Lesson video

Hello, my name is Miss Charatan, and welcome to this lesson all about how we can make chord sequences more interesting.

That means that our warm-up is going to be all about how to make things interesting in different ways.

Firstly, start by repeating after me.

I just steadily got more and more tricky.

So I used shorter note values.

Originally I had slightly longer, more basic note values and rhythms. I also used two sounds.

I could have made it more interesting by adding another sound.

So now your challenge is to make my rhythm more interesting.

Obviously, I can't hear you, but I'm going to trust that you're going to do this really really well.

So I'm going to start off with a really basic rhythm and then you can make that more interesting in whatever way you choose.

So for example, you might want to use two different sounds.

You might want to actually change your rhythm.

It's a little bit more interesting.

Let's try a few now.

So I'm going to do some basic rhythms. First one, let's do this one.

I'm going to give you a bit of time to work it out.

Once you're happy, clap it now.

Okay, how about this one? Well done.

Your turn, make it interesting for me, even though I can't hear you.

You could have done something like, so going from this to , maybe even with different body percussion parts.

Who knows? This is a great game to maybe try with your family.

So do introduce them to this warm-up.

Let's get on with the lesson.

In this lesson, you will need a piece of paper, a pencil or a pen, an instrument or app, I like Virtual Piano, that's been really useful for me, as well as a digital audio workstation.

So that is something like GarageBand or BandLab for Education.

If you don't know or don't know what to do about the digital audio workstations, don't worry at the moment.

We can cover that later in the lesson.

Pause the video and go and get the things that you need.

Come back when you're ready.

Lovely.

So today we're going to be recapping our knowledge of inversions and chords, first, followed by exploring extended chords.

We will learn how to change the rhythm of chords, explore accompaniment styles, and then we will organise our ideas into a digital audio workstation.

So everything is about how to make things more interesting and exciting, so an exciting lesson.

Let's begin by recapping our knowledge to support our learning.

So how do we label the three notes in a triad? Choose the correct answer now.

If you said root, third, and fifth, you were correct.

Well done.

Remember Roman numerals is only for chords.

It's not for pitches in a triad.

Let's recap how to number a scale.

So these are the degrees of the C major scale.

So we have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven corresponding with C being one, B being seven.

So what are the numbers of the notes in a C major triad? Say them out loud for me now.

What numbers are they? If you said one, three, and five, you're correct because we play the triad using the play one, miss one, play one, miss one, technique.

Basic chord, the root, the third, and the fifth, as we saw in our previous question.

What is an inversion? Choose the correct answer now.

An inversion is playing the notes of a chord in a different order.

Well done if you got that one correct.

Let's remind ourselves about inversions, then.

So inversions are when we change the order of the pitches in a triad.

So, for example, a normal C major triad in root position has a C at the bottom.

Then in an inversion, it would have an E at the bottom.

That's still a C major triad, and for a G at the bottom.

It's still a C major triad.

Because the three notes are the same, it is the same triad because there's no other triad pattern that has the notes C, E, and G.

So it is the only triad that has C, E, and G, so it's a C major triad.

These are called inversions when we move the notes and the pitches around so they're in a different order.

So look at the pitches in the boxes.

Which of these is an F major triad in inversion? Use the table below to help you.

Pause the video and then resume it when you're ready to check your answer.

So the correct answer was this one here because we can see it is the only triad that has those three notes.

So F major has F, A, and C, and this is the only box that had C, F, and A, F, A, and C in a different order.

Another pause point.

You are now going to create as many inversions of a G major triad as you can.

So that means chopping around the notes in as many different ways as possible.

You can use an app for this, such as Virtual Piano, or you can use a real keyboard if you have one.

Pause the video and resume when you're ready to check your answers.

Great.

Here are my answers.

Although there are three main inversions, one with a G on the bottom, one on a B, and one on a D.

So if you got two extra inversions, those are the main ones.

I'm back.

Let's have a quick recap on whether something is on or off beat.

I'm going to clap something to you now.

Is it on beat or off beat? One, two, three, four, and one, and two, and three, and four, and That was on beat because my claps were at the same time as the numbers, and the number's the strongest part of the beat.

This is off beat because when I clap it, they would not fall on the main beat.

They would fall on the and.

So, for example, one, and two, and three, and four, and And the really easy way to demonstrate this, You've practised this with me before, is do your chest for the main beats, one, two, three, four Put your hand in front of you, and bounce back for the and.

One, and two, and three, and four, and Try that yourself now.

Lovely.

So great quick recapping of inversions and chords.

We're now going to explore how to create extended chords.

We're going to explore extended chords through listening first to a song called Crazy by Gnarls Barkley.

Gnarls Barkley is not a person.

It is an American soul duo made up of CeeLo Green and Dangermouse, and they had this hit single, Crazy, from 2007.

You may have heard it before.

Make sure you get a pen and piece of paper ready because there are three questions for you to answer.

We're going to listen to it and answer these questions about the time signature, chords, and how long each chord lasts.

♪I remember when, I remember, ♪ ♪ I remember when I lost my mind, ♪ ♪ There was something so pleasant about that place, ♪ ♪ Even your emotions have an echo in so much space, ♪ ♪ Mmmmmmm♪ We're going to listen to that again.

If you're not quite sure how to identify how many different chords are used, listen to that bass line because every time that bass line moves, that means we've got a new chord.

Let's listen to it one more time.

♪ I remember when, I remember, ♪ ♪ I remember when I lost my mind ♪ ♪ There was something so pleasant about that place ♪ ♪ Even your emotions have an echo in so much space ♪ ♪ Mmmmmmm ♪ Okay, If you need to listen to this again, you can just rewind the video.

If you've answered those questions, let's move on and check your answers.

Hopefully you've also done that stretch and notated that bass rhythm.

So the time signature was four, four.

Four beats per bar.

One, two, three, four.

That was really evident throughout.

How many different chords are used? So technically there are five different chords, but if you got four, that was a great answer because there were four main chords used.

How long does each chord last? So they mostly last eight bars.

♪ I remember when, I remember, ♪ ♪ I remember when I lost my mind♪ So that's when the chord changes, and that's two bars.

However, at the very end, we'll see later, there are two chords that only last four bars.

Notating the bass rhythm, well done if you did this.

It looks like this.

We've got the duh duh duh duh duh all the way through.

Let's now have a look at the chorus in Crazy in a little bit more detail.

I'm going to play the chords and the first verse of Crazy to you in two ways, the pink way and the blue way.

You're going to find one similarity and one difference about the chords in the two versions.

Don't just look at the screen.

Listen to what I'm playing because that's going to give you more of a clue, and for your stretch, think about what effect does the chord choice have? I'm going to play this in C minor because that's better for my voice, but I've written the chords out in A minor just so it's easy for us to analyse them.

♪ I remember when, I remember, ♪ ♪ I remember when I lost my mind, ♪ ♪ There was something so pleasant about that place ♪ ♪ Even your emotions had an echo in so much space♪ That was the pink way.

Let's have a look at the dark blue.

♪ I remember when, I remember, ♪ ♪ I remember when I lost my mind, ♪ ♪ There was something so pleasant about that place ♪ ♪ Even your emotions have an echo in so much space ♪ You can rewind if you'd like to listen to me again.

I'm now going to play just the chords on their own for you, without me singing so you can really really listen to what's happening there.

So this is the pink box.

And here's the blue box.

I'm just going to hum it very slightly.

So let's now look at the similarities and differences.

So first, the similarities.

You might have noticed that they're basically the same chord sequence.

So we've got A minor, C, F, and E.

A minor, C, F, and the E has been sort of split into two chords, but it's basically the same.

The second version, the blue version is the true version that Gnarls Barkley sing.

Let's now look at the differences then.

So the difference here is that we have two extra chords in the blue section, so we've got C major seven and E sus four.

What are these chords? These chords are extended, so they have extra pitches added to them and the numbers tell us what pitches to add.

We'll go into that in more detail later.

You may notice, if I play a normal C major chord.

it sounds fairly ordinary, sounds like a major chord, but add a seven or here it sounds more jazzy.

E sus four, as well, it sounds nice and jazzy too.

And that goes down to an E.

So these chords add colour and interest to a chord sequence rather than just having a plain C major and E chord.

So let's now look at a C major seven chord.

That seven tells us what note to add.

So we first need to find a C major triad because this is a C major chord.

That is C our root, E our third, and G our fifth.

So C, E, and G.

The seven tells us to add the seventh pitch, which is a B.

So we have C, E, and G, and B.

The B could actually be played, it doesn't have to be at the top, it could be at the bottom depending on the inversion you're using.

So C major seven is one, three, five, and seven, C, E, G, and B.

So using that method, can you work out these major seventh chords? So start off with the one, three, and five.

You'd first need to just find the normal chords, find the F chord, and then find F major seven by adding on the seventh note, which is a hint for you here.

Pause the video, answer these six questions.

This should take you three minutes.

Resume when you're ready.

Lovely.

Let's now check your answers.

So F major, F, A, and C.

For F major seven, we add seven, which is E, so F, A, C, and E.

G major, G, B, D.

For G major, we add the F sharp.

C chord, we said already, C, E, G.

And the C major seven is C, E, G, and B.

So can we work out, then from our seventh chord, what would our sixth chord be? So a sixth chord, we need to add the sixth.

So an F six chord would be F, A, C, which is one, three, five, plus the sixth, which is D.

Sixth chords sound like this.

They also sound a little bit more jazzy and exciting.

You are now going to work out G and G six, C and C six.

Pause the video, take two minutes, and resume when you're ready to check your answers.

Excellent, let's now check.

So G, should have had that already, G, B, and D.

G six, the G, B, D, and E.

Sounds like this.

C, C, E, G, and C six, C, E, G, and A.

Let's now look at sus four chords.

So you may see these if you have ever read a chord sequence of pop music, they're very very popular in some pop songs.

So normally in a chord, we use the root, the third, and the fifth.

They're very very important notes.

However in a sus four chord, we take away the third, so I've got my C chord here.

In my sus chord, I begin to take away the third.

Then I replace it with the fourth.

So a C major sus four chord would sound like this.

And they're often followed by the normal triad, C, E, and G.

Why do we think they are often followed by a normal triad? Take a moment to think about that question.

It helps us feel a bit more at home if we follow it because this four , it doesn't sound very finished.

but now it sounds finished.

So the four wants to finish and go down to the three.

How about you can have an experiment on these sus four chords? Particularly if you are a keyboard player.

So now let's go over our learning.

What is an extended chord? Choose the correct answer out of the boxes.

If you said it is a chord with extra pitches, you are correct, well done.

Which of these is an extended chord? C major, C minor, or C major seven? C major seven is the correct answer.

That's the only one with an added note.

All the other ones have the three, root, third, and fifth.

So we are now going to have a go at adding extended chords to your chord sequence.

So, for example, I'm going to have my simple chord sequence.

So that's C, D minor, A minor, and G.

I've played an inversion.

For my extended chords, I'm actually going to have C six , D minor seven , and then I'm just going to keep the last two the same.

So why do you think I'm not making every single chord an extended chord? And how do you think I decided on my extended chords? So first question, I didn't make every chord and extended chord because you don't need to.

And sometimes simple things are the best things, so actually, you don't need to have every single chord extended, but you could if you wanted to.

How did I decide? So obviously, before I taught this lesson, I had to sit down, had to play the piano, and I found the chords that I liked.

So I experimented with C seven.

I experimented with C six, C sus four, et cetera.

And those are the ones that I came to.

You might want to just start by randomly adding in a seven and a six to two of your chords and seeing what they sound like.

So your task is to create a chord sequence if you haven't done so already.

You might have one from a previous lesson, so just use that one if you like.

And you're now going to add extended chords.

So you can do a sixth chord, a seventh chord, or a sus four chord.

You are going to do this on a free programme called BandLab for Education.

You can use BandLab for Education if you are under 13 years old, but only after seeking permission from your parent or carer.

If you need help setting up BandLab for Education, please speak to your parent or carer or somebody at school.

You could also do this activity on a keyboard, on a real keyboard or on GarageBand or another similar digital audio workstation.

So you should be on BandLab for Education or something similar.

You will need to click on the top folder here, with the little music note to get to My Library.

If you have already done a project with me, it will be good to open that one up.

So I am going to do that now.

If you don't have one, you click on Mix Editor here.

So I'm going to open up my project now.

I click on it, open in Mix Editor.

Okay, so actually here's my work from a previous lesson.

So I'm going to focus on my chord sequence, so my simple chords here.

If you haven't got a chord sequence in, what you need to do is add a track.

Do Instruments, and my instrument's down here, click on Instrument and find your chords on the keyboard.

Make sure the metronome is on.

Click record, and record your chord sequence with four beats on each chord.

So I've already got my chord sequence, so now I'm going to make them into extended chords.

So my first chord is C.

I want to make that one into a C six chord.

So I will need to add an A.

So to add an A, I just need to get my pencil tool, and click where I want it.

So I know this is G because I can see it on the keyboard.

That's going to be G sharp, so this one is going to be A.

And now I'm going to make it longer to match the other chords.

Then my second chord was D seven, D minor seven, and I'm going to add in my sevenths note here.

What I'm going to do, however, I could add it at the top, but if I add it on the top, if I add it on the bottom, sorry, my C can stay in the same place, so I'm actually going to add my seven here.

So now if I play it on its own, I should have my extended chords.

So what I could do, if I have anymore time, and if you're confident on inversions, you can then change the other chords to have a really nice smooth line as well, so for example, I could probably move this note up here so that it doesn't have as far to jump.

You're now going to pause the video to complete this task, adding extended chords to your project.

Make sure you practise instructions very carefully, and then resume the video when you're ready to move on.

This should take you around ten minutes.

Lovely.

There are now three questions for you to reflect on your work with.

Write down the answers to these questions.

Resume the video when you are finished.

So for that final pink question, why did you change or use inversions? Your answer probably should have been something along like to make it smoother, to make it easier to play, et cetera.

So we have explored extended chords, and we're now going to learn how to change the rhythm of chords to make them more interesting.

Let's now look at accompaniment and how we can make accompaniment more interesting.

So accompaniment is the parts underneath the melody.

I'm going to play the chords from Crazy again, Gnarls Barkley that we heard earlier, and I'm going to ask you to tell me how do I make the accompaniment more interesting? So I'm going to play it without it being very interesting.

I'm now going to make the accompaniment more interesting.

How have I done this? So I did that in two ways.

Ignoring what chords actually played, I changed the rhythm.

So I used some syncopated rhythms and dotted rhythms. I also played the root note of the chord in my left hand.

So when I was playing, let's say a C minor chord, I play a C in my left hand, and that really makes the texture, and it makes the music feel thicker and more dense, which is much more pleasurable to listen to.

So the root note is that bottom note of the chord, as you can see here in the purple box.

So we're now going to have a look at making our accompaniment more interesting.

And we're going to look at some of these rhythms to help us.

So firstly, let's clap these rhythms together.

So I'm going to clap first, and you repeat after me.

First one, one and two and three and four and one and two.

Your turn.

If you want to push yourself, just join in with me straightaway, if you can read them.

Let's do the second one.

One, two, three, and four and, one and two and three and four So when we play these on the keyboard, it sounds really good, or the other one, For example, and this tie here, that would glue the notes together.

So if we played it with a tie, let's try that top line again.

How would that sound if we glued the notes together, and we don't play both, we just play the first one.

One and two and three and four and, one and two and three and four and, like that.

Should we try? One and two and three and four So again, a really good exciting rhythm.

Let's look at these two.

They're a bit more simple, but still exciting.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

And let's try that second one, with me.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

So again, accompaniment would sound like this.

Much more exciting and interesting.

Lastly, we've got some syncopated rhythms here.

One and two and three and four and.

One and two That's a dotted rhythm at the top there, and we've got a syncopated rhythm at the bottom.

One and two and three and four and.

One and two and three and four A really good rhythm to choose for that one as well.

Syncopated means emphasising the weaker beats.

So emphasising the and rather than the numbers.

And as I said before, that's a dotted rhythm.

One last thing I'm going to teach you about is harmonic rhythm, which is slightly different to the rhythm that we know.

Harmonic rhythm is about how often the chords change.

Can you remember how long the first three chords were in Gnarls Barkley's Crazy? If you said eight beats, you're completely correct.

Well done.

So we have the first three chords, eight beats long, which were A minor, C major seven, and F.

They're all eight beats.

Then at the end, we have two chords, and they're each four beats long.

So this speeds up the harmonic rhythm and drives this music forward.

So the harmonic rhythm is how often the chords change.

So the harmonic rhythm has sped up at the end because there are more chords, and they're changing more often.

Let's listen to this now, and I want you to think about what effect this has towards the end of that verse.

I'm going to play this again, as I said to you earlier, in a different key, in a C minor, because it fits my voice better.

♪ I remember when, I remember, ♪ ♪ I remember when I lost my mind ♪ ♪ There was something so pleasant about that place ♪ ♪ Even your emotions have an echo in so much space ♪ And that goes into that second verse.

So what is the role of those two chords at the end of that harmonic rhythm? It pushes it forward, and it makes it more exciting.

That's something that you can explore potentially, if you're doing some slightly more advance songwriting.

You are now going to change the rhythm of your chord progression to make it more interesting.

This can be changing the actual rhythm of it or the harmonic rhythm as a stretch.

I'm now going to demonstrate this to you on BandLab for Education.

You can also try this out on GarageBand.

Read these instructions really carefully to complete this task, changing the rhythm of your chord progressions to make it interesting.

Pause the video, take ten minutes, and resume when you're ready.

Lovely.

So here is your checklist.

How did you change your chord progression? What rhythm did you choose? And how else could you vary your chord progression? Think about those questions now.

Okay, how else could you change your chord progression then? Well, you can change the accompaniment and change the way it is played.

Let's look into this in more detail by looking at different accompaniment styles.

I'm going to play you an accompaniment.

How am I making it more interesting? So here is the non-interesting way.

Here's the more interesting way.

So what have I done? I have broken up the notes in the chords.

I'm going to play you an accompaniment in two ways, so just a chord sequence.

How am I making it more interesting? So here's my first way.

And here is my more interesting way.

Try and find two things.

So I changed it in two ways.

I broke up the notes of the chords, and I made a walking bass line.

Well done if you spotted those two things.

So first I played them all in blocks, all at the same time.

So C, E, G at the same time.

C, E, A at the same time.

However, the second time I played it, I broke them up.

So I played them one after another.

Et cetera, and that actually makes it just more interesting and enjoyable to listen to.

I could also have repeated the notes of the chord.

So I can change it by not just having I could do, or So I don't have to have each note once.

to make it more interesting.

I can actually repeat notes over and over again.

For a brief task, you're going to pause the video, and you're going to come up with three ways to break up your chords.

So could you just do it the other way around? Could you do two notes at once? , for example.

You can do this on an app or a keyboard.

Pause the video, take two minutes, and come back when you're ready.

Lovely.

I hope that you broke up your chords successfully and we are hopefully going to be using that a bit later in the lesson.

So let's now have a look at the walking bass line.

So the root note of my chord is the bass line.

So I have C, A, F, G.

I can then add in notes in between the notes to make them join and make them really smooth.

So for example, for C, I'm going to go all the way up to A.

I can add in some notes.

That sounds really nice.

Or I could do , for example.

I could do it more slowly.

, as well.

How would I get to the F? If you put a G in there, you are correct.

So it doesn't matter that these notes are not part of chords because we're just kind of travelling through.

How could I make the rest? Finish off my bass line for me.

Take two minutes and see what can you do about the F to the G, and how can you get from the G to the C? Pause the video now.

Resume when you're ready.

Lovely.

So F to the G, you don't really need to do anything because it's just there.

You can maybe add a note on top.

And then to get to C, you could just go F, E, D, C would be a really nice way to finish off your walking bass.

So we're now going to have a look back again at our accompaniment on our digital audio workstation.

So you're going to make one change to your accompaniment style.

You can duplicate a chord track, and then you're going to be adding and removing notes and moving them around, this time, not just up and down, or all together, you can now spread them out a bit more.

I am going to show you what I mean now on a digital audio workstation.

So I first need to duplicate my tracks.

So I am going to duplicate this one here.

Actually I will just duplicate my normal ones.

Here we go.

So I need to do a bit of organising of this later.

So I'm going to double-click into it.

And I've got my pitches here.

So I'm going to do very similarly what I did before.

I'm shortening them, and now I'm going to move them so that it can all happen at different times.

So if we listen to this, So I've actually accidentally changed a note by mistake, so be careful.

That should be here.

So I could do that, fairly simple.

I could otherwise, let's move this all back.

I could otherwise add duplicate notes with my pencil tool like this.

I don't have to just do it in order.

I can actually come back down at the end.

This is still the notes of the chord, isn't it? Move this one back.

So it's moved out of the way, so it's about out of time.

There we go, that's better.

So I could do something like this.

So how about you experiment around with one set of chords and how you can change the accompaniment style so we don't just have block chords all of the time.

Pause the video to complete this task and resume when you're ready.

This should take you about ten minutes.

Lovely, well done.

It's now time to learn how to organise these a bit more in a digital audio workstation.

So we're now going to look at the structure of a typical song.

Where would you put a more interesting rhythm in the song? Where would you use extended chords? Or where would you have more parts? These are all decisions that composers and song-writers make when they are writing their music.

Let's now listen to Crazy, verse one and Crazy, the chorus.

What is different about the accompaniment between the two? ♪ I remember when, I remember, ♪ ♪ I remember when I lost my mind ♪ ♪ There was something so pleasant about that place ♪ ♪ Even your emotions have an echo in so much space ♪ ♪ Mmmmmm♪ So that was the verse.

What about the chorus? ♪ Does that make me crazy? ♪ ♪ Does that make me crazy? ♪ ♪ Does that make me crazy? ♪ So we might have noticed that a lot is actually the same.

So we have the same bass rhythm throughout, but in the chorus, there were way more parts added, and they were way more complex parts and complex rhythms added.

So the chorus, generally, is a bit more exciting and has a bit more going on.

So if you haven't already, now is your chance to divide your work into sections, so an intro, verse, and chorus, but you may have done this with me already.

So now you're going to move your accompaniment patterns around to fit each section.

For example, you might want to have your exciting accompaniment in the chorus and a simple one in the verse.

I'm not going to demonstrate this to you on BandLab because we're not going to have time on the video, but you should be able to just move them around and decide where you want them to go.

Pause the video and resume when you're ready.

Well done.

Please read through these three questions now to reflect on your work.

Great.

You have done some fantastic work today, and it's really important that you show this off to somebody.

So you can show this to somebody at home and maybe play or sing along with your track.

You could send it to somebody else, friend or family, or you could even share it with your school.

Pause the video and do those things now.

And now, let's return to our key question.

How can we add interest to a chord sequence? Pause the video, choose the correct sentences, and resume when you're ready.

So let's now get rid of the wrong sentences.

So the first one, you create a seventh chord by creating a sixth, that is not true.

We do not create extended chords by stretching the chords.

We create them by adding pitches.

Making something faster does not make it more interesting.

And all the other ones are correct.

So all these things, you can do to make a chord sequence more interesting.

Great work today.

Don't forget to go on and complete the quiz to show off what you have learnt, and see you next time.

Bye.