Re-harmonizing “Amazing Grace” To Make It More Interesting

Good morning. I think everybody in the world knows “Amazing Grace,” not just those in the church, so I’d like to talk about re-harmonizing it. The song is to be played with just three chords as you know. One chord, the four chord and the one chord. Five, one, one, one, five, one, four, one. No matter what key you’re in, you can play with just those three chords: The one chord, the four chord, and the five chord.

If we’re in the key of F, that would sound like that. If we were in the key of E-flat, it would to like this, and so on. I think I’ll play in the key of F so it’ll be a little easier to follow. We’re going to do a little re-harmonizing to make it more interesting. Those three chords are fine but they get a little bit repetitive and a little bit boring, so I’m going to add a few things.

I’m going to start out with the F and two, in other words I’m playing the F chord and the second note of the scale too. Notice I just move my thumb over the second and the third. That’s F seventh, that’s B-flat major seventh, what you do is pass from the seventh to the sixth, that’s F2 again. Now I play minor, that’s G sixth, G seventh with a sixth in it — called a 13th, I guess. And then I move over that 13th to a flat 13th, that’s G minor seventh with the melody of course is C but there’s A, F and D. In other words, it’s like you’re playing a D minor seventh over G minor seventh, and that results in C seventh, and then back to F, B-flat.

After that F chord, we could play the C chord and go right down to D minor seventh and G seventh again, F second, C seventh suspension, resolution, and then F, and then we play a cadence there. Plagal cadence is where the fourth chord, you go from one part of the fourth right back to the one chord and notice I’m using inside movements. My little fingers remain in the same F minor. Inside fingers go from A to B-flat and back to A in the right hand. The left hand is C to D back to C. Notice a plagal cadence or an Amen cadence. Let me play that through once more and then we’ll take it a little further.

Let’s take it a little further out now. That was pretty moderate there so I’m going to do something a little different here, I think. That changes complexion entirely. That’s an A minor seventh, A minor seventh [inaudible 00:04:46] 11th, and then I’m going to step to E-Flat seventh, and then D minor, and then B-flat major seventh, and F. D minor, same, and there instead of resolving from G minor seventh back to C seventh like I did the first time, I’m already on G, right? So I just stepped down half a step to G-Flat seventh. The left hand I use [inaudible 00:05:33] in G-Flat and [inaudible 00:05:37]. The right hand is playing the A-Flat chord over the G-Flat seventh chord. That puts it right back to F so we have a counter-melody that goes…instead of a half note, I need a half-step slide into B-Flat like playing the B chord right before we go into B-Flat. Left hand is voicing B with A above it, right hand [inaudible 00:06:19] it, and then to B-Flat seventh. I’m sliding on B-Flat seventh and then I slid up. When you hit that third, you might go if you feel like it. Let me back up.

At the end we could go a walkdown plagal cadence. In other words, start on the four and go down to the one, then the four, and the one. The whole thing is one, four, one, four or four, one, four, one, but I’m making a counter-melody by left hand playing B-Flat, A, G, F. We could get a lot further out to that but I think I’ll limit it to that this time and see if you can digest some of that. You don’t have to digest all of it but hopefully it’ll give you some ideas, act as an idea starter for you to do your own arranging on “Amazing Grace.”

Wonderful thing about learning to arrange is you’re not limited to one song. You’re not limited to 100 songs or 1,000 songs. If you can arrange “Amazing Grace”, then you can arrange any song using exactly the same principles. So that’s it for today. If you enjoy these little tips, come on over to playpiano.com and sign up for our free piano tips. We’ll see you there. Bye-bye for now.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWwQSuW2z9Y&feature=youtu.be