Anyone who knows about chords HELP

buickchick62 · 03-09-2004, 09:55 PM

I know how to play chords, but I can't link one chord to the next. Making the music flow. Any suggestions let me know.

**Rainer.** · 03-09-2004, 11:06 PM

You mean you can't play chord progressions? I'm now keyboardist, so I'll let them take care of it...

What exactly are you having trouble with? Changing the position of your hands for them? Making them up?

snizzle · 03-10-2004, 02:15 PM

kinda vague post but i'll see if i can help any...

I'm gonna assume that you're just playing straight chords. Like C and stuff...and you're just playing it like one chord a beat....of course this is all assumption....and that you're having problems going from say, C to G...

I can think of two ways that could possibly help ya out.
1) Different chord voicings. If your playing a normal C chord it's a bit of a leap to go from C to G. However, if you go from a C chord (C E G) to the first inversion of the G chord (B D G) that's not to much of a leap and it will definately make it flow better.
2)Bridge the gaps. Play something inbetween the chords to get you from one to the next. The melody of the song is a good start.
This is about all i can give ya without a little more specifics...umm, hope this helped some...

nckcool_11 · 03-19-2004, 09:57 AM

heres something that helped me.
say ur in the key of C. every major key has this chord progression, 1,4,5 are major, and 2,3,6 are minor (and 7 diminished).
so here are the chords u would play in the key of C
C
Dm
Em
F
G
Am
Bdiminished
that will work for any chord. so say ur in G
G
Am
Bm
C
D
Em
F#diminished.
the reason the F# is there is because in the G scale it has one sharp, F. so u will never play an F chord, but an F# chord.
i dont think this made sense, but hope it helped anyway.

Nate · 03-20-2004, 10:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by snizzle

I can think of two ways that could possibly help ya out.
1) Different chord voicings. If your playing a normal C chord it's a bit of a leap to go from C to G. However, if you go from a C chord (C E G) to the first inversion of the G chord (B D G) that's not to much of a leap and it will definately make it flow better.
2)Bridge the gaps. Play something inbetween the chords to get you from one to the next. The melody of the song is a good start.

That's about what I would have said, except you were much more to the point... I tend to ramble.

Good use of inversions and chord voicing is the first step to good contemporary chordal piano playing. The second step is to learn how to put stuff between your good inversion/voicing choices.

Choose chord inversion that require you to move as short a distance as possible. Snizzle's example of C-E-G going to B-D-G is a good one; the C moves down a half-step to B, the E moves down a whole-step to D, and the G is stationary. Step-wise motion between chords is nearly always the best way to go. The way to improve on making the right inversion/voicing choices to provide the smoothest motion between chords is to practice. Take a chord progression, play the first chord... then stop and think about what inversion or voicing you could use for the second chord in order to make the distance you have to travel between the chords as small as possible. Do the same thing for moving to the third chord, and the fourth, etc, etc.

The other way to make your chordal accompaniments sound better is to incorporate a melody (usually the melody of the song works best, duh

) into them somewhere. The easiest way to play a melody along with a chord progression is to voice the chords so that whatever notes are in the melody are on the very top of your chord voicings. If the melody was C-D-E-G-A-A-G-F-E (all half notes, let's say), for example, and the chord progression was Cadd9-C-Am-G7-C (all whole notes, let's say.. so there are two melody notes per chord)... you might choose voicing such as E-G-C, E-C-E, E-C-A, G-B-G, G-C-E. (you can use two hands to play those, by the way... and you'll need to for E-C-A in particular). The idea here is to keep the melody notes on top of the chord voicings and to move smoothly from one chord to the next.

I hope that helps some.

In His love,
Nate

snizzle · 03-20-2004, 06:35 PM

wow nate, that me be the best compliment that i have ever recieved

<- tears of joy

!

buickchick62 · 03-25-2004, 04:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by snizzle

kinda vague post but i'll see if i can help any...

I'm gonna assume that you're just playing straight chords. Like C and stuff...and you're just playing it like one chord a beat....of course this is all assumption....and that you're having problems going from say, C to G...

I can think of two ways that could possibly help ya out.
1) Different chord voicings. If your playing a normal C chord it's a bit of a leap to go from C to G. However, if you go from a C chord (C E G) to the first inversion of the G chord (B D G) that's not to much of a leap and it will definately make it flow better.
2)Bridge the gaps. Play something inbetween the chords to get you from one to the next. The melody of the song is a good start.
This is about all i can give ya without a little more specifics...umm, hope this helped some...

Sorry my post was so vague. With your second suggestion. What I want to be able to do is bridge the gaps, but I'm not sure how to. If u have any suggestions to bridge gaps they are welcome. I'm not good w/ the melody because I don't really have an ear for music, I'm one of those people who has to have the music in front of me.

snizzle · 03-25-2004, 09:01 PM

Ok, well both suggestions kidna work together. If you use different chord voicings you can play around with the notes in the chord to get you to the next chord. Like if you're going from G to C...

1) Use the first inversion of G: B D G, then you just have to move the B and D up to C and E to have a C major chord.
2) Don't be afraid to use interesting rythm's and stuff to make it not so boring.

To end the cycle of vagueness (is that a word?

) give me an example of a song that you need help on. That way I can give you really practical advice instead of generic stuff. Lookin forward to hearin back!
-shane

buickchick62 · 03-26-2004, 03:55 PM

To end the cycle of vagueness (is that a word?

) give me an example of a song that you need help on. That way I can give you really practical advice instead of generic stuff. Lookin forward to hearin back!
-shane[/QUOTE]
Thanks foryour advice. I play worship songs, I'd love to be able to play Switchfoot's song "On Fire." If not here's a list choose one u know.... Breathe On Me, Jesus, Lover Of My Soul, Faith, All The Way, Open The Eyes Of My Heart, Your Love Oh Lord... or suggest a song you know.

s0233425 · 03-29-2004, 05:12 AM

Here's a couple of tricks i've learned when playing by ear:
(When in the key of G)
Say you're going from G to Em, depending on the sound you want you can add in a Bm or B; you just kinda walk down on the F#.

Say you're going from C to G, you can sometimes add in a cool chord which i don't know the name to (well seeing i taught myself to play be ear!) basically it's C7 but you add in a C# too.

Try listening to other pianists like Dino and Terry, and emulate their style! Check out Keith Green too, for a good contrasting sound.

Regards

s0