A person has to make faces also, when playing because it is like communication: - "You want me to do what in this song", "You're killing me with what you want me to play", all while playing the song, "That was a riff that was hard to do", etc.

Janet

I have a book of old hymns that someone rearranged with cool chord substitutions.

That sounds fascinating.  Is it something currently in print?  I'd love to check it out.
 
A chorus I sang in did a concert of mostly British church music a year or two ago.  Several of the pieces were standard hymns in four part harmony.  But the final verse was sung in unison and a composer (who really knew what he was doing) supplied an alternate organ accompanyment with excitingly different harmonic progressions.  It was *way* cool.  Thus my interest in the book you've described.

Tim, I really do need to learn more songs and then learn the chords and write them down.

What??


While actually picking songs apart by listening and transcribing is a useful and valuable learning experience, you need some songbooks Janet. "Write them down" LOL.. Really?


I don't know if the books I pointed to above interest you but, Keep in mind that the "jazz" fakebook is not really "Jazz". It is popular songs from "the day". Many were and are used by the jazzheads, but, they are mostly just a big part of the foundation of american music. Just Songs. But again I digress. Not sure if you're into that kind of music (I was raised on it). So, what piano players do you like? Billy Joel, Elton, Keith Jarrett? I dunno.. Get their songbooks.


Ok, back to "JAZZ". In my mind there is no such thing as JAZZ anymore. The label has become so homogenized and twisted and bent that it really is sort of a mistaken label anymore (IMO). "Smooth Jazz",, yea right. give me break. I think they mean elevator music. Sorry, a little tangent there.


Anyway, so you want to learn how to PLAY the piano? Get a gig 5 nights a week and spend all day learning new songs for about 6 years. That should get you on the right track.

This is not elevator or muzak music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgw2sbsJNoM Play along, should be simple to do! Elevator music, oh my not! Now go off and do something.

spacealf


This is not elevator or muzak music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgw2sbsJNoM Play along, should be simple to do! Elevator music, oh my not! Now go off and do something.

Ah, that brings back memories. Memories of when I could play my instrument standing up. I listened to a of of these guys in the 80's but eventually gravitated more to guys like Larry Carlton, Al Di Meola and Allan Holdsworth. Call that jazz or whatever, it still sounds good to me.

Rus W.

Not sure what you're getting at. Seems a little deep for Janet's initial inquiry (to me).

But, I think your addressing the age old "reading vs. by ear", or "feeling vs. theory" yada yada argument.
I never was much for those topics because in my mind there is no either/Or. It's all one. And, what you usually end up with at the end of the day is a song/composition. So, yea, Janet "should" learn it all but, I think playing songs is the most enjoyable/easiest/fun way to progress IMO. (and, she can learn to sing while she's at it:)

Oh, just looked again and your not talking about that. LOL. OK..

whatever.

Tim...I can learn to sing, too?  :)  I'm trying, man, I'm trying.  May even be seeing progress.  But don't hold your breath thinking of me and a mic...

I wish this forum didn't misbehave with firefox otherwise I'd just type up every note of every key in order of the Circle of Fifths. Then you could just pick a key and start mashing away at the piano. Over thinking music ruins the fun.

Don't know if you play guitar but if you do, Ted Greene wrote a fantastic couple of books which taught me more about chord voicings and progressions than every other book I ever read combined. They are "Chord Chemistry" and "Modern Chord Progressions." They're quite jazz oriented, but in these books are the raw material to be as creative with chord construction and progression as you could ever wish for. I'm pretty sure you can find them as pdf's online. Ted was such a fantastic teacher and a beautiful player too, in fact screw it here's a video of one of his seminars at GIT:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgTnwxvIW9g

Hey Janet,

Glad I could be of assistance :)

Good luck, and let us know how it goes!

Sam

How is B to E a "hard cut"? It's the strongest resolve possible! 

maybe listen to some weather report?

A person can go wherever that person wants to. The hard part is convincing others that may listen to it, that you are correct with whatever you come up with.

mattplaysguitar


Seeing as we are on the music theory bandwagon here... Can anyone help me work out how to flesh out this transition I'm working on? It's thanks to this thread that I'm starting to experiment a bit more with my chords! But now I'm stuck.

C#m is the key. Sorry for the lack of writing ability, but the I don't think it should matter for the purpose of this exercise... FYI, there are two counts in each | 'chord' | section. So it starts off with 4 counts in total on the C#m chord.. (2 + 2) It goes:

| C#m | C#m | E | E | F#m | E | A | B |
| C#m | C#m | E | E | F#m | E | A | B |

But then I want to transition to this:

| E | F#m | G#m | C#m |

I can do it in 1 count, 2 counts, or 4 counts, whatever, but I just can't work out how to go from that final B into the E so it sounds right... A hard cut from the B into the E doesn't work because the B wants to resolve so strongly but then E is too weak for it to go to. I've tried using the A, G#m, F#m and C#m but none feel like they take me properly to the E (it works in the main section earlier because of what follows, just not here...) So I think I need maybe a combination of two chords to get me there, but I don't know what. I want it to feel musically right, rather than too obscure, so I want it to theoretically make sense, I guess. But I don't understand theory enough to work out how to get there... Can you smart people help me?!?! Oh and this is alternate/pop/rock kind of style so pretty simple chords.. Majors, minors and maybe a 7th if it's needed, but no weird diminished stuff... Nothing too dissonant. Doesn't suit! Haha

Trying to keep this as light as possible!

Since this is a tonic-parallel thing (which is very common in lots of pop song), but let's start with the analysis first.


i ... III-iv-III-i-VI-VII


You've also evoked some secondary dominants (we'll, get to that later)


But now you want your transition. Well, determine if this in fact, if this is a parallel modulation or if this is still part of the main key. As I said this is very common in pop songs. The verses will be in major keys while the choruses are in the relative minor or vice-versa.


Take the song "You Lost Me" by Christina Aguilera. The verses start off in A minor with hints of C major, while the pre-chorus and chorus are definitely in C. The bridge does something different, but connects the other parts.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On7sbkiZ5MY

Verses: Am-Em-F-C-E7 / Am-Em-F-C

Pre-Choruses: C-G-E7-F

Choruses: C-E7-FMaj7-Fm (2x) / C-E7-Am-Fm / F-Fm-C

Then walks down to Am restarting the verse.

Here's the bridge (back to Am)

There's tonicization happening here:

Am-D-Am-D-G-E7-F (i-IV-i-IV-bVII-V-VI) As it relates to C - vi-II(V/V)-vi-II(V/V)-V-III7(V7/vi)-IV

Here it looks like we're in G via the ii-V, but we hit the secondary dominant (E7 - V7/vi) then the IV (F) which leads us to C. And on the E7, the bass plays a G# which you expect to walk up to A, but playing F instead fits due to it being a chord tone (the root of that chord). Therefore, you get nice voice-leading (G-G#-A ...)

Just before we get to the bridge, though it's not in the song, there's a hint of an E7 which is the V7 of the bridge first chord (Am). Actually, with the Fm, what's suggested is an E7b9 (which is still the V of Am)

So, applying this to your song.

Actually, what you did is just fine because given the appropriate scales:

E Major: E-F#-G#-A-B-C#-D#-E
C# minor: C#-D#-E-F#-G#-A-B-C#


| C#m | C#m | E | E | F#m | E | A | B | 
| C#m | C#m | E | E | F#m | E | A | B | 


The B chord: This is pretty strong to both keys as this is also Tonic-Parallel transitioning.

It's pretty obvious that B is the V of E, but it's the vii of C#m. The V and vii scale degrees share the same function. The Dominant function.

Take the song "It's My Life" by Bon Jovi - in Cm (which your song somewhat resembles) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx2u5uUu3DE

Verse:Cm-Ab-G (2x) 

Pre-Chorus: Cm-F

Chorus: Cm-Ab-Eb-Bb / C-Ab-Bb-G (2x)

Now, if I were to substitute a Gm7 and G7 (don't do this yet)

C-Ab-Gm7-G7-Cm, it won't lose the original sonority. Now, let's examine why I did this:

Remember, when I said that the V and vii share the same function? If you were to play both chords, the only difference would be one note absent. (GBD and BDF) What are the two common notes between them? B and D. All dominant seventh chords have the major and diminished scale degrees fused into one chord. The simplest way to say this would be that I just added the minor seventh scale degree to the dominant chord, but I gave you the reasoning behind it.

So, chords that share the dominant function are, the V, viio and V7.

That B chord is the dominant of E (V-I) or the leading tone of C# (vii-I). Both are used in cadences and/or modulations and demodulations. The V is more prevalent than the vii though.

Let's go back to "It's my Life"

There's a three chord cadence: Bb-G-Cm (VII-V-I) or Bb-Bdim-Cm (VII-viio-I)

So, you really don't have to do anything in your song, believe it or not - except denote whether the transition is separate or a part of the main key. If you are going back to C# minor, then E isn't a new key - just a temporary one. If you are going to E and staying there until you change again, then this need to be noted.

It'd be nice if I could actually hear the song to hone in more on what you're going for!

Thanks Rus. Learnt some more good music theory there so that's good! I 'think' it's not wanting to switch down to the key of E and it stays in C#m the whole time. I want it to still have some tension on the E because it then builds up and resolves to the C#m, which I definitely want to have a resolve feel. I thinking maybe it's all about timing here. I'm thinking now it needs a C#m resolve before I drop down to E. Then that keeps it in C#m and keeps E feeling tense. If I cut from B straight to E, it feels more like a key change, which I don't think I want. It's also not a pre chorus or anything, just a succession of chords leading up to the chorus in C#m. I thinking I could maybe cut the time of the B in half and put a quick C#m resolve then drop to the E. So instead of | A A | B B | E E | etc|, it would go | A A | B C#m | E E | etd |. That might do it. I'll experiment tonight. Thanks for the great reply! This parallel tonic thing is really helpful (as basic as it is, you got to start somewhere!).

Sorry for the hijack, but it's all in theory learning and I think still relevent to the topic!