29

Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

  • Upload
    others

  • View
    3

  • Download
    0

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

Page 1: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible
Page 2: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

Table of Contents

7Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools

These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible even for young students.

5Chords Challenge Levels: A Structured Chord Curriculum

These chord challenges are a great way to structure your piano chord curriculum, giving students a sense of achievement with landmarks along the way to guide progress.

93 Steps to Chord Inversion Superheroes

Chord inversions are extremely useful, but they can be confusing. Here’s the three-pronged approach I’ve been taking to teach chord inversions to my early intermediate students.

2

Page 3: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

Table of Contents

15Using Lead Sheets with Absolute Beginners

We know why we need to teach lead sheet skills to our students. But when is the earliest our students can get started with lead sheets?

175 Fun Ways to Use Piano Chord Progressions

Getting comfortable with piano chord progressions takes lots of repetition. But how can our students get that repetition without the boredom? Shake things up with these fun ideas.

12Why Teach Lead Sheets?

Lead sheets are useful not just for their own sake, but also for all these concepts and skills that they help teach.

20A Unique Approach to Teaching Pop Chord Progressions

When little-to-no practice happens between lessons, you can take the opportunity to improve intermediate students' "learning-by-listening" skills using their favourite pop song.

28Ask Countess Von Clavier

3

Page 4: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

Hello&

Welcome

Chords are one of those simple things that are often taught in a way that is utterly convoluted. Am I the only one of us who first formally met chords through Roman numeral analysis, or did that happen to

you too? What a strange way to teach something that is, at its core, so basic: just a few notes combined in a certain way to create a sound.

In this edition of Bright Notes, I hope you'll see how accessible chords and understanding harmony can be even for beginner students. Chords can be especially revolutionary for adult and teen beginners who want to make rich and full-sounding music right away. By focussing on shapes and patterns, rather than theory and notation, we can shift the accepted teaching timeline and introduce our students to chords, lead sheets and inversions much earlier than you might expect.

We also have a fantastic opportunity to explore one teacher's unique approach to teaching pop chord progressions with a guest post from Tony Parlapiano. I hope you'll take the time to sit at the piano while reading his article so you can experiment with his ideas as you read.

Here's to getting creative with chords,

Page 5: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

Piano teachers would almost universally agree that teaching chords to our students is important. But without a structured

piano chord curriculum, we often resort to teaching chords in whatever order they happen to pop up in our students’ repertoire or method books and crossing our fingers that we eventually get through them all.

For a student, this haphazard approach makes it difficult to see how chords relate to each other. It can seem like there are way too many types of piano chords to keep track. It can be overwhelming. That’s where these chord challenge levels come in.

Chords Challenge Levels

These 5 levels of chord challenges give teachers a clear structure for working through all the major, minor and dominant seventh chords with piano students, including inversions.

• Level 1: Major chords in root position• Level 2: Minor chords in root position• Level 3: Dominant seventh chords• Level 4: Major and minor chords in first and second inversions• Level 5: All chords in random order with appropriate inversions

For students, the 5 challenge levels provide a sense of accomplishment with landmarks along the way to guide progress.

Learning Chords Through Playing

Once I decided what each chords level would cover, I had one main decision left to make: written, played, or both?

If you’ve followed my blog for long, you’ll know I’m a big advocate of teaching theory through playing wherever possible. So for my chords challenges, I decided that I wanted my students to be able to play the chords in each level effortlessly. Once students are comfortable playing the chords, the notation side of things becomes much easier.

The VMT library has a booklet outlining the 5 challenge levels, along with an awesome iReal Pro playlist to add some excitement to your students’ chords practice.

This booklet will walk you and your students through each level and what’s required, with handy visual references along the way. Feel free to adapt this to the way you teach chords and have fun with it!

Chords CHALLENGE levels: a structured CHORD CURRICULUM

These chord challenges are a great way to structure your piano chord curriculum, giving students a sense of achievement with landmarks to guide progress.

5

BRIGHT NOTESthe Vibrant Music Teaching magazine

© Vibrant Music Limited 2020www.vibrantmusicteaching.com

Page 6: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

Adding the Magic Pixie Dust

When it comes to technical work, sometimes we need to get a little creative to give students the foundation they need to be successful. Simply adding a super fun name to each level pumps up the appeal for kids. After all, who wouldn’t want to become a Chord Ninja?

I like to recognise my students’ achievements when they complete a challenge level with these custom stickers which we put on the front of their assignment folders to show off their achievements. I got my stickers printed at moo.com, but I’m sure you can also print them at home or get your local printers to do it.

When it comes to technical work,

sometimes we need to get a little creative...

6

BRIGHT NOTESthe Vibrant Music Teaching magazine

© Vibrant Music Limited 2020www.vibrantmusicteaching.com

Page 7: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

TEACHING PIANO CHORDS with powerful VISUAL TOOLS

One reason that teachers don’t get to teaching piano chords earlier is that the ways we were taught them would

go over most young students’ heads. (SATB and Roman numeral analysis, anyone?)

But teaching piano chords doesn’t have to be complicated. At their core, chords are simple structures with unique relationships to each other that make them sound delicious, comforting or surprising – depending on which combination we choose.

These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible even for young students.

Chord Construction

Teaching major or minor triads is easy when you focus on how they’re built, and what better way than to map them out right on the piano?

Keyboard Mapping

I like to introduce chords to my students by revealing the pattern of tones & semitones (that’s whole steps & half steps, for my friends in the USA.) Using small tokens on the keys makes understanding chord construction pretty straighforward.

Videos

Thinking Theory videos are meant to give students a quick introduction to a concept before you talk about it in lessons, or as a reinforcement afterwards.

The videos are especially powerful because they can free up lesson time.

Send Thinking Theory videos to parents for their kids to watch, use them in group lessons or assign them as part of lab time in buddy lessons.

When, in your own piano student journey, did YOU learn what chords could do? Teaching piano chords should be an essential part of any curriculum... and yet,

I find most students learn about chords far too late.

7

BRIGHT NOTESthe Vibrant Music Teaching magazine

© Vibrant Music Limited 2020www.vibrantmusicteaching.com

Page 8: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

These videos are designed to be clear and concise so that students can watch them – and then get on with some writing work for reinforcement.

• Thinking Theory Video: Major Chords (USA)• Thinking Theory Video: Major Chords (UK)• Thinking Theory Video: Minor Chords (USA)• Thinking Theory Video: Minor Chords (UK)

Reinforcing the Visual Patterns

When it’s time to teach major or minor chords to my piano students, I want them to see the visual patterns.

Noticing this pattern of white and black keys is what will help them to memorise and internalise the chords as quickly as possible.

If we build this instant recognition first, we can tackle the notation side of things later.

Musical Alphabet Blocks

I often use my musical alphabet blocks to reinforce these patterns, as my students love building things on the floor. But I was looking for more ways to further cement this concept.

Pattern Sheets

Then one day, I was watching a mastermind in Tim Topham’s Inner Circle with Susan Deas when it hit me. You see, Susan reviews the chords using a grid with each of the chords on it. She points to each chord at random and students have to play the chord to pass the “test”. I’ve taken this idea – and I added another level.

These major and minor triad grid sheets include a sheet which emphasises the visual patterns. My students use the patterned sheet in the beginning, before moving to the random sheet.

8

BRIGHT NOTESthe Vibrant Music Teaching magazine

© Vibrant Music Limited 2020www.vibrantmusicteaching.com

Page 9: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

Three steps to CHORD INVERSION superheroes

How were YOU taught about chord inversions? Can you think back to the way they were first introduced to you?

I have several students right now who have been working towards the Chord Apprentice challenge (getting really comfortable with all major chords) and they’re almost ready to start thinking about inversions.

I don’t like to delay this introduction too long. Chord inversions are extremely useful, and students need them in order to play fluently from lead sheets and recognise chord patterns in their repertoire. But…they can be confusing.

I remember being boggled by them as a student. I got the general idea, but when I tried to think about what chord I was looking at my brain would just freeze. It seriously felt like I could barely even recognise the notes anymore…my mind simply went into panic mode.

I certainly don’t want my students to feel that mental block when it comes to chord inversions. So I’m being proactive and introducing them as early as I can, in very small doses at first.

Here’s the three-pronged approach I’ve been taking to teach chord inversions to my early intermediate students.

9

BRIGHT NOTESthe Vibrant Music Teaching magazine

© Vibrant Music Limited 2020www.vibrantmusicteaching.com

Page 10: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

Step 1: Keyboard Mapping

First I introduce inversions right on the piano. I think this makes it clearer for students than it ever could be on the staff.

If you’ve been following this blog for a while it won’t be a surprise to you that I immediately reached for some colourful erasers for this task.

These erasers are little skulls that I picked up in Blick Art Materials in San Francisco one summer. Perfect size for the piano keys!

Using small tokens on the keys like this makes chord inversions pretty straightforward. I explain how we can take the bottom note and put it on top each time to create the new inversion.

Then once my students get the idea, we do lots of drilling. I ask them to create various chords on the piano, and then to identify chords that I create.

I keep going with this until my students are almost instantly placing and naming the chord inversions.

Step 2: Staff Mapping

Then, and only then, we take a look at the chord shapes on the staff.

I wanted a way to make this transition smoother for my students. In the past I’ve used flashcards, but I felt I needed an in-between step that was more hands-on.

Which is why I’m now using my magnetic white board to first introduce the chord inversions on the staff.

This works great because, just like the keyboard mapping above, students can physically move the notes up to the top of the chord to make the inversion.

Then we just repeat, and repeat, and repeat some more until this becomes almost boringly easy for my students.

10

BRIGHT NOTESthe Vibrant Music Teaching magazine

© Vibrant Music Limited 2020www.vibrantmusicteaching.com

Page 11: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

Step 3: Mental Respelling

Now it’s time to see the chord inversions out in the wild.

When we’re trying to identify what chord we’re looking at, I encourage my students to “mentally re-spell” the inversions to create the root position chord.

It doesn’t matter if we’re looking at a staff or the shape on the keys – the idea is to move the notes around in your head until they’re as close together as possible.

(Side note: I’m only talking about triads here. I believe in getting these really secure before really going in-depth on the madness of sevenths and ninths and other craziness. Keep it simple to start – you can get fancy later.)

This imaginary reorganisation does still take some practice, but it’s a helluva lot easier than it would’ve been if we skipped those first two introductory steps.

BONUS STEP 4: Ready, Set, Gamify!

I think our students deserve some giggles after all that hard work, don’t you?

My kiddos love practising their new chord knowledge with the wonderfully frantic Inversions Diversions game.

I don’t want my students to feel that mental block when it comes to chord

inversions.

11

BRIGHT NOTESthe Vibrant Music Teaching magazine

© Vibrant Music Limited 2020www.vibrantmusicteaching.com

Page 12: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

WHY teach LEAD SHEETS?

I believe in giving my students a wide-ranging piano lesson experience. I don’t expect expertise in every area, but I do want to give them an opportunity to explore every area

of piano and music.

One of those diverse skills that I’m passionate about including in lessons is learning lead sheets.

12

BRIGHT NOTESthe Vibrant Music Teaching magazine

© Vibrant Music Limited 2020www.vibrantmusicteaching.com

Page 13: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

Why are lead sheets important? Lead sheets are a vital ingredient in my studio not only for their own sake

(although it’s good for students to know how to read from lead sheets) but also for all the other skills and concepts that they help to teach.

Lead Sheet Concepts

I believe in teaching music theory through playing as much as possible and lead sheets provide wonderful fodder for this.

Harmony And Melody

One thing that working with lead sheets makes clear is the relationship between harmony and melody.

When playing fully-notated music, it’s easy to overlook or gloss over how the music is constructed. With lead sheets, you are constructing the music yourself, so you have no choice but to understand how the harmony and melody fit together.

Common Chord Progressions

We can do chord analysis when reading from sheet music, and I believe we should be doing plenty of this once students reach a certain level. In lead sheets, though, the chord analysis is already done for you so it’s easy to see the chord patterns repeating themselves without understanding SATB writing.

Fully understanding common chord progressions can help increase students’ reading abilities. It can also help them to relate better to classical repertoire since you can discuss and hunt for the familiar chord patterns from pop within the music of Mozart and Beethoven.

Lead Sheet Skills

It’s not all about the theory, of course. Helping your piano students acquire lots of technical skills that they can apply to their fully-notated pieces is another reason why learning lead sheets is important for them.

Chord Proficiency

Students will need some basic knowledge of chords before approaching a lead sheet. But there’s a big difference between knowing the pattern of semitones (half steps) in a major chord theoretically, and actually being able to come up with chord shapes quickly.

13

BRIGHT NOTESthe Vibrant Music Teaching magazine

© Vibrant Music Limited 2020www.vibrantmusicteaching.com

Page 14: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

To gain that proficiency of chord playing you can absolutely do some chord drills, like I do with my chord level challenges, but for many students that will only take you so far. By using lead sheets you can speed up that chord acquisition because they can use the chords to play their favourite pop songs. And they’ll probably be much more likely to practice those than any chord drill. 😉

Accompaniment Patterns

Lead sheets provide a fantastic opportunity to explore common patterns and left-hand styles. You can introduce Alberti bass, waltz patterns, chord inversions and so much more by using a lead sheet as your template. Once your students have these patterns in their fingers, it will be so much easier

for them to sight-read them too. Win, win!

Listening Skills

We’ve all had students who start playing and immediately shut off their ears. They get to the end of a piece and you ask them about certain details and it’s like they weren’t even in the room for their own performance. 😉

Lead sheets are a great opportunity to develop students’ listening skills and wake up their ears. There’s less info on the page, which give students the opportunity to focus more on the sound.

Listening is also a natural part of the lead sheet playing process as we need to test different variations and patterns to see which we like best.

...you are constructing

the music yourself, so you have no choice but to understand

how the harmony and

melody fit together.

14

BRIGHT NOTESthe Vibrant Music Teaching magazine

© Vibrant Music Limited 2020www.vibrantmusicteaching.com

Page 15: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

Using LEAD SHEETS with absolute BEGINNERS

Do we need to wait until our students are at an intermediate level and capable of making full arrangements? I don’t think

so. I believe in the value of lead sheets for even our youngest absolute beginner piano students.

No, it shouldn’t be a huge part of their curriculum, but a little foray into lead sheets once a year can provide rewards in the long-run.Let me help you get your students started with lead sheets even if they’re right at the beginning of their musical journey.

When we’re working with piano lead sheets (or any chord-based playing,) it’s important to take hand span and dexterity into the equation. So, I’ll split my approach up by age here so you can see how it differs based on these factors.

Young Beginners

For my youngest beginner students, I teach lead sheet skills by getting them to play just the root note of the chord in the bass while I play the melody and we both sing along.That way, they only have to look at the chord symbols (they just think of them as note names) but they’re still getting accustomed to the look of a lead sheet early on in their studies.

This is also their first introduction to accompanying. Yes, it’s a very basic version of an accompaniment, but it still counts!

Playing as part of a team is an important skill and this is a valuable experience for them as they have to listen, sing and play at the same time.

We know why we need to teach lead sheet skills to our students. But when is the earliest our students can get started with lead sheets?

15

BRIGHT NOTESthe Vibrant Music Teaching magazine

© Vibrant Music Limited 2020www.vibrantmusicteaching.com

Page 16: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

Teen Beginners

Teenagers (and preteens with particularly good dexterity) might be able to handle fuller chords right off-the-bat. Experiment with each of these options for their accompaniment while you play and sing the melody:

• One handed chords• Root notes in both hands• Root notes in left while right plays chords, open fifths or thirds

Don’t rush your newbie students towards the full chords. If it’s even a little bit awkward, it won’t be fun for them when they start moving around and they won’t be able to play with rhythm patterns because they’ll be so focused on their fingers.

Adult Beginners

Why am I separating the adults from the teens? Because many adult beginners will struggle a lot more with the coordination than the teenagers will. This is especially true if they are absolute beginners who have never touched a piano or learnt another instrument before taking lessons with you.

The adult students are also going to be less likely to be comfortable singing with you, and you may not want to push them on it if they are.

For these reasons, I suggest starting your adult students with the root-only version of the lead sheet where you play the melody, and then slowly scaffolding the learning from there.

Make sure that every stage feels easy-as-pie before you add a layer of difficulty. Adult students are very prone to negative self-talk and frustrations at the technical side of piano playing!

16

BRIGHT NOTESthe Vibrant Music Teaching magazine

© Vibrant Music Limited 2020www.vibrantmusicteaching.com

Page 17: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

5 FUN WAYS to USE piano CHORD PROGRESSIONS

Getting comfortable with piano chord progressions takes lots of repetition. How can our students get that repetition without the boredom?

Familiarity with piano chord progressions can help our students read more fluently, understand music theory better, and be able to get out of a performance glitch or memory slip in a hurry!

But building that solid knowledge takes time and repetition. And for repetition to stay fresh, we need some variety. So what are some of the different ways can we practise piano chord progressions with our students?

There are tons of options for practising chord progressions, but in this post I want to give you 5 great starting points. You can keep going with variations of these ideas for as long as you like, and then branch out once the creative juices start flowing.

Psst! Not sure what chord progression to use? Start with the old reliable I–V–vi–IV and go from there.

1 The first chord progression activity is accompanying scales. Playing along with your students’ scales using a simple vamp

is a great way to make scales more musical and interesting to practice. Why not flip the script and have them accompany you?

Teach your student a simple vamp, such as a I–V pattern. Get them to start and make sure they’re keeping a steady beat. Play a scale over the top (or, if you have 2 students together, get the other student to play a scale). Change keys and repeat!

17

BRIGHT NOTESthe Vibrant Music Teaching magazine

© Vibrant Music Limited 2020www.vibrantmusicteaching.com

Page 18: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

This will teach your students the importance of keeping a steady beat and they’ll also be able to easily accompany anything or participate in a group session with this pattern.

2 The second chord progression activity is to accompany improvisation. You can use any piano chord progression at all for an

improvisation. Start with a I–V–vi–IV, or get your student to invent their own. Decide on a chord progression together and get them to practice looping through it a few times. Come up with an ending for their pattern (a low tonic is an easy and effective option).

Ask them to play the pattern several times while you improvise over it and do the ending when they feel like it. Swap roles and have them improvise while you play their chosen chord progression.

This is fun and creative and makes a great warmup or winddown routine for your lessons. Try out different patterns each week and your student will soon be a chord rockstar!

3 Another chord progression activity which I like to do with students is to rearrange a piece. This one will require a little more

theory knowledge, but it’s a fun experiment to try every so often.

Take out a piece your student is playing that is heavily chord-based. (It can be broken chords or other patterns – just not contapuntal, imitative, etc.) Identify the chords and analyse how they fit together with the melody.

Decide on chords to substitute in and rewrite the right and left hand to use the new chords. Have your student play the piece both ways and discuss the effect.

Rearranging a piece like this will take some time so you won’t want to do it in every lesson. It’s definitely a valuable experiment though and doing this every so often will broaden your student’s understanding of the impact of chords on the structure of music.

4 Chord progressions are a great way to learn new left hand patterns. I’m all about preempting upcoming challenges

my students will encounter by laying the groundwork for them now. Chord progressions are a great way to do this for left hand patterns.

18

BRIGHT NOTESthe Vibrant Music Teaching magazine

© Vibrant Music Limited 2020www.vibrantmusicteaching.com

Page 19: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

Look ahead to pieces your student will be learning in the coming months. Identify a left hand pattern (Alberti bass, broken chords, waltz, etc.) from one of these pieces which your student is not super comfortable with yet. Teach them this pattern by rote and apply it to a chord progression of their choice.

Yes, this takes a bit of planning on your part. But, gosh, it sure is worth it when they come to that piece and ace it in no time at all.

5 I like to have students create a chord progression from scratch, because chord progressions can be a fantastic starting point for a student composition. Try the following process and watch the magic unfold:

• Choose a key signature.• Get your student to play all the chords in that key, going up the scale.• Ask them to choose a pattern of 3 – 5 chords and write the chord symbols above empty bars (measures) on a blank sheet of manuscript paper.• Have them experiment with different left hand patterns using this chord progression and write in their favourite.• Help them to add a right hand melody and expand the composition from there.

This is only one way to compose, of course, but I think it’s important to expose students to different methods of writing music so that they see it from all sides.

19

BRIGHT NOTESthe Vibrant Music Teaching magazine

© Vibrant Music Limited 2020www.vibrantmusicteaching.com

Page 20: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

You can feel the instant shift of energy the moment their

selection comes pouring out of the speakers.

Well, it happened again. One of my high school students had a busy week and didn’t practise. I’m sure she wasn’t feeling great about coming to class unprepared, and I knew neither one of us would be thrilled with the idea of rehashing last week’s lesson.

When I sense my students are feeling overwhelmed by the demands placed on their time and attention, I want to ensure their lesson experience provides some relief. I’ve always believed that students can decide what they get to play without necessarily determining what they get to learn.

So when little to no practice occurs between lessons, I often take the opportunity to level up their “learning-by-listening” skills using a favourite pop song of their choice.

It all starts when I hand over the iPad for a student to queue up the recording. As I prepare to begin teaching a song I’ve likely never heard before, you can feel the instant shift of energy the moment their selection comes pouring out of the speakers.

A unique approach to TEACHING POP chord progressions

BY TONY PARLAPIANO

20

BRIGHT NOTESthe Vibrant Music Teaching magazine

© Vibrant Music Limited 2020www.vibrantmusicteaching.com

Page 21: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

letters. The benefit is that they only have to learn one number system. As they move through the keys, the letters representing each number will change but the underlying harmonic structure remains. For example, let’s take the following chord progression:

It would be unfortunate for a student to learn this sequence without understanding that they are playing a Sixteen Forty-Five (1 6 4 5) in the key of C, especially since this is a standard progression which, with enough experience, can become easily identified through listening alone.

You may need to find a piano to discover the key, but you don’t need to know that to hear the movement of 1 to 6 to 4 to 5.

If we identify the key as G, our Sixteen Forty-Five will convert to the following:

Just as we construct every major scale with a half step between degrees 3–4 and 7–8, students must learn that the quality of chords within the key is also consistent. Knowing that 1, 4, and 5 are major, 2, 3, and 6 are minor and 7 is diminished is an essential element to understanding the basics of functional harmony.

It reminds me of the opening lyrics to Bob Marley’s Trenchtown Rock: “One good thing about music: When it hits, you feel no pain.”

We remember pop songs based on the feelings they bring. Sometimes the emotional connections are so intense that specific songs become tied to our favourite moments from childhood, for couples, family vacations, or special occasions. And just as hearing these songs can bring back memories, they can also protect the learning experience so that the lessons never leave the student.

Hearing Numbers

When teaching pop chord progressions, I take the approach of learning by listening. I want my students to think (and hear) in numbers before

21

BRIGHT NOTESthe Vibrant Music Teaching magazine

© Vibrant Music Limited 2020www.vibrantmusicteaching.com

Page 22: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

In our examples above, you’ll notice that both of the Sixteen Forty-Five progressions include the chords C and G. However in the first example – the key of C major – C is 1 while and G is 5. In the second case – the key of G major – C is 4 while G is 1.

When students learn the quality of chords within the key, I like to show them how every major (and minor) triad will appear in precisely three keys. Since the 1, 4, & 5 chords are major, a C major triad will serve as each of those numbers.

As revealed in our progressions above, C is 1 in the key of C major and 4 in the key of G major. If we convert our Sixteen Forty-Five to the key of F major, we discover that C represents the 5.

The four numbers that make up the Sixteen Forty-Five (1 6 4 5) will often show up in a different order.

In the song “Photograph” by Ed Sheeran, the intro and verse both loop a Sixteen Fifty-Four pattern (1 6 5 4), the pre-chorus follows a Sixty-Four Fifteen (6 4 1 5) pattern, and the chorus flips to a Fifteen Sixty-Four (1 5 6 4) pattern.

Magic Math: Turning 3 Chords Into 9

I’ve heard musicians joke that you can play every pop song ever written using just four chords: The 1, 4, 5 and 6 of any given key. While you can indeed play a lot of pop songs with just these four chords, I like to show students a little trick about how they can play even more with only three.

We achieve this by first identifying the primary (major) chords – the 1, 4 and 5 of any given major key. By stacking these three chords over various bass notes, we can create the nine most common chords which make up 90% of the stuff found in 90% of pop music.

For many songs, these nine chords will be everything you need and, by developing a comprehensive understanding of how they work together, it becomes easier to identify when something falls outside this structure.

In the following examples of teaching pop chord progressions, I will convert the numbers as they relate to the key of C major since it’s easy to visualize. We are going to break this system into two parts, starting with the primary chord scale.

The Primary Chord Scale

Before we dig into the theory, let’s hear it! In the right hand, play the chords:

22

BRIGHT NOTESthe Vibrant Music Teaching magazine

© Vibrant Music Limited 2020www.vibrantmusicteaching.com

Page 23: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

Next, play those chords in the right hand over an ascending C major scale in the left hand to create the primary chord scale. Voila! You’ve just played the seven most common chords heard in popular styles of music.

The next step is to practise these chords in groups so students can quickly recall which primary chords go with which bass notes. For this, I have students memorize the sequence #136 – 2457 using telephone number rhythm.

Write it on an index card, leave it on the piano, and tell them all about how when you were a kid, you didn’t have a cell phone and had to remember your best friend’s phone number. It’s important. Do it.

Now, contained within an octave, play those scale degrees as bass notes in the left hand. In the key of C, this will convert to C E A – D F G B. Tack on a C at the end to resolve the movement, just as you would complete an ascending major scale. The first three numbers (1, 3 and 6) go with the 1 chord. The next two (2 and 4) pair with 4 chords, and the last two (5 and 7) with 5 chords. Resolve to the tonic, and this number system converts to:

Now that we’ve got the sound, let us take a moment to compartmentalize these seven chords.

23

BRIGHT NOTESthe Vibrant Music Teaching magazine

© Vibrant Music Limited 2020www.vibrantmusicteaching.com

Page 24: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

...practise these chords in groups so students

can quickly recall which primary chords

go with which bass notes.

24

BRIGHT NOTESthe Vibrant Music Teaching magazine

© Vibrant Music Limited 2020www.vibrantmusicteaching.com

Page 25: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

The Basics

The primary chords – 1, 4 and 5 (or C, F and G) – remain unaltered.

The Minor 7ths

In a basic chord scale, 2 and 6 are already minor triads. 4/2 (F/D) and 1/6 (C/A) are minor sevenths in disguise.

By stacking the primary chords over the secondary roots, we’ve extended the harmony to include the minor seventh (the most common minor variant). A chord chart doesn’t need to permit you to add them. In nearly every context, a minor seventh will not only work but enhance the sound.

In a lettered chord chart, a 4/2 (F/D) will read as Dm7 and 1/6 (C/A) as an Am7. Remember that every diatonic minor seventh chord can build as a primary chord over a secondary root.

Tip: For a neat assignment that’ll get students playing every minor seventh chord, take a look at a circle of fifths and play the major key as a major triad over the relative minor as your left-hand bass note, but I digress…

Slash Chords Substitutions

The 5/7 (G/B) and 1/3 (C/E) are common substitutions. The 5/7 (G/B) replaces the 7 chord (Bdim) nearly 100% of the time. The 1/3 (C/E) is a common substitution for the 3 chord (Em), though it doesn’t happen nearly as often as the trade of 5/7 for 7 does.

Alternate Routes: The Final Two Chords

While the seven chords which make up the primary chord scale represent a high percentage of what you’ll need to cover all your pop needs, two alternate routes need mentioning.

When you hear a 3 (E) in the bass, it is most likely going to pair with a 1 (C) chord. However, if that’s not the correct sound, it will probably come with a 5 (G) chord instead. This 5/3 (Em7) can be added to our collection of minor sevenths from above, since it’s the same math as our 1/6 (Am7) and 4/2 (Dm7).

The final component to this number system is 4/5 (F/G), which is your pop dominant seventh.

Unlike the genres of classical and jazz, the traditional V7 is not so standard in pop music. More often than not, you’ll be working with a clean 5. However, the 4/5 happens often enough that it’s worth mentioning.

25

BRIGHT NOTESthe Vibrant Music Teaching magazine

© Vibrant Music Limited 2020www.vibrantmusicteaching.com

Page 26: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

So that’s it! With just three primary chords stacked over different bass notes, we have packaged the essentials for students to play the songs they know and love. After all, isn’t that what teaching pop chord progressions is all about?

Variants

Variants are mods and extensions to the previously mentioned numbers. Some examples would be a 1(add9), 4(maj7), or a 5(sus4).

Covering all the possible variants is beyond the scope of this post, but what I’d like to mention is that students don’t need to catch all these details at the outset. A 1(add9) is still a 1 chord. A 4(maj7) is still a 4 chord. A 5(sus4) is still a 5 chord.

Even when you’re reading from chord charts with these included details, students can always strip it back to the base number. Yes, you may lose a bit of structural integrity, and some variants add a more defined colour than others, but these concepts should build on a solid foundation and understanding of the essentials.

Alternatively, you can always show a student where to place their hands to create necessary variants without digging too deeply into the theory.

Putting It All Together

Now, let’s get back to the student. The chorus (her favourite part) is about to drop. She’s already forgotten about that chemistry test tomorrow, the essay due next Wednesday, and her track meet on Saturday. She’s in the moment and feeling the music.

Together you identify the key, establish bass motion, write down the numbers, stack the

primaries, add variants (maybe), and convert the numbers to chord symbols for whatever key best fits her voice. You might also transcribe any hooks or significant melody lines and, without launching a theory grenade, briefly discuss anything that falls outside the standard diatonic system.

Before you know it, your student has the basic structure in place and is connecting her voice to the instrument. You’ve delivered a positive and engaging lesson experience that sends her away happier than when she arrived.

While I often recommend this strategy on teaching pop chord progressions as a remedy for teachers wondering what to do with students who don’t practise enough, for me, it’s the principle method I use for ensuring students develop the necessary listening skills that keep them returning to the piano for life.

26

BRIGHT NOTESthe Vibrant Music Teaching magazine

© Vibrant Music Limited 2020www.vibrantmusicteaching.com

Page 27: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

What’s fascinating about this approach of learning by listening is not only how much better your students get at picking out chords and melodies of the songs they know and love, but also how their song choices become more interesting.

Students begin to notice when a song is easy enough to figure out on their own and will start to request material with details and elements they haven’t heard before. It sparks curiosity and enthusiasm – a brilliant testament to the power and goodwill of practising interest-led learning.

The next time your student shows up to class overwhelmed and unprepared, perhaps you can smile and sing the next line of the song: “So hit me with music!”

This guest article was written by Tony Parlapiano. Tony is a piano instructor and the creator of popMATICS, a concept-based music curriculum which approaches learning by listening and reading through writing. Tony resides in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts where he enjoys fancy coffee, plays in spreadsheets, and carries a copy of his birth certificate for anyone who questions the authenticity of his last name.

27

BRIGHT NOTESthe Vibrant Music Teaching magazine

© Vibrant Music Limited 2020www.vibrantmusicteaching.com

Page 28: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

Ask Countess Von ClavierDo you have a question you would like answered? Whether it’s a troublesome teen

student or a sticky business wicket, Countess Von Clavier can help. Just email: [email protected]

Dear Countess,

I was not taught the technique of lifting the wrists at the end of a phrase or end of a piece. (There's got to be a name for this?) I think the movement is graceful and lovely but what are your thoughts on the necessity of playing this way myself, or teaching this kind of movement to my students?

Dear lift-off looker-on,

This is definitely more common than those who were taught this technique might surmise. After all, those who were taught to use this "wrist lift-off" (you ask for a name and this is the best one I can provide) movement were normally taught it within the first few months of study, and yet many of us got all the way through our education without encountering it until we became teachers ourselves.

This often goes hand-in-hand with the familiarity with portato or semi-staccato markings on the score – I find that frequently, though not always, the two concepts are either taught or not taught.

Now, as to its necessity I think we can guess from the fact that many fine pianists have never conceptualised it in this way that it is certainly possible to play well without it. What the wrist lift-off creates is a gradual tapering of the sound as we raise the arm and roll the wrist towards the fallboard. There are certainly other ways to create this gradual ending to a sound, but this way is certainly very effective and I believe useful to teach your students as it helps to avoid ugly bumps at the ends of phrases and create a gentle and graceful portato sound. As with everything in technique, though, there is no gospel so do what works for you and your students.

28

BRIGHT NOTESthe Vibrant Music Teaching magazine

© Vibrant Music Limited 2020www.vibrantmusicteaching.com

Page 29: Table of Contents...Table of Contents 7 Teaching Piano Chords With Powerful Visual Tools These powerful visual tools and tricks will help you teach chords in a way that’s accessible

usicibrant

eachingMVT