“What Child Is This?” For Piano – An Easy 4-Chord Progression

Good morning and Merry Christmas. This is Duane. When you were a kid, did you ever play a chord sequence something like this? “What Child Is This?” For Piano – An Easy 4-Chord Progression. I did that way back when I was a little kid, maybe not in that key, maybe it was something like that, doesn’t matter. But, there is Christmas carol that’s made out of that very same progression that I’d like to cover that today. If you can learn those four chords which are D Minor, C Major, B Flat and A, then you can really play this Christmas carol quite easily. Actually, there is one more chord, there is the F chord, that’s very easy. There is only five chords, D Minor, C Major, B Flat Major and A Major and then F, F is in the bridge.

Okay, now, interestingly, how many major … how many minor chords are there? D Minor, C Major, E Flat Major, A Major and F Major. There is four major chords and one minor chord but guess what, it’s in the minor key, it’s in the key of D Minor, isn’t that strange, but that’s often true. When you are in a minor key, often they’ll be as many major chords or more in that minor key than there are minor chords. But you usually start in a minor key, started in a minor chord and end in a minor chord, okay, or you can end in a major chord and I’ll talk about that later, okay.

But let’s play … let’s take what Child Is This and do it with those four chords, okay? We’ll just pick out the melody. Started on D. D Minor, C Major, B Flat, A, D Minor, now we go up to F Major for the bridge and it looks like we are in the key of … or it looks like we are in the key of F. Now, there you have a choice to actually play in the key of F or you can use B natural, I like that myself, it’s use both ways but. Back to C, B Flat, A. Notice how often the melody just follows whatever the chord is. For example, right there the melody went E, C Sharp, A and that’s a very chord and play. It’s just A Major. And like that we do that to C don’t we. Right now the C chord. A, and then in D Minor, okay.

Now let me expand it just a little bit. I’m going to chord in I think it’s three four. Now, we are going to go up to F Major. And playing in 3rds. B Flat. Notice there on one A, I often use A7, okay, not just A but A7 and I’m playing it in a version of course. Now, let me expand a little more. Notice I ended it in D Major, not D Minor, okay. That’s often a traditional way to end a minor song in a major key, okay. You always have the option you will if ended in minor of course but we kind of like it. I think it freshens it up after you’ve been playing in minor to end it in major, and that’s your choice of course, okay.

Well, there’s just a few ideas and if you’d like an expanded version of this of course and I have a full course on arranging Christmas carols. Thanks for being with me and we’ll see you next time. Bye-bye for now.  For a complete course on playing Spectacularly Beautiful Christmas Carols on your piano for your family and friends this Christmas, click here to read all about it: https://www.playpiano.com/musical-courses/christmas-carols.htm

Here is the video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD86K3yLWpA

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