Ray's Secret To Learning Popular Songs On The Piano

Here is a tip that has worked very well for me. Whenever I wanted to learn to play the accompiament chords of particular song I would first create a special notation of the song that represented the chord changes.

Let's say the chords were:
4/4 [ D(Maj){1} ][ B(Min7){1} ][ G(Maj){1} ][ A(Maj){1} ]:
The {1} appended to each chord represents playing one full bar of each chord.

I would reduce the chords to a single note Chord Sketch using the Root of each chord. The above would translate into:

4/4 [ D[W] ][ B[W] ][ G[W] ][ A[W] ]:
(The [W] notation indicates to play each note for one Whole Note value, or 4 counts.)

I would then pratice this simplified sketch of the chord changes playing single notes instead of the whole chord. Over and over I would practice until I had the FEELING of the chord changes memorized.

What's the big deal, you say?

Well the Big Deal is that by reducing the complex chords into single notes, you can focus on memorizing WHEN to change each chord to get the FEEL of the chord changes. I would also sing the melody with my voice as I played the simplified chord sketch. Then only after I had the simplified chord sketch memorized I would then begin to fill in the chord sketch with the complete chord.

This way you are not trying to do everything all at once as you learn a new song. You first reduce the song into a simplified Chord Sketch in which each chord is represented by a single note. You then memorize the simplified Chord Sketch and sing the melody along with it. Finally, once the Chord Sketch is memorized you start filling in the Chord Sketch with the actual notes of each chord.

Almost like magic your fingers know what to do! Just think, if you tried to learn the chord changes all at once you would have to play all of the notes of each chord and change chords at the right time. This is difficult for beginners to do! However, once you have memorized the feeling of the chord changes by playing only the root of each chord, when you then start filling out each chord you have half of the work already done. It is much easier to focus on playing all of the notes of each chord AFTER you have memorized the chord change timeline of a popular song.

This strategy takes advantage of a special memory called muscle memory. You have three memories working for you as you play music. First, you have visual memory that represents the visual representation of the song. Next you have aural memory that represents your memory of how the song sounds. And then there is muscle memory that represents how the song feels to your fingers.

You may start off with visual memory get get you started, but it will be the muscle memory that you can depend on the most to enable you to play a song smoothly from beginning to end. Your aural memory will act as an alarm system that will alert you if you stray too far from the song's structure.

What is a C(Maj)/F Chord?

I had seen chords in sheet music that looked like fractions. They were chords like C(Maj)/F or A(Maj)/G. It was not until I watched someone play an arrangement on the piano that the role of a fractional chord finally made sense to me. I could hear a whole new type of energy that did not exist when I simply played the literal chords in the chord charts. These alternate variations of a chord seemed to make chords to pop out into three dimensions like a 3-D picture!

The fractional chords are known as chords played over an Alternate Bass. They work to change the shade of the chord. One way to imagine it would be to think of a color and then consider what would happen if you increased the intensity of red in the color. As you increase the intensity of red, the original color would change into a different shade.

In the same way the following chord progression is an example of changing the intensity of the bass by stepping up the bass while holding the chord constant.

Example:
C(Maj)/C, C(Maj)/D, C(Maj)/E, C(Maj)/F, C(Maj)/G, C(Maj)/A, C(Maj)/B, C(Maj).

To play this progression you would hold the C(Maj) chord constant with the right hand above middle C. Then as you play the C(Maj) chord over and over in a loop you walk the bass up ascending from C one octave below middle C up to middle C.

As you do this notice how the C(Maj) chord does not sound like an ordinary C(Maj) chord when the bass is D, E, F, G, A, and B. These alternate shades of C(Maj) are used often in popular music. They are most likely the chords you were reaching for in the past but could not find in the chord charts by playing the literal chord chart alone.

One of my favorite fractional chord progressions is the following sequence:

G(Maj), A(Maj)/G, A(Min)/G, G(Maj) - This chord progression has a feeling of lift or flight.

You can explore fractional chords easily by slowly playing a scale under any chord. As you do you will be creating all possible fractional chords that exist within the scale. The scale that you play under the chord should start and end with the root of the chord. For example, if you explore Alternate Bass for a G(Maj) chord you would play scales that start and end with G in your left hand below middle C as you play the G(Maj) above middle C with your right hand. This will exponentially increase the number of chord colors you can create and add a new dimension to your chord progressions!

Myth - All Songs Can Be Played With Just Three Chords

I often heard this myth from friends and fellow guitarists when I was first learning to play the guitar. It has become an urban legend and I still hear this assertion every now and then. This myth promoted the idea that if you learned just the C(Maj), F(Maj) and G(Maj) chords you could play any song. Early on however I saw through this false promise and found that this myth works only in one scenario. If the song is being performed by musicians who are all playing the actual chords of the song, it is possible for another musician to follow along playing C(Maj), F(Maj) and G(Maj) and it would sound like the musician playing just three chords was playing the whole song. However, if the same musican played the song all alone with the same three chords it would be exposed that just three chords on their own are not good enough to convey the whole song.

Chords are like words. The larger the vocabulary of chords we know, the more colorful musical statements we can make. In fact, there are some Chord Progressions that have a lot of historical significance. They are easily recognized and found in many popular songs. One such progression is the D(Maj), B(Min7), G(Maj), A(Maj) sequence. You could try as hard as you like and if you used only D(Maj), G(Maj), and A(Maj) you would not be able to reproduce the same mood and emotion that is invoked when all four chords are played.

There is a path to learning to play chords and that is by exploring many chords. As you learn more chords you will begin to hear them as you listen to your favorite music and you will be able to use them to construct your own original chord progressions.

Techniques for composing Chord Progressions

When I started composing Chord Progressions I mostly reused interesting Chord Progressions I found in my favorite popular songs. This was alright at first but I soon discovered this method to be a trap. Although I was able to generate interesting arrangements they did not permit me to explore new landscapes or be as original as I would like.

I took a formal class on Music Theory and was exposed to the concept of scales parenting groups of triads. For example, a C Major scale would parent the triads of C(Maj), D(Min), E(Min), F(Maj), G(Maj), A(Min), and B(Dim). I liked this idea and quickly extended it by organizing scales with more than triads. I would analyze a scale and find all of the 6th, Maj7, Min7, 7th, Maj9, Min9, and 9th chords that were members of the scale. Mostly I worked with the Major and Minor scales.

Once I organized chords in this fashion I found that I could try out various sequences and compose my own original Chord Progressions. Later a quantum leap happened as I began to collect scales from all over the world. Over time I acquired a library of 99 World Scales which provides a very large musical universe to explore.

I can now start with any World Scale of my choice and create original Chord Progressions. I can then jump beyond this another level by combining Chord Progressions of multiple World Scales into a single composition!

This technique provides a lot of freedom within a very safe environment. Almost any chord sequence I string together sounds good because the individual chords are all members of a group of related chords. This technique provides the freedom to be as original as you like.

Hello Blog!

This is my first blog. I am a musician, programmer, and a telecommunications engineer with a hobby of creating sofware to improvise music. The software behaves like a large database of musical properties. During the past few weeks I have written a CD-ROM that shows how to play 99 World Scales on the Piano or Synthesizer. Each scale page displays all Chords that are members of the scale. There are over 200 MB of pages and MIDI Samples. Each MIDI sample is in GM (General MIDI format).

I taught guitar 1976 to 1980 and played piano and synthesizer in several music groups. I compose on the Roland JV-1010 Synth Module and like to create surrealistic musical landscapes.