Automatic Control of Chords

Learn How To Practice for a Three-Way (Automatic) Control of Chords
Correct practice is indispensable!


Your success or failure at the keyboard may well hinge on how quickly and accurately you can memorize a new chord. To be really efficient at this you must use your eyes, your ears, and the muscles of your hands. You must learn a chord so that you can recognize and play that chord the next day without hesitation. Let me explain how to practice to gain this three-way control.

VISUAL CONTROL - After playing a chord, take your hands off the keyboard. Then return to the chord remembering visually where the fingers were positioned. Notice particularly the pattern that was formed by the black and white keys and the location of the melody and root notes. (No two chords look exactly alike.) Repeat this procedure at least four or five times to learn a chord visually. And, as you are playing the chord, say its name OUT LOUD. You must associate the name of the chord with the actual notes you are playing, if the chord symbol is to have any real meaning later on.

TACTILE CONTROL - As you are playing the chord, try to feel it muscularly. Play each note of the chord, one note at a time, so that you use the muscles of the hand. You will develop a muscular memory for chords.

AURAL CONTROL - Listen to the chord. You'll want to know its sound so you can
instantly recognize and use it later on ... "by ear"!

How to Construct Basic Chords and Create Melodies on the Piano

The easiest way to start learning how to build chords is to practice their constructions in the key of C Major. You're just playing all white keys.

All you have to do is play every other white key to create a 3-note chord. A 3-note chord is called a triad. A 4-note chord is called a 7th chord. And a 5-note chord is called a 9th chord.

Now you have the option of playing your chords in one hand or you may use both hands! It depends upon the sound you want to produce.

How to Improvise Melodies

There's something irresistible about a real melody. If you can convince the listener that they're hearing a melody when you improvise, they will stay riveted to every note.

Well, you can - and it's not really that difficult. The one element that is common to almost all good melodies is: repetition.

Repetition. Repetition and more repetition. I'm referring specifically to the repetition of ideas (motifs, as they are often called). Sometimes the idea is repeated exactly as it occurred the first time, as in the Holiday tune "Jingle Bells."

More often, the motif occurs higher or lower than it did originally. The notes are different but the rhythm and the shape of the line remain intact, as in "Happy Birthday." This type of repetition can be defined as "pitch-shifting."

What I'm describing here is a process often called motific development: the spinning out of ideas through the use of repetition, pitch-shifting, and extension.
So that's it... if you want your improvisations or solos to sound like a melody, you need to use a lot of repetition.

Ironically many musicians avoid using repetition for fear of sounding repetitious, i.e., boring. You bore a listener if you try to elicit the same emotional reaction from him/her two or three times in a row, but that's not what you're doing when you repeat an idea.

When you first introduce an idea, it's new. The listener waits with open anticipation to hear how the idea spins itself out. But when you repeat the idea, their reaction is very different. Now they can gain a certain sense of control, by connecting what they're hearing to what went before.

Just listen to some of your favorite songs, and you will definitely hear repetition!
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Repetition is the Key To Learning Something Deeply

Repetition is the key to learning something deeply. It works most effectively when you are isolating a small amount of material, because the object of your focus will be more specific.

When you have the correct chord movement for part of an exercise or tune under you hands, repeat it continuously until is flows. You should notice a gradual increase in your comfort level as you continue repetitions, eventually remove your eyes from both the music and the keys, and keep repeating until the movements seem easy. This activity is especially important for problem spots in harmonic exercise or tunes.

Try to have your hands in position, actually touching the notes before you strike a chord. This will reinforce your "hand memory" of the chord's shape. When you are ready to play the chord, lift your hands an inch or two and drop the full weight of your hands on the keys, going to the bottom of the key bed.

At first, you probably will miss some notes, and that is OK; simply make the necessary corrections and continue with more repetitions, keeping that feeling of dropping. This will achieve a fuller sound, and your hands will learn the shape of the chords much more quickly and securely.

Recite the chord roots as you play an exercise or drill chords as characterized in my Beginner Piano "Tricks of the Trade" Midi Ebook and other "Mini" lessons. This will keep you aware of what you are playing, especially when you work with rootless voicings. As you repeat a progression over and over, make a conscious note of the chord structure (i.e. root-7-3-5) which you are manipulating. This will reinforce your understanding and hearing of the harmony.

Whenever your hands need to leave the keys to start at a new location (i.e. practicing an individual voicing or ii-V7-I progression around the key circle), release the chord immediately, rather than sustaining it. This will give you extra time (metronome clicks/drum sounds) to reset your hands for the new key.

Happy Keyboarding,

Mr. Ron

The Eulogy of Duke Ellington, 5/27/74

Part I

It is hard to do justice in words to a beloved friend, especially when the friend was a genius of the rarest kind.

So, first, the basic facts of his temporal existence: Edward Kennedy Ellington "Duke" Ellington, born in Washington, DC, 1899, died in New York, 1974.

Now some might claim him as a citizen of one or the other of those cities, but he was not. In the truest sense of the phrase, he was a citizen of the world. That is a cliche perhaps, but how few are those who deserve it as he did. He was loved throughout the whole world, at all levels of society, by Frenchmen and Germans, by English and Irish, by Arabs and Jews, by Indians and Pakistanis, by atheist and devout Catholics, and by communists and fascists alike.

So, no, not even this city in which, as he said, he paid rent and had his mailbox - not even New York can claim him exclusively for its own.

Of all the cities he conquered - more than Napoleon, and by much better methods - I remember particularly Buenos Aires when he went there the first time. He had played his fincal concert and sat in the car outside the theatre before going to the airport. People clutched at him through the opened windows, people who were crying, who thrust gifts on him, gifts on which they hadn't even written their names. It was one of the few times I saw him moved to tears.

As a musician, he hated categories. He didn't want to be restricted, and although he mistrusted the word "jazz," his definition of it was "freedom of expression." If he wished to write an opera, or music for a ballet, or for the symphony, or for a Broadway musical, or for a movie, he didn't want to feel confined to the idiom in which he was the unchallenged, acknowledged master.

As with musical categories, so with people categories. Categories of class, race, color, creed and money were obnoxious to him. He made his subtle, telling contributions to the civil rights struggle in musical statements - in Jump For Joy in 1941, in the Deep South Suite in 1946, and in My People in 1963. Long before black was officially beautiful - in 1928, to be precise - he had written Black Beauty and dedicated it to a great artist, Florence Mills. And with Black, Brown and Beige in 1943, he proudly delineated the black contribution to American history.

His scope constantly widened, and right up to the end he remained a creative force, his imagination stimulated by experience. There was much more he had to write, and would undoubtedly have written, but a miraculous aspect of his work is not merely the quality, but the quantity of it. Music was indeed his mistress. He wroked hard, did not spare himself, and virtuatlly died in harness. Only last fall, he set out on one of the most exhausting tours of his career. He premiered his third sacred concert in Westminster Abbey for the United Nations, did one-nighters in all the European capitals, went to Abyssinia and Zambia for the State Department, and returned to London for a command performance before Queen Elizabeth. When people asked if he would ever retire, he used to reply scornfully, "Retire to what?"

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The Role of the 21st Century Keyboard Artist

Traditionally, keyboard players have played two different roles in the making of Jazz - first, as members of a rhythm section which usually includes bass, drums and possibly guitar, and second, as solo performers.

The history of Jazz is replete with performances in both areas. In recent years with advances in electronic keyboard development and decreases in music performance and recording budgets, the keyboardist is more and more required to play multiple roles.

All aspects of modern music are now required of the keyboardist - percussion, bass, horn parts, etc., in additon to the traditional accompanying and solo roles.

For years, organists have developed and played the role of bassists, as well as keyboardists. Pianists have done this less so, since traditionally they have played an acoustic instrument. Electronic keyboards have now made the dual role of pianist and bassist more prevalent.

Playing bass parts on the keyboard differs from traditional keyboard playing because the left hand must separate itself from the melody and chords that are typically played.

In medium to fast tempos the left hand can only play the bass part and is not free to play otherwise. The keyboardist, in these situations, must think in two separate parts - bass and keyboard. This is different from typical playing where the left and right hands are more or less integrated into a functional whole. Thus, playing left hand bass while playing chords and/or melodies in the right hand presents some problems to the average keyboardist. In essence, he or she must play two different instrumental roles at the same time.

My Online Program attempts to present some solutions to the problem of playing left hand bass lines and right hand chords at the same time.

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