Easy-play piano chords

Theoretical chord construction

Have you discovered this interesting little chord sequence? For a pianist, I suspect it is most likely to be hit upon in this key, but I would be keen to discover if anyone happens to prefer it transposed to some other pitch (for ease-of-playing or some other reason). Here, besides the white notes, we need only Bb, Ab and C#.

It’s not too far from this sequence to songs such as Abba’s Money Money Money Money and Madness’ House of Fun as we shall see later in this series and, for those who care for such things, it fits in quite nicely with the D harmonic minor scale.

D minor harmonic scale

It’s not too difficult to play, has a mix of sharps and flats (which may seem innovative to a novice player) and the Bb9 A9 change introduces a simple chromatic descend (by which I mean that every note in the Bb9 chord is transposed down exactly one semitone to arrive at the A9 chord).

Here, though, I intend to utilise this not-too-simple-but-not-too-hard sequence to demonstrate that a little knowledge can be made to go a long way. This one sequence (like just about any 3- or 4-chord sequence) can be used in an almost infinite variety of ways. The theme here is on “making the most of a simple chord sequence”. The aim is to make rhythmic and stylistic variations in our playing or to utilise the chords of the sequence in a different manner or order.

Rhythmically, we could use all crotchets or all quavers (if we wish to keep things simple), we could introduce a swing rhythm, couplets of dotted quavers and semi-quavers, triplets or even a mixture of these ideas. Additionally we can move away from 4/4 time and consider other time signatures.

In terms of style, we could play lefthand bass notes entirely synchronised with three- or four-note righthand chords or we could syncopate the left and right hands (either entirely or partially). We could also make good use of arpeggiation and use notes other than the root of the chord in the left hand.

In terms of chord sequencing, as the sequence is only 3 chords, we might naturally tend to play the Dm7 and the Bb9 for one measure each, followed by the A9 for two measures (giving us a round 4 measures in total).

We could, however, play the Dm7 for two measures followed by the Bb9 and A9 for one measure each.

Even maintaining the order of the sequence, we have a variety of other options to make a round 4 (or 8 or 12) measures, but there are still other tricks that we can employ, many of which will be covered in this series of Dm7 B9 A9 variations.

Incidentally, don’t worry if you aren’t sure what a 7th (Dm7 here) is or a what a 9th chord (Bb9 and A9 here) is. To begin with you could just play a D minor triad, Bb triad and A triad – you’ll just notice that I’m adding some extra notes to these chords. Alternatively, you may want to learn about chord names and their meanings (they’re not really all that difficult if you take them slowly and learn simple triads and chord inversions before you try to understand the harder ones).

Included above were only anaemic versions of this sequence, lacking in rhythm or style. Most chord sequences are not discovered in such a dull form. I imagine I first discovered this sequence playing something like this:

Note that there are 4 beats to the bar here, each beat being a dotted crotchet. I’m not sure what the time signature would be. Anybody know?

Now, each time I doodle around this sequence, it is a new experience. Quite how I play it depends upon what kind of music I’ve played or listened to recently, what kind of mood I’m in and how well I’m hitting the notes I intend to. Sometimes, some of the best (or most interesting) variations on a theme come about by accident. I discover a surprising number of new rhythmic ideas, for instance, due to errors in producing the piano score on my computer. Some errors just happen to sound better than my original intentions and other errors, whilst not too great in themselves do lead to some wonderful ideas which can be put in to practice with a little effort.

If you have any thoughts on this chord sequence, on other interesting chord sequences, or any questions or ideas stimulated by this article, please do share them and I’ll do my best to give a helpful response.

In particular, if you are better at music theory than me and can tell me what the time signature really should be for that last snippet, please do let me know. I wanted to make the rhythm clear to players not necessarily familiar with playing in swing time, so I have attempted to write it rhythmically accurately instead of just directing the player to play “with swing”.

I’d been trying to create some funk riffs and motifs on the piano, but I hadn’t got around to creating anything overwhelming when I came across Jonathon Wilson’s “How to Play a Funk Groove: Piano Lessons” free online video tutorial.

To get a quick taste of just how good this video series is, take a look at the clip where Jonathon expertly demonstrates all the skills he teaches in the series. Even if piano isn’t your thing, I think you’ll be suitably impressed.

I hope to incorporate all these techniques into my own playing within the next month or so. Many of the ideas – both in the bass and the right hand – are very bluesy. The most substantial difference is in the rhythm and interplay between the hands – and I suspect this will be the main challenge in assimilating the funk style.

It is one thing to copy a few funk grooves and another entirely to develop a personal approach. I intend to create some funk grooves of my own, but I think I’ll need to do a serious amount of listening to funk music first!