The Relationship Between Polytonality and Polychords

In our video today I am going to demonstrate how Polytonality and Polychords relate to one another.

Click on this link to watch this video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gKuS3LXTtE&feature=youtu.be

Good morning. This is Duane. We’ve been doing a series called Good Stuff You Really Ought To Know About Music! One thing you ought to know about music is the difference between polytonality and a polychord. They’re related, but they’re different.

Polytonality refers to two tonal centers being used at the same time. A lot of contemporary, serious composers, classical composers, use two tonal centers called polytonality.

A polychord is different. A polychord is two cords put together. If I’m playing … I’ll give you an example. I’m playing G 7th here, and over that I go, that’s the E flat chord over G 7th. You get a different sound entirely. I’m playing G 7th and I use a D flat chord. That’s a polychord. It’s a D 7th in the left hand and B flat in the right hand. And here is A flat in the right hand. Those are really useful, those kind of chords, because they make your playing more interesting. A polychord is two chords played at the same time.

Polytonal means there’s two tonal centers, like I’m playing in two keys at once. Let me give you a crude example. Let’s say, playing Silent Night. If I play Silent Night in the key of D in the right hand and kept the key of C in the left hand, or I played an E flat, or let’s say I played it in G. Say I’m playing the key of G in the right hand and the key of C in the left hand. When you have two tonal centers that’s called polytonality. When you have two chords played at the same time, that’s a polychord. Like I say, related but different.

That’s it for today. If you enjoyed this kind of thing about music theory, come on over to PlayPiano.com. Sign up for our entire series. You can learn a lot over the course of time. I hope to 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

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