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Chord Inversion – Lesson 13

It’s the art of re-arranging the notes of a chord in different ways.
For example:
In the key of C, the 1 chord which is C E G is in the root position, it can be inverted in two major ways:
chord inversions fingering
E G C
G C E
To get the first inversion, take the first note and put it behind the last note
C E G becomes E G C – that is how the first inversion is gotten
From E G C, take the first note again and put it behind the last one; then it becomes G C E – that’s the second inversion.

So use this principle to invert every other chords that you know.

Lesson 5: Intervals
Lesson 6: Chromatic Scale
Lesson 8: Key Signature
Lesson 13: Chord inversions

Fingering for playing chords(triads) – Lesson 12

To play triads, you would need only your 1, 3 and 5 fingers. Forget about the 2 and 4 fingers for now:

fingering for playing chords triads
On the left hand:
5              3              1
C             E              G
D             M            S
On the right hand
1              3              5
C             E              G
D             M            S

Keep at it, and get used to it because this is the standard for playing triads.

Lesson 5: Intervals
Lesson 6: Chromatic Scale
Lesson 8: Key Signature
Lesson 13: Chord inversions

Introduction to chords – Lesson 11

There are three main types of chords:

 

intorduction to playing chords lesson eleven by nigerian man
Major chords (1 4 5)
Minor chords (2 3 6)
Diminished chords (7)
Major chords:
They are gotten from the 1, 4 and 5 degrees. They have three notes they are also called primary chords. This is the formula we use to derive our major chord
Root + major third + perfect fifth
Using the popular types of intervals we learnt ealier, we can break down this formula
(if you have forgotten about intervals and their interpretation using tones and semtones, click here to refresh your memory, because you would be needing it in interpreting the formulas that i would show you)
1 chord which is C            will give us C E G
4 chord which is F             will give us F A C
5 chord which is G            will give us G B D
Those are the three major chords that we have.
Minor Chords: The members of this chords are the 2, 3 and 6 chord.
The formula for deriving the minor chords is
Root + minor third + perfect fifth
Using this formula
We have:
2 chord which is D            will give us D F A
3 chord which is E             will give us E G B
6 chord which is A            will give us A C E
Diminished Chords:
We have only one chord in this group, and that is the 7 chord.
The formula is
Root + minor third + diminished 5th
7 chord which is B            will give us B D F
Work to do:
 
Play all the 12 major chords chromatically
Play all the 12 minor chords chromatically
Play all the 12 diminished chords chromatically
Tips to easily remember How to play all these chords
 
To get a minor chord, reduce the middle note of a major by a semitone

To get a diminished reduce the perfect fifth of a minor by a semitone

Lesson 5: Intervals
Lesson 6: Chromatic Scale
Lesson 8: Key Signature
Lesson 13: Chord inversions

Fingering for the chromatic scale – Lesson 10

This is the correct fingering for the chromatic scale, as it will be easy for your fingers to locomote across the keys of the piano.

chromatic scale fingering
C  Db  D  Eb  E  F  Gb  G  Ab  A  Bb  B  C
2    3    1   3    1   2   3    1   3    1   3     1  2
Note that:     The black keys are played with the number 3 finger
                     Two consecutive white keys are played with fingers 1 and 2

                     A white key is played with the finger 1

Lesson 5: Intervals
Lesson 6: Chromatic Scale
Lesson 8: Key Signature
Lesson 13: Chord inversions

Proper fingering for the 12 major scales – Lesson 9

The way you strike the keys of your piano is very important. To enable easy and uniform movement on the piano, you have to use the correct fingering. Especially when you want to solo over a song or even play chords.

fingering for the major scale
We would take the key of C for an example:
C             D             E              F              G             A             B             C
d             r               m             f                s              l               t              d
The fingering for the left hand is
5              4              3              5              4              3              2              1
d              r              m             f                s              l               t              d
The fingering for the right hand is
1              2              3              1              2              3              4              5

d              r              m             f               s              l                t              d

Lesson 5: Intervals
Lesson 6: Chromatic Scale
Lesson 8: Key Signature
Lesson 13: Chord inversions

Key Signature – Lesson 8

Key signature is the number of sharps and flats a key has for us to easily identify it. When you look at a musical piece, you would find out that at the very beginning of the piece you would see series or a single sharp(s) or flat(s). They are there for you to determine the key the piece is written on. Look at an example in the picture above.

key signature
Those two sharps there tells whoever wants to interprete the piece the key of the song, so how does the circle of fifths and fourths help us to do this:
How do you determine the key signature of a song using thecircle of 4ths  and 5ths
 
circle of 4th and fifth
 
The left hand side of the clock are the flats, while the right hand side are the sharps:
Therefore according to the diagram
G = #
D = ##
A = ###
E = ####
B = ##### or bbbbbbb
F# = ###### or bbbbbb
Db = ####### or bbbbb
Ab = bbbb
Eb = bbb
Bb = bb
F = b

Circle of fourths and fifths – Lesson 7

Forget the fancy stars in the image oo.
The image above is called “Circle of 5ths” when moving in clockwise direction and “Circle of 4ths” when moving anti-clockwisely.

 

circle of 4th and fifth
It would help you to remember many key things in music but here I will only tell you how it helps you build your interval knowledge of perfect 5ths and 4ths.
From C to G is a fifth while going backward from G to C on this circle is a fourth interval.
Another instance,from F# to Db is a fifth while backward from Db to F# is a fourth.

It’s the same thing counting two and half tones for 4th interval while counting three and half tones for 5th interval but this clock or circle will help you to remember easily without counting anything.

Just look at it like a multiplication table that you use when you want to solve simple mathematics.

Lesson 5: Intervals
Lesson 6: Chromatic Scale
Lesson 8: Key Signature
Lesson 13: Chord inversions

 

The Chromatic scale – Lesson 6

First of all a scale is a sequence of notes played one after the other
So a chromatic scale

child playing the chromatic scale on the piano

is the playing of notes one after the other in the semitone movement.

C   C#   D   D#   E   F   F#   G   G#   A   A#   B   C

d     de   r    re    m   fa   fe     s   ze     l    le     ti   d      —–      solfa notes of a chromatic scale

Lesson 5: Intervals
Lesson 6: Chromatic Scale
Lesson 8: Key Signature
Lesson 13: Chord inversions

Intervals – Lesson 5

Interval is the distance between two notes, they can be defined by tones and semitones
 
Common intervals you should know:

 

intervals in music
Minor 3rd (m3) = 3 semitones from the root note
Major 3rd(M3) = 4 semitones from the root note
Perfect 4th (P4) = 5 semitones from the root note
Perfect 5th (P5) = 7 semitones from the root note
Diminished 5th (flat 5) = 6 semitones from the root note
Augmented 5th (sharp 5) = 8 semitones from the root note
Octave (P8 or perfect 8th) = 12 semitones from the root note

Keep these terms, they would be used to interpret a lot of formulas that I would be showing you(Lesson 11: Introduction to Chords) in the future, so its better you write them down in your note.

Lesson 5: Intervals
Lesson 6: Chromatic Scale
Lesson 8: Key Signature
Lesson 13: Chord inversions

Singing and playing on different keys – Lesson 4

Have you ever been in a choir rehearsal and the music director will tell the pianist to bring down the key to a lower one( in other words change the key) because it is too high for the singer.
So from the key of A, the pianist could change it to the key of F.
What does this tell us?
singing and playing on different keys
It tells us that a song can be sung on 12 different keys.
So as a pianist, you should learn to play on all the keys of the piano.
For a start I recommend that you first learn all you need to learn on a particular key that you choose. Some people might choose C, but don’t choose C; choose something else; especially a key that has a lot of black notes.
I started with C#, and I enjoy playing on C#. After you’ve learnt all you need to learn in this tutorials, then you can start practicing on other keys. Make sure you practice other keys ooo.
Most of us would later be exposed to the art of transposing. Transposing is a feature on your electronic piano keyboard that enables you to play other keys on the key you are very familiar with.
You might be called to play in a church, and lo and behold when you get there, you would be given a piano that doesn’t have the piano feature and the keys would be hard to press. Mehn, you’re in deep water. J.
 
Let me briefly tell you how to find the key of a song
Let me encourage you by telling you that, you would get better at this as time goes on.

TO find the key of a song, you must have a reference point. This reference point depends on your hearing ability.

This video below illustrates how to find the key of a song on the piano:

 Most songs start with Doh and ends with Doh. Some, especially minors start with lah and end with lah
Keep that in your mind ooo.
 A song like baba, eshey oo baba, eshey oo baba, awa dupe baba; it ends with doh.
So whenever they are singing that song, sing it fast to the end and say the doh out loud so you can hear your self, then find that particular sound you said with your mouth on the piano.
If it happenes that the sound  is on the key of F#, then the key of the song is F#.
What about a song that starts and ends with lah; “awesome God” is an example of such songs.
Awesome God, mighty God, We give you praise, awesome God. You are highly lifted up, awesome God…….and so on and so forth.
The song ends with lah, so whenever they are singing the song in the church, try to sing it fast to the end and say the lah, then find the sound you are singing out on the piano, once you get it, trace it to the doh.
Once you get the doh of the song, that will be the key of the song. If the doh falls to the key of G, then the song is sung in the key of G.
Now I know the question in your mind is:
How do I get the Doh when I know the Lah?
That question will lead us into deriving our major scale
First of all a scale is a sequence of notes played one after the other
How do we derive our major scale?
This questions brings us to something we call Tones and
Semitones
Tones and semitones can be likened to what we call Wholenote and half note
So,
Tone = whole-note
  Semitone = Half-note
Tone =  T
Semi-tone = ST
Whole-note = W
Half-note =  H
Tones, semitones, Wholenote and half note are all distances on the piano.
A semitone distance is the distance of one note to the next immediate one e.g C – Db, E-F e.t.c
A tone distance is double the distance of a semitone e.g C – D, D – E e.t.c
So to derive the major scale this is the formula to use:
T              T              ST           T             T              T              ST
Look at this illustration below to get a better understanding

C   C#   D   D#   E   F   F#   G   G#   A   A#   B   C

Major scale for C major scale derived using Tones and semitones
To derive the major scale for the key of C, we started from C, using the formula:
  T                 T                    ST                     T                              T                              T                    ST
This is how it happened:
A tone means you should omit a key and go to the next while a semitone means you should not omit any key.
So from C, because it is a Tone first we would omit C# and move to D
From D, because it is a tone next we would omit D# and move to E
Now we are through with T         T
The next is a semitone, remember that when it comes to a semitone we won’t omit any key,
So from E would go straight to F without omitting anything
Now we are through with T         T              ST
From F, because it is a tone next, we would omit F# and move to G
From G because it is a tone next, we would omit G# and move to A
From A because it is a tone next, we would omit A# and move to B
From B because it is a semitone next, we would go back straight to C.
Work to Do:
Derive the major scale for  the key of F, E C#, A and B.
The solution for the key of E is

E              Gb          Ab          A             B             Db          Eb           E

Lesson 5: Intervals
Lesson 6: Chromatic Scale
Lesson 8: Key Signature
Lesson 13: Chord inversions