Playing from chords.

(only bother to read the bits you need to.)

to see sheet music for these titles click here (Another article which tries to unblind you with less science).

1. What a chord is.

If you don't already know what a chord is it might be worth reading Chordbuilding 1, 2 and 3, because it would be an awful waste of webspace to repeat it all here.

2. Knowledge necessary to use this article. You need to know what a chord is and how it is constructed, and how to make a few notes on your instrument, how many notes there are in a normal scale, and what a sharp or a flat is. It would also help (but is not essential) if you know how to transpose for your particular instrument and it might help to have a keyboard handy.You should be able to deduce the musical bits from the three chordbuilding articles, but I don't know how you will get a keyboard. Please do not steal one. That would be behaviour unfitting for a real musician.

I would like to add that for actual playing practice playing slowly seems more useful than playing fast.

Chord sequences are a 'list' of the running order in which the chords to a piece are played, and are usually written out in 'bars'. A bar is a fixed amount of time, and in most but not all cases is 4 beats long. Tap your foot in time to a recording and you will notice the beats happening - and if you listen carefully you will hear the chords changing.

For ease of following, it is a good idea when writing chord sequences to write four bars per line, thus (for instance):

We've Been A-rockin' and We Want Some More.

II C I C I C I C I

I F I F I C I C I

I G I G I C I C II

The I's are substituting for 'bar lines', which are just vertical lines dividing one bar from the next, and the double barlines mark the beginning and end of the sequence. (Apart from one other song I know which has only two chords this is the simplest chord sequence I have come across. But if you listen to the recording you may be surprised how much can be done with it).

(If you want to know what this might sound like before proceeding, I have put a single chorus of LETSwing singing this chorally in this section. To hear it click this link to We've Been A-rockin' and We Want Some More)

The choral work (if you want to do it as a 'gospel' type number) for this piece is surprisingly simple. The voices (of which there can be any number from 4 upwards in any type of voice) only sing a maximum of 3 notes during the whole piece, and if you wish to expand it there is room for two more notes. In bars 5 and 6 one of the notes (not shown in the chord sequence above, but nevertheless OK to sing) is the 7th of that chord - an Eb. The mode of going about it was this:

split into 3 sets of people.Each group is going to sing a part of the chord. If your note is, say, C, then any C will do.
groups 1 sings C for 8 bars (the C is the root of the C chord and the fifth of the F chord) then sings D for bars 9 and 10, and then C again for bars 11 and 12
group 2 sings an E for first 4 bars then an Eb (the 7th of the F chord) for the two F bars, then back to E for 2 bars, then F (the seventh of the G chord) for 2 bars, then back to the E
group 3 sings G for the first 4 bars then A for two then G for all the other bars.

Or it may be easier to see it as a table:

none
Notes sung in 'We've Been A-rockin'...'
bar no: bar 1 bar 2 bar 3 bar 4 bar 5 bar 6 bar 7 bar 8 bar 9 bar 10 bar 11 bar 12

first voice C C C C C C C C D D C C

second voice: E E E E Eb Eb E E F F E E

third voice: G G G G A A G G G G G G

optional notes: none none none none F F none none B B none none

If you have enough singers you can add the other bits to the chords by having somebody singing F during the two F bars and B during the two 2 G bars.Anyone who has been observant about this will realise that in fact the chords are not always 'complete' during the above without the addition of these notes. However, they are not essential as it all sounds fine even with those notes missing.

Notes sung in 'We've Been A-rockin'...'
bar no:	bar 1	bar 2	bar 3	bar 4	bar 5	bar 6	bar 7	bar 8	bar 9	bar 10	bar 11	bar 12
first voice	C	C	C	C	C	C	C	C	D	D	C	C
second voice:	E	E	E	E	Eb	Eb	E	E	F	F	E	E
third voice:	G	G	G	G	A	A	G	G	G	G	G	G
optional notes:	none	none	none	none	F	F	none	none	B	B	none	none

We've Been A-rockin' and We Want Some More was written to teach children about jazz singing and about harmony, but if you want to improvise to these chords it is possible - even quite easy if you set about it right. You just need to know what notes are in the chords and what notes there are that are not in the chords but which would still fit with them.

Here's a way of going about it:

1. Write the chords down with plenty of space around them with 4 bars to the line (by the way, this is the simplest form of 12-bar blues).
2. Write down underneath or above each chord what notes are in it.
3. Play each arpeggio (an arpeggio is a chord spread out into single notes played one after another) evenly over the bar it is in. In this particular case you will end up doing the same thing four times over before you reach the end of the first line.
4. Experiment with putting the notes in different orders, and play about with the timing of them, but always making them fit within the exact bars they belong in.
5. Do it again, adding 6's and 7's.These are discussed in the chordbuilding articles.
6. Decide the bits you like and the bits you don't, and try to play it all again missing out the bits you don't like. There is no need for it to be an exact rendering of what you did before in any bar, as long as it sounds the kind of thing you intend.
7. Do it again........
8 try other notes that are not so obvious and listen to which ones you feel fit OK and which don't, and when this is so.

(Always bear in mind that the notes somebody else likes may not please you, and vice verse, but also bear in mind that there are certain 'standard' things you can do that near enough the whole world will like. Personally, I enjoy playing to the audience, so these latter are of much importance to me)

There are some much more complicated sequences on this site, and it might be worth trying them, but just to get you started in that direction, here are the chords for Hugh Harris's Pavanne. It is fairly easy to play because it is so slow. Pavanne is normally played at a tempo of less than one beat per second - somewhere round about 55 beats per minute. It requires playing with peculiar delicacy. On this site there is a recording of LETSwing playing this, but also: to hear Hugo Brunelli playing this sequence click the link below:

Pavanne (a recording of Hugo Brunelli playing this sequence)

		II	Gm	I	A7	I	D7	I	Gm	I

		I	Gm	I	Cm6	I	A7	I	D7	I

		I	Gm	I	A7	I	D7	I	Gm	I

		I	Gm	I	Cm6	I	D7	I    Gm   F7	II (end of section)

(last bar has two chords played one after the other - two beats each.)

 

(middle 8)	II	Bb	I	Eb	I	F7	I	Bb	I

		I	Bb	I	Eb	I	F7	I	D7	II



		
 (final 
restatement)    II	Gm	I	A7	I	D7	I	Gm	I

		I	Gm	I	Cm6	I	D7	I	Gm	II
									      fin (finish)

(Or repeat.)

As you can see this whole sequence is 32 bars long, so it should take at least 2 minutes and 8 seconds (128 secs.) to play through once. If it takes less you are playing it faster than was intended.

This would be no surprise because people seem to have great difficulty playing anything very slowly.

Hugo Brunelli must have used a metronome because his recording is exactly 128 seconds!

As you can always come back to this article, I would suggest you try some of the various sequences in the chord sequences section. Click 'back' on your browser to go back to the menu or click here to go to chords menu direct. I particularly recommend the article 'chord sequences with titles'.

or back to main menu