I know quite a few people are interested in piano chord progressions for their songwriting, as the piano allows you to add richer, more interesting harmonies to a mix without learning difficult guitar chords. This video tutorial is about forming dominant chords on the keyboard, which is central to developing a strong chord progression.
[
By the way, if you’re not familiar with the chords and scales I’m talking about in the video, you’ll find this tool from Pianoworld.com very useful indeed - it’s a little online application that allows you to select a particular chord or scale and then shows a graphic representation of it on a virtual piano keyboard. You’ll find it very useful if you need to work out how to (for example) put together some of the minor seventh chords I talk about, or work out the second or fifth notes of the scale in any major or minor key.
It’s worth noting that the Pianoworld guys use the term ‘dominant seventh’ to describe what I just call a ’seventh’ (or ‘G seven’). However, I guess that makes sense because it differentiates it from major sevenths and minor sevenths. If you’re a guitarist you’ll know those chords as, respectively, G7, Gmaj7 and Gm7.
Something I forgot to mention in the video (I really must script these things…): a dominant chord doesn’t have to resolve to the tonic in your songs. Say you’re in the key of C major and your chord progression reaches a G7. You can just as easily go to one of several other chords, such as Am, Am7, F, or Fmaj7, to name just four. Doing so can create a nice feeling of expectation deferred - play around with it a bit when you’re next at the keyboard working on progressions and thinking about songwriting.
For more information, take a look at Talking ’bout a Resolution. If you really want to get technical on the subject of dominant chord in piano progressions (and songwriting and composition in general) check out the Wikipedia page on cadence. Cadence is the technical term for how chord progressions resolve (or not) back to their tonic keys. Ultimately, it’s from the Latin verb cado, meaning ‘I fall’. That’s quite a neat way of thinking about dominant resolution and its variants - it’s all about how one chord ‘falls’ naturally on to another (although, of course, that doesn’t mean you have to go down from your dominant on to your tonic - you can play a low dominant and resolve on to a tonic an octave or more higher, if you like.)
As usual, if you have any question about any of the material on dominant chords in this post - or on piano, songwriting and chord progressions in general - feel free to ask in the comments.
{ 1 trackback }
{ 0 comments… add one now }