, lets start stacking them. The third note in this scale is the E. Just throw the same set of notes on top of the existing ones it but start with the 3rd one which is the E: E- F--G--A--B-C--D-- C––D––E -F-- G--A--B- Finally, throw the next third on top, which is the 5th scae degree - the G - and start building the scale from it: you get this: G--A--B- C--D--E- F-- E- F–-G--A--B- C--D-- C––D––E- F–-G--A--B- And if you reed from bottom to the top – OH MY GOD… Chords. The intervals between the first, 2nd and 3rd note of any chords define it's quality: major third followed by minor thid = major chord. Minor third followed by a major third = Major Chord. So we get the follong pattern of chords: Cmaj, Dmin, Emin, Fmaj, Gmaj, Amin, B° (the be is diminished becaus you are stacking 2 minor thirds in this case (BDF). In scale step theory they are also notated in roman numerals as: I ii iii IV V vi vii° I ii iii IV V vi vii° G--A--B- C--D--E- F-- E- F–-G--A--B- C--D-- C––D––E- F–-G--A--B- And since you know now how basic triad chords are constructed you can add 7th, 9th and 11th scale degrees on top of that easily and voilà, you can build any chord in the major scale now. Inversions are noting more than shiftung one of the note of the triad an octave up. You can do that for any not in the triad, so the more notes a chord has, the more inversions are posiible: Numer of Inversions = Number of notes making up a chord -1. If they all make sense musically is another question… In Minor its is a bit more sophisticated as we all know. But at the end of the day it's the beautifuller of both scales. Whoever stigmatized minor as being "sad" doesn't know shit about composing music… So the clear answer from somebody who is not interested in playing the keyboard, but rather producing/composes music: learn the systematics. It will help you in getting around the scales without counting notes. Again, since I am not interested in performing on the keyboard I cannot instruct you on how to practice, but this is the least music theory you should internalize. And a little nugget at the end: if you go down a minor third (3 half steps) in any major scale you land in what's called the relative minor scale of what you are currently in. In the case of the c major, you land on the A. A minor and C major consist of the same tonal material: A B C D E F A G, only the place where you start playing is all what makes the difference since it shifts the position of the half steps in between notes which makes all the difference in termes of whats the scale. So in a nutshell: get the big picture of the systematic and then everything will come in easy. Later on you can add sus2 and sus4 in the mix easily. Happy playing. And oh, get into Jazz. That's where all the dope chords come from (mostly) :D Last edited: Aug 25, 2021
As far as I know, questions like this have been asked a lot here and some interesting solutions have been presented. If you study these solutions, you'll learn from each. Last edited by a moderator: Aug 25, 2021
It's all neurons and muscles memory. "All music is played by ear. If the signal from the brain is strong enough, your hands will do anything to respond. It's all about creating a strong brain signal." "It doesn't take intelligence to become a great jazz musician, there's plenty of proof of that around!" I love Hal.
