Chord Turnarounds When The Root Is The Melody Note………
Chord Turnarounds You Can Use In Your Piano Songs
There are a variety of chord turnarounds you can use in your piano songs, depending upon what the melody note is at the end of a musical phrase.
Good morning again. This is Duane, and we’ve been doing a series called ‘Good Stuff You Really Ought To Know About Music’, all having to do with various aspects of music theory, or music theory as related to piano playing. One thing that a piano player has to do is, he has to know how to turn around from one phrase to another. In other words, fill up the empty spaces in a song when the note he knows is held for four or more beats. Sometimes, quite often, it’s four or even eight beats. You have to know what to do. We talked about a turnaround you can use when the fifth is on top, when the fifth note of the scale or the fifth note of the chord is on top. We’ve said you can do this: You play the three chord minor, minor three chord, then the three chord, then sink down to the minor two chord and then the flat two chord. Then hit the one chord. We use an example. If you were playing …. that’s the turnaround. Otherwise it would just sit there. (singing)
See, that’s kind of boring if you just sit there, so it’s good to know some things like that. Then last time we said that when the third’s on top, because you never know where the melody’s going to be, it could be on the fifth, third, could be on the root. It usually is. Ninety-five percent of the time it’s on one of those notes. When the third’s on the top, then you could do this. You could do one, six, two, five, or you could do one, and then go up a half step to the diminished seventh chord, a half step below, I mean above, the root. Then the two minor seventh chord and then the five chord, so it sounds like this. See that? That works.
Now, what if the root’s on top? What if the top note is the root? Could be up here an octave, or there. It doesn’t matter, but what do you do there? You can’t use the … I mean, you can, but it would sound a little strange. You can’t use a … That clashes, unless you do it rapidly. That clashes. The best thing to do, probably, is the one, six, two, five chord but keep the root on top. In other words, C’s on top on the C chord, C’s on top on the A minor chord. That’s the six chord. C’s on top on the D minor seventh chord. That’s the two chord. Then keep C on top when you play the G minor, G seventh chord. Make a suspension out of it, in other words. Don’t play it out, so it’s like this. Then you’re ready to go on. Okay?
There’s three possibilities. When the fifth’s on top, when the third’s on top or when the root’s on top. There’s another possibility when the root’s on top too. You could, if the song will tolerate it, you could do this. Flat six, flat two, and then five. In other words … It kind of depends on what the context, well, it very much depends on the context of the song and what genre you’re playing in. If you’re playing a folk song, that’s a lot different than a jazz tune, obviously. You have to use discretion there, which I know you will.
Thanks for being with me. If you enjoy these little tips, come on over to www.PLayPiano.com and sign up for our series of piano tips. We’ll see you there. Bye-bye for now.
***For lots more good stuff on piano playing come on over to my website at https://www.playpiano.com and sign up for our free piano tips – “Exciting Piano Chords & Sizzling Chord Progressions!”
Here’s a great little book on chords and chord progressions on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Piano-Chords-Chord-Progressions-Exciting-ebook/dp/B0076OUGDE/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404158669&sr=1-1&keywords=piano+chords+duane+shinn
Here is the video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG_cIQOSek0&feature=youtu.be
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