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CHORD PROGRESSIONS 3 PRESENTS

Musicarta KEY CHORDS Volume 1

Sample Lesson Two

Musicarta KEY CHORDS Vol. 1 NOW AVAILABLE only $14.95 This is a sampler page for the new Musicarta home study KEY CHORDS Volume One download, now available at just $14.95. For an overall introduction, click through to the Key Chords home page here. This and the other sampler pages are here to give you an idea of how Key Chords will help you learn to play great riffs with just the four most used chords in popular music. Click through to the other sample pages using the series navbar in the right hand column to decide whether Musicarta Key Chords Volume 1 is the keyboard creativity course for you!

Sample Lesson One showed you how to find and rehearse the closest inversion pairs of chords I and IV in the key of C - the C and F chords. The next module in the home study course does the same with the second pair of chords - I and V (C and G in our easy-C key). 

Using illustrations, music manuscript and audio and MIDI files, you find three closest  inversion  pairs of C and G chords and rehearse them in a simple riff.

The riff rhythm develops, and so does the bass line; the rate at which you swap between inversions increases; you add a broken chord figure - until you're playing this riff:

Tackling syncopation methodically

For most pianists, getting the rhythm is the most difficult about this riff. Fortunately, Musicarta specializes in teaching syncopated hand-patterning!

There are two rhythms in the rif you've just heard. Here's the first one

The first thing we do is figure whether the hands together (T), or just the left hand plays (L) , or just the right hand (R). (Musicarta calls this 'TLR analysis'.)

Then we drop the notes, come away from the keyboard and rehearse the together-left-right 'events', as expressed in a 'beat map':

It doesn't matter if you can't read the music, or if you find ties in music confusing - you just follow the tap-along track.

The other rhythm in the riff you need to get is:

For that, you practice this rhythm:

The hand syncopation in later is more advanced, but in all instances you get a build-up from simple to complicated, with away-from-the-keyboard beat maps and tap-along tracks that really do the trick! (More examples in the nest section.)

The next step: The Afro-jazz riffs

You have now rehearsed closest inversion pairs of chords I and IV (C and F) and I and V (C and G). The next stage is a gentle putting-together of all three chords in an Afro-jazz riff that swings through the home chord every time.

Here's an example of the keyboard illustrations you use to find the chords

You pick five chords by following the snaky line, but to give the mini chord sequence a bit of extra spice, we use a 'slash chord' bass for the middle C chord, playing note G in the left hand instead of the usual root (C):

That's the mini chord sequence in the build-up on the Key Chords home page:

A sample stage in the build-up looks like this:

Each of these stages has its own audio and MIDI files which you loop and slow down (MIDI) until you DO 'get it'!

The beat maps for this build-up look like this (sections are repeated):

Horrendous, you might think! Worse than the original! But the important thing is getting the riff, and the tap-along track makes that easy - with practice! (Note that sections repeat.)

(You can watch this build-up on Musicarta YouTube. This is what YOU will see-and-hear playing the MIDI file on MidiPiano on your desktop - at your own chosen speed.)

With playing off the beat and tied notes, written-out popular music is a real challenge - for classically trained musicians as much as anybody. Musicarta offers an excellent chance to get to grips, so that when your big moment comes, you can count your way through!

This section of the Key Chords workbook contains build-ups for no fewer than eight riffs. Here's a selection.

Why so much on the same theme? Because in the end, you'll have seen,heard and played so many variations that improvising is just a step away. Here's a sample of what might emerge:

All the music, audio and MIDI for these examples is in the download. Take a giant step - buy now!

But wait! There's more...! Click through to Sample Lesson Three to hear more of the riffs you could be playing with just three of the four Volume Key Chords - and see how Musicarta builds your stock of really useful (and only the useful!) music theory - "theory that works!"

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Copyright © R A Chappell/Musicarta 2013. All rights reserved. For private study use only.