How Chords Relate To Melodies (The Tune of a Song)

Good morning. This is Duane, and I’d like to talk today about the way chords relate to the tune of a song. You know that in every song there’s a chord structure; a chord progression that moves from one chord to another to another and so on. They’re usually in repetitive fashion, but they’re always chord progressions of some sort. The melodies, the tunes that are created, wrap themselves around or through the chords. Let me just give you an illustration. You know this a C chord. I’m going to play that … okay. A little song; something about row the boat ashore. Notice it goes right through the C chord, doesn’t it? The C chords in force, so it just climbs through the chord, doesn’t it? I call it climbing through chords. Out of the first one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine; out of the first nine notes, they’re all members of the C chords except that one.

Okay, so melodies do wind themselves through chords. Let me give you another example. Maybe this is a better example. Here’s that Rainy Day, this song. And so on. I want you to look at the first part. That’s the F chord, then it changes to A flat. Now, watch this. Those are the three notes of the A flat chord. The A flat chord is A flat, C, and E flat, and it just goes up; C, E flat, A flat, C. Nothing can be simpler once you understand the structure. You see, by knowing that melodies do that, you can watch out for things like that, and it makes learning music a whole lot easier. It makes reading music a whole lot easier. In other words, if you can look at a piece of sheet music and see the structure of notes breaking up a chord, you say, “Oh, okay. That makes sense now.” Let me do it again. Here’s the F chord. Then, it goes to the A flat chord; A flat seventh actually. Right up the A flat chord. That’s D flat.

The next note is C. That’s G minor seventh suspended, but watch this. That’s the C seventh chord now. It goes right up the notes of the C seventh chord. You see that? By the way, if melodies are not going through chords, not breaking up chords, they’re going through scales. In fact, that’s the only possibility. Just understand that. Melodies are made out of scale fragments and chord. That’s all there could be. It’s got to be some sort of scale no matter what the chord does. I’ll go back to the first example. See now, I’m not only playing a melody, but I’m playing the whole chord, because why not? I can play into the melody. Okay, so just remember that melodies are made out of broken chords and scales. There’s really no other possibility. That’s it for today. If you enjoy these kind of musical tips, come on over to playpiano.com and sign up for my free educational newsletter.

You’ll get tips like this most every day about a wide variety of things; mostly about chords, but sometimes a lot of other stuff too related to music theory. Music theory, by the way, is just a fancy word for understanding what you’re doing. Okay, understand what you’re playing. The more you can understand about what you’re playing, the better off you are. Thanks again, and we’ll see you next time. Bye-bye for now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfCg8CLA9ok

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/melody
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