Chords
Definition
A chord is 3 or more notes played together. Sometimes if the notes are not struck simultaneously, this is what’s called a “Broken Chord.”
Importance
All western civilization music, from Bach to Beethoven, to Brahms, to Brubeck, to Billy Joel, is based on chords and make use of chords in very predictable ways.
If a piece of music is a musical story then chords are the words. When you understand chords you begin to see that all music is just the rearranging or manipulation of the particular notes of chords!
Without the knowledge of chords the notes of Beethoven’s Fur Elise are just dots on a page. But, to a Jazz musician, those same 100 dots/notes on the page are simply 4 or 5 chords being broken up or arpeggiated.
So from a practical standpoint, who is going to remember and memorize music quicker: the traditional/classical student who must remember 100 seemingly arbitrary notes, or my jazz students who only need to remember 5 chords!
Music is a language and like any language words/chords are the vehicle that covey meaning and emotion.
Application
The following instructional video, is an example of the song “Lean On Me,” which uses essentially only four different, white-note-only chords and illustrates the practicality of learning chords!
Chords
Definition
A chord is 3 or more notes played together. Sometimes if the notes are not struck simultaneously, this is what’s called a “Broken Chord.”
Importance
All western civilization music, from Bach to Beethoven, to Brahms, to Brubeck, to Billy Joel, is based on chords and make use of chords in very predictable ways.
If a piece of music is a musical story then chords are the words. When you understand chords you begin to see that all music is just the rearranging or manipulation of the particular notes of chords!
Without the knowledge of chords the notes of Beethoven’s Fur Elise are just dots on a page. But, to a Jazz musician, those same 100 dots/notes on the page are simply 4 or 5 chords being broken up or arpeggiated.
So from a practical standpoint, who is going to remember and memorize music quicker: the traditional/classical student who must remember 100 seemingly arbitrary notes, or my jazz students who only need to remember 5 chords!
Music is a language and like any language words/chords are the vehicle that covey meaning and emotion.
Application
The following instructional video, is an example of the song “Lean On Me,” which uses essentially only four different, white-note-only chords and illustrates the practicality of learning chords!