Silent Night – A Peaceful Piano Arrangement Using Creative Chords

Good morning. This is Duane and Merry Christmas to you. Today, I’d like to take a look at Silent Night – A Peaceful Piano Arrangement Using Creative Chords, and I think what we’ll do is we’ll play a very peaceful version of Silent Night. As you know, Silent Night can be played with just three chords; one (piano playing) one, five or five seven, one, four chord, which in the key of F is F of course. It just goes on like that. You could just use three chords, one, four and five, in the key of C, that would be C, F and G. Okay? We are going to expand a little bit and make it a very peaceful arrangement, so here we go. (piano playing)

I’ll walk you through what chords I used. That’s a C with a second [inaudible 00:02:01]. Now, instead of staying on C, I went to F. That’s an F major seventh with a ninth in it or a second in it. (piano playing) Notice I put a lot of white space in there, in other words, after I play it (piano playing) A lot of time, it’s rubato free time. Back to C, actually I think I’ll go to E minor seventh because it is so similar to C. A minor seventh with a ninth in it. Now, instead of G seventh, I went to B flat major seventh. Now, G seventh with a flat ninth. There’s a flat ninth. Now, instead of C, I went to G minor seventh with a [inaudible 00:02:48]. G minor seventh and then C seventh suspension.

Now, right before we go to F, we’re going to slide in by way of F sharp seventh. Actually, it would be play the A flat chord over an open seventh and F sharp with E on the top. Okay? That slides down into F. Parallel thirds here. Notice I went third and then I turned around to third. Now, that chord was A minor seventh, G, B, A, E. This has got a ninth in it and then I just ran it up the keyboard like that and then onto F. That’s G seventh with the seventh on the … I hit a low G and then the seventh on the amount of my voice that records in fours, a stack of fours, the seventh, the third and the sixth and the right hand I’m given the melody and I throw the sixth in there and then I move to the flat, classic, now E minor seventh, A minor.

Now, I could either do D minor seventh or B flat seventh. I think I’ll go D minor. Now, this is E seventh in flat ninth, A minor seventh. Now, this is D seventh with a flat fifth, which will resolve. Now, C over a low G. It’s a C chord, but I’m playing a second in it. See, the second there. Then the seventh and the seventh again and then, G seventh suspended, but I put a flat knife in it. Then, I could end it with C or I could go to A flat as a substitute and come up to B flat and end with C.

Now, let me play it all the way through, now that you know what it’s made of. Here we go. (piano playing) Little echo there. There for the ending, instead of ending on C, I went to a G chord and put G over the polytonal chord. In other words, the G chord over C and what it amounts to really is the major seventh and major ninth of C, but if you don’t like that, just end on C. Something like that. Okay, there is kind of a peaceful Silent Night. So, enjoy. Have at it and have fun doing your own arrangement. Thanks and we’ll see you again tomorrow with another Christmas carol. Bye-bye for now.

Here is the video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phY2Ws_mKRA

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