Key Signatures

When you first look at sheet music (the page with all the confusing lines and dots), what do you automatically look at? For every musician, when they first see sheet music and they want to play it they should automatically look at the key signature. This is how music gets organized, according to a specific scale (Carter 83). The key signature “takes the form most often of a note followed by the word ‘major’ or ‘minor’” (Carter 83). This means that when there is a chord, let’s use C for example, it would be followed by either “major” or “minor” to tell you what notes are included. C major is arguably the most used and simplest scale there is since there are no sharps or flats (which is why I am using it for all of my examples). When the key signature is known, playing along with the music or improvising is made a lot easier. I use this a lot when I play keyboard for my church band (side note: our favorite chord is Gsus, can you guess why?) Since I am the leader, I find the chords played with the song, determine the key signature, and then tell that to the rest of my team. My team and I find it very useful since we improvise what we play and we do not have sheet music to tell us what to play and when. A lot of the time during piano, I use the key signature to tell me what notes I can play with each chord so that the sound is still pleasant while not being the same exact chords throughout the song. When I know the key signature, I can make up the notes as I play. In the case of a C major key signature, I know that I can play a G chord and it still fits into the signature, but playing an A# minor would sound terrible. This is very useful for keyboard as well as other musical abilities such as writing music. The whole reason that it is not wise to mix key signatures is because certain chords have different sharps and flats in them. With a C chord, there are no sharps or flats but with a chord like E, there is a G# in it. Playing these two chords together would make the sound very messy and harsh to listen to.

https://youtu.be/4uWFxGQ3fvY

This is Sad Song by We The Kings (sorry about the metronome, my timing was really off during the song). The chords used in this video are F#, C#, G#, and A#. These are all in the same key signature, but for learning purposes, I won’t tell you what the actual key signature is. All I know is the chords of the song and then I listened to the song and improvised to find the notes that sound somewhat like the actual song.

Do you think it would be easier playing without music when you have the key signature, or just the chords of the song? Would it be possible to figure out the key signature using the chords? If so, what do you think is the key signature of the song?

Also, I am going to be uploading a duet that my best friend and I did together. You can see all the different components that I explained in my previous posts applied into real music.

Carter, Nicolas. Keys and Key Signatures Explained. Music Theory From Absolute Beginner to Expert. N.p.: Nicolas Carter, 2016. 83-84. Print.

Building Chords

Building chords is rather simple once you understand what a chord is and how it fits in with the corresponding scale (refer to other posts). To build a chord you take the root note of the scale, then for each new note you use take the next third (Carter 91). For example, the C scale: the root is C, the third is E, then G, then B. Make sure that when building a chord, not all the notes of the scale is used. This is necessary because some notes in the scale do not fit with the rest when played together. For example, A, B, and C do not sound pleasant together even though they are all part of the C scale. “note that in practice, not all chords are played, or voices, with all of these notes being included – so that it is possible to play a seventh chord by playing only a root, a third and a seventh” (Carter 91). When playing a C scale, you can skip the third note (which is the fifth step) and it would still sound like the scale.

https://youtu.be/2cSu0TTtTUI

In this video, I played a typical C scale. As mentioned above, you can play a chord without the fifth step in it (so the notes for a C scale would be C, E, and B and the chord still sounds clean). You could also do this with other steps of the chord such as playing C, E, G, and D. When you delete the seventh step in a scale, it is labelled as an add9 (so the C chord would be called Cadd9).

If A, B, and C are all notes in the C scale, why are they not able to be played together?

Carter, Nicolas. How Chords are Built. Music Theory From Absolute Beginner to Expert. N.p.: Nicolas Carter, 2016. 91-92. Print.

Intro to Chords

Before we get into the structure and complexity of a chord, first we must know: what is a chord? A chord is defined as “a music unit consisting of more than one note being played at the same time” (Carter 89). That doesn’t sound that bad right? That’s because it’s not! Chords are simple in nature once you understand how chords fit into scales. Going back to my previous post, chords are made of notes taken from certain scales and are really related. In one way they are related because both are made using certain spaces called intervals (Carter 90). A major 7^th, for example, is the root note, M3, P5, and M7. For the C scale, that would be C, E, G, and B. Most songs use fairly simple chords such as C, Em, G, and A. There are some cases, though, that use more complex chords (mostly with jazz music) such as a major 13^th flat 9 chord.

Even When It Hurts by Hillsong (only using the instrumental)

In the beginning, I’m only using the chords of the song, but then after going through the chords once, I demonstrated how to take chords to a more complex level. I found a pattern to use and repeated with each of the chords. The chord and the notes within the chord is what I based the pattern on.

https://youtu.be/e_JDNtRYlAo

What is more important to being a well-rounded musician: chords or scales?

Carter, Nicolas. Master the Chords. Music Theory From Absolute Beginner to Expert. N.p.: Nicolas Carter, 2016. 89-90. Print.

Scales


Scales, while all being with different notes and different tones, all have the same basic structure. The starting note, or what is called the root note, is almost always the lowest note you play in the scale. This is also the name of the scale. For example, if the root note (the lowest note) is a C, then the scale is a C scale (Carter 82). Every note in a scale has a specific name. I will be using a C scale for all of my examples because it is simple. The root note is a C, the note after is called a major 2nd (D), then major 3rd (E), perfect 4th (F), perfect 5th (G), major 6th (A), and then the last note is the major 7th (B). Musicians also measure the distance of pitch between the notes. These can be marked as whole or half notes but more commonly, tone and semitone. "The root note is the first thing that the name of a chord lists" (Carter 82). In the past quote and paraphrase, I used both scale and chord. Scales and chords are very connected, as I will demonstrate in later postings. Going off of my example with the C scale, if I play a C chord, the notes I use for the chord are the same notes that are in the scale. A typical C chord consists of C, E, and G, which are all in the C scale (explained better later).


This video demonstrates the C scale throughout three different octaves. It shows how each octave of the scale can be built off of the previous one. (P.S. it's supposed to be "scales" not "chords" I'm just really bad with technology and don't know how to fix it).

https://youtu.be/LIuWyq-usq0

Do you think learning scales is imperative to having a good foundation for music?


Carter, Nicolas. Root Notes Explained. Music Theory From Absolute Beginner to Expert. N.p.: Nicolas Carter, 2016. 82. Print.

Piano In The Key of F(ern) pt.2

Why was the piano player arrested?

Because he got into treble

   I hope everyone is having an amazing break, and is eating lots of good food! Over the break I have had lots of time to learn some holiday songs on piano, catch up on homework, and learn stuff for a voice competition I am doing in January.

 

   Today to try and stay in the holiday spirit, I decided to learn how to play Silent Night. To perfect this song, I also needed to read more on time signatures and rhythm in general since this song is not in the basic 4/4 time.

   If you think about it rhythm plays a big part in our everyday life. Each step, each intake of breath, and even the cycle of sleeping and waking is rhythmic. Our life can depend on the rhythm of our heart, and music depends on rhythm in a similar way. Different notes like half notes and quarter notes have different amounts of beats tied to them. Time signatures are then used to structure beats into uniform measures. The book Easy Adult Piano: Beginners Course explains how to read these signatures, "the upper number (in this case, 3) always tells how many beats occur in each measure. The lower number,4, tells you the quarter note receives one beat" (Leonard 11). The bottom and top numbers aren't always 3 or 4 they can be 5/8 3/16 or practically anything you can think of and they all feel different when they are played in a song.

   I tried to upload a video of me singing and playing the song, but for whatever reason, blogger doesn't want me to do that. So here is a screen clip from the video.

   When I started learning the song I was confused on what the key was because I didn't see anything indicating what key it was in. So I flipped through the book to try and figure that out, and it told me that if it is not indicated otherwise then the key is always C. While learning the song I had trouble with the fingerings once again, but the book again helped me.

   Do you agree with the statement "Our life can depend on the rhythm of our heart, and music depends on rhythm in a similar way." Why or why not?

Easy Adult Piano. N.p.: Hal Leonard, n.d. Print.

   

 





Piano in the Key of F(ern) - Row, Row, Row Your Boat

    What do you get when you drop a piano on an army base?

A Flat Major

    I've always wanted to learn how to play piano better because I know it will help me with my singing, but I've never really attempted to learn the basics. So, I decided to take this opportunity to further my piano playing skills, and hopefully become better at sight reading not only for piano but also for vocal purposes. I know quite a bit about music in general, I can look at a piece of music and decipher notes, and I can generally show you were they are on a piano. I know my solfeggio's and I can play a few songs on the piano. The purpose of this blog though is to further understand music theory and become more confident in my abilities.

    I decided to learn how to play "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" This song would most definitely be considered a beginner's song, but for the purpose of this blog I chose to start with the very basics.

    The first thing I knew I needed to learn about was playing a chord accompaniment/ chord accompaniments. A chord is a combination of three or more keys played at the same time. This song only uses the C chord. And the picture below shows where to play it on the keyboard.

    Today's popular sheet music and books also show "chord symbols" above the melody. This letter is a form of short hand that indicates what to play. "Most musicians look at just chord symbols and, from experience, know which notes to play" (Leonard 13).

    While I was learning the song, I discovered how much easier it was to play chords, "by putting my pointer on G, middle finger on E, and thumb on C" (Leonard 14). Once I did it with the fingerings the book said to use I found the chord sounded much better. 

    I also discovered that if I learned to play the melody and the chords separately it was much easier to put them together in the end.

    In the end, I learned a lot more than I was expecting to. This book definitely helped me understand the basics and with this foundation it will be easier to build on my own skills. And hopefully by the next blog I will be able to learn a much more difficult song, and in the meantime I will work on perfecting the techniques I learned today.

Do you think that even if you know how to plunk notes on a piano, you should learn the basics before continuing forwards? Explain. 

Easy Adult Piano. N.p.: Hal Leonard, n.d. Print.