Music Fundamentals Second Edition V12

The Piano Encyclopedia’s Music Fundamentals Report: Piano Lesson Report I

Music

Fundamentals

An Introduction to Composing and Improvising on the Piano

Understand Music: Intervals & Chords & Scales Explained!

Master the relationship between Chords & Intervals

Take your Piano Skills to the Next Level

PianoEncyclopedia.com


Musicians are not born, they are made

Copyright © 2005‐2010 by Rodrigo Schejtman (PianoEncyclopedia.com) Music Fundamentals The Piano Encyclopedia

ISBN 978‐987‐25216‐2‐2

Schejtman, Rodrigo

Music fundamentals. ‐ 1a ed. ‐ Buenos Aires : The Piano Encyclopedia, 2009.

E‐Book.

ISBN 978‐987‐25216‐2‐2

1. Enseñanza de Música. I. Título

CDD 780.7

All rights reserved. This book is protected by copyright laws and international treatises. Permission must be obtained in writing from its publisher ‐Rodrigo Schejtman‐ for the use of any original text, graphics or illustration. Permission must also be obtained in writing from its publisher for the reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or likewise. Neither this book nor any part may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this book, or any parts of this book, including any images, and illustrations, may result in severe civil and criminal penalties Reservado todos los derechos. No se permite reproducción parcial o total, el almacenamiento, el alquiler, la transmisión o la transformación de esta obra, en cualquier forma o por cualquier medio, sea electrónico o mecánica, mediante fotocopias, digitalización, u otros métodos, sin el permiso previo y escrito de los editores. Su infracción está penada por las leyes 11723, 25446, y tratados internacionales. Edición argentina. Queda hecho el depósito que previene la ley 11723.



Introduction Welcome to The Piano Encyclopedia’s Piano eBook: Music Fundamentals. I am

confident to say that you are about to experience a revolutionary learning approach

–not found anywhere else‐ which will radically change the way you play piano and

reveal you how music works – in a practical way.

I can make this claim without any hesitation whatsoever, as this is the second edition

of our Music Fundamentals eBook: our book has been read by more than twenty

thousand people up to this date, and we have received (and keep receiving) hundreds

of emails and blog comments from people like you, telling us their success stories and

how much this book has helped them:



You might wonder what is inside this book and why it has this kind of impact on many

of its readers. With our Music Fundamentals book you will learn how music works, and

by doing so, you will discover the fundamentals to playing the piano with freedom,

improvising, creating your own music and playing by ear. Our teaching methods are

different from everything else, because ‐different to the conventional learning

methods‐ you won’t need to depend on memorization or rules. Our method is based

on pure logic and understanding, and with simple concepts that anyone can

comprehend, you will be able to play by ear, improvise, and even compose your own

music, all by understanding how music works – in a practical way.

Now you might be wondering if this book is appropriate for your level. Music

improvisation, composition, and playing by ear may sound complicated for starters.

However I can tell you that even if you are just starting to play piano, I assure you that

this approach will prove to be most useful and save you years of frustration (I wished I

had learned all this when I started playing the piano). On the other hand, if you have

been playing for years and you consider yourself an intermediate or advanced student,

but no one ever taught you how to improvise, compose your own music, or play

without depending on sheet music, I give you my word that after reading this eBook



you will see music in a whole new way that will radically improve your piano and music

skills. My claims are backed up by comments from people like you, who found our site

and read our eBook, and I hope that once you finish reading it, you will too share your

success story with us. This book is for all levels, from absolute beginner to advanced:



We will start the lessons from the very basics, teaching you what are intervals, chords,

and scales – so that even beginners can follow this course without any problems – and

then reveal to you the relationship that exists between chords, scales, and music

intervals. Even if you consider yourself an advanced student, we highly recommend

that you don’t skip these initial chapters and read the whole book, as we use a

different approach for teaching the basics that will help you to understand the more

advanced concepts that follow. Using this methodology, you’ll be able to see songs

from a new perspective and advance quite quickly, as we move rapidly into the world

of playing the piano with freedom, composing, improvising, and truly understanding

music!

Why are we giving this Book for free? Many people ask us why don’t we sell this book,

especially given the fact that it took us a tremendous effort to write, edit, and publish

this book. It involved the collaboration of a team of editors and graphic designers

(more than 300 illustrations are found on this book) during many months. Still, we

have decided to give it for free, for two reasons:

The first one is because we want to spread this new way of teaching music – a method

based on logic and understanding‐ in order to help those that have struggled with the

frustration caused by conventional piano learning methods, which are based on

memorization and rules. And I don´t say this just from we but also on a personal level,

as I have experienced that frustration too.

I am a piano player myself, and I have been playing the piano for more than fifteen

years up to this date, and during my first ten years of taking piano lessons, even I

managed to play concert level pieces very well… if you had asked me to play without

sheet music, improvise, compose, or jam with some friends at that time, I would have

simply either ignored your request and played a piece from my repertoire, or have told

you that I simply didn’t know how to do that. I was an ‘interpreter’. Only an

interpreter. But it was not my fault. Believe me, I wanted to be more, and I used to

spend lots of hours every day studying and practicing the lessons that my teachers

gave me. My problem was that I never had a teacher that could teach me all that I



learned years after, which did convert me into the pianist, musician, and composer I

am today – not just an interpreter. Today, I can sit at a piano without any sheet music,

improvise music on the fly, create my own piano pieces, and play by ear. I hope you

can do all this too, and that’s the main reason why I have created this book: so you

don’t have to go through the same frustrating path, many of us already have.

After the success we had this book, we decided to create a Digital Home‐Study Course

to help those that wanted a step‐by‐step course on how to apply all these knowledge

and use this revolutionary music learning method. Our followers – literally thousands ‐

encouraged us to think big as we started posting development news on our blog. We

started by creating an a in‐depth lessons book that covered from how to play basic

songs up to how to improvise and compose a piano piece step‐by‐step with interactive

animations and sound. Then we added practice booklets, reference booklets, and even

interactive music training games. And we thought, what if we could add an online

community that would be integrated into the course itself, where all our students

could interact, ask questions, enjoy piano video galleries, and even participate in music

contests by uploading their improvisations and compositions? We wanted to create

the best piano learning experience on top of our unique teaching method. And after a

total of three years, the collaboration of more than fifty people from all the corners of

the world – writers, editors, graphic designers, developers, musicians, pianists‐ our

dream finally became a reality. Today our Digital Home‐Study Course –coined “The

Logic Behind Music”‐ comprises more than a thousand pages of interactive learning

content, which span 12 multimedia books (lessons, reference books, practice

booklets), and contain more than 3000 interactive examples with on‐screen piano‐

keyboards that show our students how to play the piano with freedom, improvise, and

compose music. The community also become a reality and is now bundled with our

course, and we are proud to say that our students today enjoy using a community that

shares many features similar to big social networks such as Facebook and Youtube,

including user profiles, wall comments, private messages, forums, news feeds, and a

piano gallery with over a 1000 piano videos and hundreds of master classes from the

greatest pianists of our century.



All this was possible to the enthusiasm and support of our followers, and I want to use

this opportunity to ‐once again‐ publically give my thanks to everyone who supported

us, and thank them for all the emails, blog comments, and words of support we have

received during the development years

Even though that giving away this book made us become the first (and only) piano site

to ever give away a book with more than hundred pages (and over 300 high quality

illustrations) for free (when we could be selling it), and even our Digital Home‐Study

Course is finished, we think it is still a good idea to keep it for free. We hope that once

you finish reading this book that you have a new vision of how music works, and that

the concepts you learn trigger your interest in getting to know more about our unique

piano learning method and about using our revolutionary Digital Home‐Study Course

“The Logic Behind Music”, as many of our students do.

I suggest you read this book next to your piano so that you can enjoy all the provided

examples as you follow along. Get your trusty highlighter, grab a tasty beverage… and

dive right in!

After you're finished with your first review of Music Fundamentals, I'd like to know

what you think. So, join the conversation on our blog and leave your comments or

questions for me there:

Click here to Join the Conversation with me and other Pianists

You may also find some very interesting comments and questions from other pianists

that have also read this book.

http://pianoencyclopedia.com/members/MusicFundamentals-Talk#comments



Before you go on to the next page, I want you to think and ask yourself: do you want to

be just an interpreter? (Would you be satisfied by learning only how to play piano from

sheet music or by rote?) Or would you like to become something more? If so, you can ‐

and I encourage you to get started‐ since all the success stories that we have collected

from our students tell us one thing:

“Musicians are not born – they are made.”

Enjoy!

All the best,

Rod Schejtman,

_________________________________

CEO & Founder of The Piano Encyclopedia

www.PianoEncyclopedia.com

[email protected]



More Testimonials from our Students

Let me share with you more comments from our students – about this book that you

are about to start to reading. I highly recommend you read this book from head to

toes, as reading separate chapters will not help you understand the fundamentals of

how music works, so I hope that these testimonials give you enough reasons. :‐)

Below you will find a selection of just a few testimonials from our students, taken

directly from our blog. To see the complete list of hundreds of testimonials please click

on the following link, and once you finish Reading this eBook let us know what you

think by leaving your own testimonial:

Click here to Read all Testimonials or To Post a Comment














Inside Music Fundamentals

Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1

More Testimonials from our Students ............................................................................ 5

What we’ll cover with our Music Fundamentals Book .................................................. 17

PART 1: COMPOSING, IMPROVISING, AND REALLY UNDERSTANDING THE

KEY ELEMENTS OF MUSIC ............................................................ 8

Required Knowledge ........................................................................................... 19

The Important Elements of Music ...................................................................... 21

Why Should You Learn Scales and Chords? ........................................................ 25

My Personal Experience & Overcoming Frustration ........................................... 27

Should You Memorize All The Zillion Of Scales and Chords That Exist Out There?

............................................................................................................................ 33

Part 2: Mastering the Elements of Music & Understanding

the Relationsip betweeen chords, scales, and intervals .... 37

The Building Blocks ............................................................................................. 38

The Balance Between Tension and Relief ........................................................... 41

The Octave Interval ............................................................................................. 47

The Perfect Fifth Interval .................................................................................... 50

The Major and Minor Third Intervals .................................................................. 55

The Relationship Between intervals and chords ................................................ 63

Building the Major and Minor Triad Chords ....................................................... 65

The Relationship Between Intervals and More Complex Chords ....................... 73

The Relationship Between Scales and Intervals ................................................. 77

Mastering the Major and Minor Triad hords ...................................................... 81

Part 3: Mastering Intervals and Chords ......................... 85

Get Familiar with the Rest of the Music Intervals .............................................. 86

The Second Intervals ........................................................................................... 89

The Seventh Intervals ......................................................................................... 91

The Tritone Interval ............................................................................................. 94

Combining Tense Intervals into Chords .............................................................. 95

Creating Your Own Chords .................................................................................. 97

Part 4: Summary of Music Fundamentals ......................... 98

Lesson Summary ................................................................................................. 99

How To Practice On Your Piano ......................................................................... 101

Creating Cheerful and Melancholic Moods With Chords ................................. 103

The Next Piano Lesson Report… ....................................................................... 107

Time To Join The Conversation! Ask Questions & Leave Us Feedback ............. 104

Page 17

PianoEncyclopedia.comMusicians are not born – they are made

What we’ll cover with our Music Fundamentals Book

As I don't know your piano level, I have decided to start this lesson with the basics,

before going straight into topics such as learning how to harmonize a scale, and

master techniques of improvisation and composition.

Even if you already know the basic chords and intervals, I am sure that you’ll be able to

get a great value out of this lesson. I want to let you know that it took me several years

to find someone to teach me chords the way I am going to show you in this book‐

understanding the relationship between intervals and chords. So if this approach is

new to you, I am sure you'll really enjoy it and I hope that it will open a new vision to

you of how music works, as you discover the important role that music intervals play.

This approach will help you for grasping harmony concepts more easily in the near

future, which are needed for composing and improvising.

I hope you enjoy our Music Fundamentals eBook: the beginning to chords, intervals,

and to understanding how music works – in a practical way.

I suggest you read it in a calm place, or even best, read it next to your piano so that

you can enjoy all the provided examples as you follow along.

Page 18


PART 1

Taking your piano Skills to the next level.

COMPOSING, IMPROVISING, AND REALLY

UNDERSTANDING THE KEY ELEMENTS OF MUSIC

Page 19


Required Knowledge

This book is for all piano levels –from absolute beginners to advanced. It is both for

those that are just starting as well as for those that have been playing for years

(intermediate / advanced), but never had the chance to learn how to improvise, how to

create their own music, or how to play the piano without depending on sheet music or

memorization.

The lessons start right from the beginning with a review of all the basic elements of

music ‐so you will do great if you’re a beginner‐ and then continue with more

advanced topics about how music works, which will let you take your piano skills to the

next level.

I began playing more than 15 years ago, and until a few years ago not one teacher had

taught me anything about music theory. I reached the point where I was playing

concert pieces, without learning the basics. In this way, no teacher offered to teach me

the basics and I was really too ashamed to ask.

Not many years ago, my new teacher imposed me to study everything again from the

very beginning. We advanced quickly, and I was actually really grateful as I began to

understand how everything worked. Composing and improvising on the piano changed

from being a distant dream, to something I was able to accomplish in just a few

months.

So even if you’re an advanced piano player and are already playing complex pieces, I

am sure this overview of the fundamentals will help you in grasping the next lessons

much easier, and once we get to chord progressions and how harmonize a scale, you’ll

be able master the fundamentals of composing and improvising right away.

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If you’re a beginner, I assure you that you’re in the right path to quickly

understanding music. I wish that I had learned this right from the beginning to save

years of frustration.

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The Important Elements of Music

In this first lesson report we'll start with the very basics and the most important

elements of music:

Intervals

Chords

Scales

Q: What are intervals, chords, and scales?

An interval is usually described as the distance between two notes.

Let’s look at some examples of music intervals:

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A chord is usually defined as 3 or more notes played simultaneously.

Now, let’s see some chords:

A scale is defined as a series of notes that are played one after another – usually 7

to make up a specific sound, or serve as the starting point for any piece of music or

composition.

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And finally, let’s see some examples of scales:

If you read the definition of music intervals –the distance between two notes‐ you’ll

notice that intervals can be considered as the elemental building blocks of chords and

scales. In this way, you will notice that music intervals are very important in

determining if a chord or scale sounds like a particular music style: jazz, blues, classical,

Arabic, Spanish, Indian, or any style you can think of.

So how does this work?

In Chords: The distance of the notes used in a chord, that is the music intervals

that will be combined to create a particular chord, will define the chord’s

sound.

In Scales: Similarly, the distance used between each note of a scale, that is the

music intervals that will be combined to create a particular scale, will also

define the scale’s sound.

Page 24


OK, so these definitions are indeed interesting and we can see that intervals are really

important to understanding chords and scales; however, the question is‐ why should

you learn chords and scales anyway?

Page 25


Why should you learn Scales and Chords?

Let me give you the big picture: chords and scales are the skeleton of any music piece,

from Classical, Jazz, Blues, Bebop, Rock, Pop, to almost any music style you can think

of.

So you should learn them really well and understand them, and especially, know how

to use them. You have to understand that once you master these two, discover how

they work together, and understand the relation between both, then you will be able

to play any song or music piece you like. After this, you’ll be able to start improvising,

composing your own works, and you will be able to see music in a whole new way.

Even if you play Classical or Pop music and don't want to learn improvising or

composing, you'll discover that you'll be able to understand what you're playing:

notes and chords will stop being just notes and chords, and you'll start seeing the

structure behind the music, the chord progressions behind the score, and start seeing

the harmony behind any song or music piece. You'll even be able to transpose any

song to any key you would like, and in some cases even predict what chords come

next.

As you can see, mastering chords and scales is something very important and is

practically the base of everything.

Most students are introduced to chords when playing their first songs –however many

do not really understand why the combination of those chords sound *good* when

played in that order.

There is actually a skeleton behind each song and each music piece, which is related to

the progressions of chords used, while the melody or tune of the song is actually

based on different combinations of scales. Moreover, the reason why some chords

sound good one after another, or why some scales play smoothly when used with

certain chords, is strongly related to the type of music intervals that make them up

Page 26


and how they interact together: both by producing tension and resolving it, and thus

producing pleasure to the listener. I’ll tell you more about that in the following

sections, but what I want you to take from this chapter is that everything is strongly

related: intervals, chords, and scales.

While this process may seem complicated at first, the magic begins with allowing you

to use simple, but very powerful concepts that make everything easy to understand.

Part of what I am going to teach you in this first report lesson, and in the upcoming

ones, are things that I wished I had learned before, simple but very powerful concepts

that took me many years to discover, but that changed my piano life completely.

Page 27


My Personal Experience & Overcoming Frustration

I actually had decided to tell you about me later in the report, but I think that by

reading the following, you’ll understand how all these concepts had an important and

deep impact on me. I hope that step‐by‐step, I’ll help you discover how to see music in

a whole new way throughout the piano reports and The Piano Encyclopedia’s Core

Lessons.

So… Let me share with you my personal story…

I started playing piano more than fourteen years ago, which seems to me like a long

time, but to tell you the truth, I can’t say all of them were easy and enjoyable. In fact, I

went through many teachers, and I got frustrated many times. So frustrated, that I

even quit my piano lessons several times, but luckily to always try again and trust that

the next piano teacher or the next piano lessons I would have, would give me what I

was really looking forward to.

If you’ve taken lessons for several years, you probably might have had the same

feeling. Piano classes that seem to take you no where, with no certain goals defined,

and lots of effort that doesn’t seem to pay off, especially if you’re with the wrong

teacher.

Well for me it was like that for several years. Years passed, and yes I could learn new

popular songs, but I wasn’t feeling that my piano playing skills were greatly improving,

and most of the time I felt I was going nowhere, so I quit and started again many

times.

Then about six or seven years ago… I decided to give it another try. I started on my

own with classical music. I even set myself the challenge of learning how to read scores

on my own… and started with Bach.

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I don’t know why, but I wanted to learn the hard way and wanted to advance at a fast

pace. So I managed to play the easy Minuets and then went quickly off to play even a

short three voice Fugue, which was actually over‐complicated for my level.

Then I decided it was time to get a classical teacher and started playing the Bach

Inventions. At that time, I considered the pieces to be impossible (especially Invention

no. 8), but I wanted to play badly enough, that I managed to read and play them, so I

was very happy.

Eventually I began playing harder pieces I love. Chopin, Beethoven as well as Bach are

quite a few of my favorites. I actually became quite good, and could play the pieces at

a good speed, with technique and dynamics, and I was getting quite a lot of attention

from family and friends.

Then, as I started to have more responsibilities I began having less time and I couldn’t

practice the pieces any more. Some pieces took me several weeks and sometimes

months to prepare, so to have time to practice I began taking classes every 2 weeks…

then every month… and then I quit.

I was really frustrated, as for example, I had managed to play an English Suite from

Bach, a very difficult but lovely piece, in which I had spent more than two months to

fully prepare. I had almost practiced it to ‘perfection’ playing it with the correct

dynamics, transmitting the desired emotions and giving an expression to each of the

separate voices correctly, with all the music details to make it sound like a concert

recording. I knew it so well; I literally played it sometimes with my eyes closed. But

that summer, I went on vacation and didn't have a piano for one month. And when I

came back… I had lost all my skills….

I couldn’t play the piece any more…

There is even this quote said by a famous historic composer: “One day without

practice, I can tell the difference. Two days… and the orchestra can tell the difference.

Three days… and the audience can tell the difference.”…

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I was actually surprised by this quote when I heard it for the first time and even asked

myself: then imagine a month! Haha.

Sadly… even I could play the notes… all my technique, dynamic details, and everything

I had meticulously practiced for months… was definitely lost.

So I was so frustrated… I felt that more than three months of continuous effort in

preparing that piece had been thrown in the garbage… Frustration had reached my

maximum level. But I didn’t want to quit the piano... but since I couldn’t prepare for

classes, I decided to end them.

My teacher kept telling me that I was very good and that I should continue with the

lessons. Everything had such a deep impact on me that I even thought about quitting

my engineering career and dedicating my full time as a concert pianist! Crazy as it

sounds it all was very real, hard and intense.

Now comes the interesting part.

That year passed off, and I kept playing without any lessons. But then, unexpectedly, I

met a friend of my brother who told me that he was studying with a piano teacher that

knew a lot about music theory and that he taught it in a really interesting way.

Then I realized that with all the pieces I had played, I had actually never known what

was going on! And so… that’s why I was always stuck. I was just reading notes from a

score and playing them without really knowing the actual ‘meaning’ of those notes. In

this way every new piece was as difficult as the previous, as I couldn’t find out what

was common between each piece, nor could I predict what was going to happen while

I was playing. Actually, I realized that songs and scores had been like a set of

instructions and that I actually did not really understand them.

Page 30


So I decided to learn music theory so that if I didn’t have time to practice, at least the

concepts would stay in my head and wouldn’t leave me as my piano technique had

done.

…And so I met this teacher and told him that I wanted to have classes every 2 weeks

since I didn’t have enough time. And he told me that he wouldn’t give me classes every

two weeks, that I had to go every week, or he wouldn’t give me classes at all, but that

if I didn’t have time we would prepare on the class.

And so I did start classes with him, and he first changed my piano lessons to something

I could enjoy more and not stress out about.

The interesting part is that he knew both about classical music ‐ he had studied seven

years in a music conservatory‐ and also was a Jazz player. He knew the best of both

worlds.

I began learning simple things that completely changed my piano life, such as how to

harmonize a scale, find chord types and ways to build relationships between various

harmonies. I discovered the relation between chords and scales and how they produce

harmony through creating more tension or a release, and how you can predict how

scales and chords are going to sound by applying this basic concept. There are many

other interesting and simple concepts that I am going to be sharing with you.

For me it was an incredible change.

From then on, I began composing my own pieces –something that I considered a

‘distant dream’ and that I thought would forever be out of my reach! And every time I

was busy because I had to study or work, I would just sit on the piano and freely

improvise.

It was so rewarding... and ‐it is so rewarding!

Page 31


I changed from ‘interpreting’ music to being able to transmit my own… and that for me

was such a difference. It really gives me a chill when I think back to all of this.

The real beauty and the possibilities of music began to be seen.

I used to love Chopin, so I even got one of the old Chopin Waltz' that I used to play. By

analyzing the harmony, I could try to play it in another tune, and I was even able to

improvise parts of the melody and change it on the fly.

And pop, rock, or even jazz songs, which were actually hard for me, as I didn’t know

how to follow the chords and how to play them, are now much easier as I can

recognize the chord structure and harmony behind them. Now learning to play songs is

much faster and much more enjoyable.

So … for me, music changed completely in the last years.

I can tell you –and many musicians would agree‐ that there is nothing in the whole

universe that can compare once you see that level of music.

Luckily, I have been able to find many talented people that share this vision of music

and are working with us together, pursuing this same dream.

Unfortunately, it took me almost ten years to discover these concepts for the first

time. Most of the time when I discuss these concepts with other musicians and ask

them how come so few music players (not just pianists) know these simple but

powerful concepts, I get the following response: “Because the way it’s taught, Rod.

Most of the teachers in my experience, never reached the point we have been

discussing today”.

So I want to transmit to you these simple but powerful concepts that changed

everything for me.

Page 32


I’ll be sharing with you everything I learned through this book and also through our

Digital Home‐Study course “The Logic Behind Music”. In the latter, you’ll enjoy

interactive multimedia content that combines all of our experiences together, and the

concepts that made each of the members of our team reach a new level of music

understanding.

The Piano Encyclopedia’s Digital Home‐Study Course “The Logic Behind Music” is an

interactive learning software that shows all the concepts I’ve told you about ‐ the

relation between chords, scales, intervals, harmony, and everything ‐ through

multimedia lessons, interactive books, images, animations, and sound recordings.

This Digital Home‐Study Course was the result of three years of work, inspired by the

success we had with this book and the support of our followers.

We look forward to changing the way people learn piano worldwide, and with our

Digital Home‐Study Course, we look forward to making this dream true. This is the

reason why we have worked so hard throughout all these years, and keep working, in

helping as much people as we can, reach their music goals.

Thanks for reading about my personal story, now yes, I hope you truly enjoy this book

and that it makes you see music in a different way. Thank you.

http://pianoencyclopedia.com/piano-courses/the-logic-behind-music/

Page 33


Should you Memorize All the Zillion of Scales and Chords that

Exist out There?

From the story I’ve told you, you may now realize that chords and scales are

fundamental to your learning; however, you might have seen that there appear to be

dozens of scales and trillions of different chords in different positions and different

keys. At first sight, it seems impossible to learn them all and seems like a huge task,

right?

Even more, there are many sites that say, yes I am going to teach you 7000+ chords,

and then you see these complex chord charts with multiple combinations that are

impossible to use, and then you see yourself looking back at each chord chart, for

every chord that you see in a song. Chord and Scale charts are extremely useful and

have been one of the most valuable things that have made me reach my actual piano

level. However, it’s important to know how to use them. They are the greatest thing

that can happen to you to make you speed up your learning, compliment and enrich

your music, and give you new ideas and resources to apply to your musical creations‐

but they should not be something you should depend upon for every song you play.

Throughout the lessons, I’ll provide you with chords, intervals, and scale charts, and

teach you how you can use them as tools to power up your learning and understand

the relationship between all the musical elements.

Even worse… terrible things happen with some of the ‘chord dictionaries’ out there in

the market. Not long ago, I went back to one of my favorite music stores to buy some

music sheet I was looking for, and I was surprised by one of these brand new

important “Chord Books” that had ‘just arrived’, full of color illustrations showing all

the possible key combinations, and juicy graphics. Chord books can be very useful, not

only for playing songs, but also for composing and improvising, and they are really

handy and easy to use.

Page 34


However, when I looked more carefully I noticed that there were several hundredth‐

pages thick different chord books – all with different titles ‐ one after the other. Such a

terrible thing! Well you might say, why is that bad? They had the “Jazz Chord Book”,

the “Blues Chord Book”, and the “Rock Chord Book”, and so on for several music

styles… Each worth a couple of big bucks each.

So by now you must either be thinking… “hey it must be great to have all those chord

books at home and play the different styles”… or: “I can’t believe I’ll have to spend so

much time studying all those books and memorizing all those different chords to

master all those styles”. And second “I can’t believe I’ll actually have to buy all of them

and spend so much money…”

Well, from that point of view it actually sounds a bit crazy, but I have good news for

you: I couldn’t resist, so I took all the chord books out of the shelf, laid them out on a

table of the store, and started comparing the index of each of the books!

Guess what I found out? Obviously – of course – 90% (yes, Ninety‐percent) of the

included chord types were the same in ALL books: Jazz, Blues, Rock, everything.

So as you can see, this was a really awful thing. Any person who wouldn’t have

compared the indexes, and had bought them all, would have been ‘tricked’ into buying

lots of repeated information – a real waste of money, time, and a cause to loose

motivation for any piano student... Sadly enough, this is not an uncommon way to

approach chord and method books.

But WHY did they share 90% of the content? Were they wrong? Not really. The truth is

that many music styles share many similar chord types. And sometimes, there are just

a couple of chord types that give each music style it’s unique flavor, while others are

shared in common, from Classical to Jazz, although used less frequently depending on

the style.

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So that’s really the good news: if you wanted to learn all styles you would have to learn

just the characteristic chord types that are used in each style‐ and not the whole

collection of chord books. In that way, understanding how chord types are shared

between different music styles will give you a deeper understanding of what makes

each musical style different. The same is true with scales, and understanding the

distinctive characteristics between styles, and combining both the appropriate chords

and scales, while helping you to master each of the music styles. So it’s not just

learning chords or scales from a particular style, but knowing how to combine both.

Just an aside‐ this idea is what really took us to create one of the most important

features of the Piano Encyclopedia’s Chord Dictionary. We decided to have ALL the

existent piano chords in one single book, and to categorize each chord type by every

music style where they are used. In this way the user can not only filter them by ANY

particular music style, but also compare several music styles and see which chords

they have in common. By comparing several music styles, it’s possible to get to know

the characteristic chords of each style. We’re following the same idea with the Piano

Encyclopedia’ Scale Dictionary, and the best part is that both dictionaries are closely

integrated, so you’ll also be able to look up what chords should be used with each

scale and vice‐versa. The idea is to provide you with a deeper understanding of how

everything really works – and not just some fancy titles as “Jazz Chord Book”, “Rock

Chord Book”, “Exotic Scales Book”, etc.

Well, back to the music store, the second good news is that even with a single chord

book, the hundreds of pages contain the same chord types transposed in all keys, and

just in different positions or inversions. Inversions are just interesting and different

ways of playing the same chord to give it a unique sound‐ and we’ll see more about

them in the next lessons. But what I am trying to tell you is that once you understand

how to create a certain chord type in one key, you’ll be able to do it in all the rest of

the keys, without any further memorization. There is no need to memorize every

single note of every chord and every scale: every chord and scale type follows a certain

pattern. Also once you understand how certain inversions work, you’ll be able to apply

them to any chord, without learning anything by heart.

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So I want you to really understand chords and scales, and learn how these 7000+

chords can be reduced to just a few chords. By knowing some simple concepts you’ll

be able to create all those combinations yourself. Also with the method I am going to

show in this one and the upcoming lessons, not only will you be able to play any chord

or scale in any key, but also can create your own chords, and even be able to predict

how a chord will sound before you play it. Same with scales.

So let's get to the actual stuff, and let me tell you that the secret to all this is to

understand the following: all the chords and scales are made up of different

combinations of music intervals.

These music intervals are like the building blocks of chords and scales, and if you

know them wisely, you'll also be able to determine how a chord will sound even before

playing it.

I hope that this introduction opens your eyes as to the importance of learning music

intervals, chords, and scales, and that you enjoy what’s coming up next!

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PART 2

Discovering the relationship between chords,

scales, and intervals

MASTERING THE ELEMENTS OF MUSIC &

UNDERSTANDING THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN EACH

OTHER

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The Building Blocks

So by now you might be wondering, if music intervals are like the building blocks of

chords and scales…

Q: What are music intervals exactly?

A musical interval is usually defined as the distance between two notes.

These two notes can be played apart such as when playing a melody or a scale, or can

be played simultaneously, such as when the interval forms a part of a chord

Let me give you several examples of different music intervals:

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So as you see, the distance between the first note and the second note determines the

name of the musical interval and the sound it carries.

These are just a few of all the music intervals that exist, so by now you might be

thinking:

Q: Which intervals should I learn and why?

Well, my first objective for this lesson is a practical one, and I would like for you to be

able to quickly build the Major and Minor Triad chords in any key. Minor and Major

triads are the basis of most music pieces, and they will be really useful for playing your

first songs and creating your first compositions. To learn these we’ll need to master:

The Perfect Fifth Interval

The Major Third Interval

The Minor Third Interval

As we’ll see shortly, combining these intervals will let us build the chords on any key

without the need to memorize the individual notes of each of the major and minor

triads.

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My second objective, is more profound, and is for you to understand why the major

and minor chords sound like they do, and to understand the nature of intervals in

order for you to start building your own chords, and to be able to predict how a chord

will sound even before you play it, right from the beginning.

In order to accomplish the latest, I want to tell you about a very simple but powerful

concept that will guide us throughout the whole lessons:

“Music is the balance between creating tension and relief”

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The Balance Between Tension and Relief

In the first class I had with my current teacher, he said one phrase that I remember

every time I play, which summarizes all the most important music concepts I’ve

learned with him throughout the past years:

“Music is the balance between creating Tension and Relief”

Yes… this is the powerful but simple concept that I’ve told you about in the last

chapter.

Q: What do you mean by tension and relief?

I think it would be better for you to experiment it: go get any of your favorite songs or

music pieces, no matter what style they are, and click on play.

Ready? Click on play and follow along with the next paragraphs.

If you listen carefully you’ll discover that there are moments in the music where

tension is building up and then finally finding release or a resolution. You may

identify this effect many times throughout the music, some resolutions being stronger,

and others weaker. In the last passage of the music piece or song that you’re playing,

you’ll probably feel the strongest sensation of tension and most definitive resolution,

remarking the ending of the music.

This balance between tension and relief is common to almost all music. However, it

will be very clear for you to recognize it on most classical music, as it’s usually built of

basic chords, but you may also perceive it on Pop or Jazz music pieces or songs, if

you’re able to get through the more complex chord formations.

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Now imagine a music piece that had too much tension and only clashing sounds, but

no release. The music piece will probably not be very appealing to most, as it will feel

quite unpleasant and disturbing, since the tension builds up and never resolves.

Now imagine the exact opposite, a piece without any clashing sounds, and no tension

at all whatsoever. The music piece will probably sound pleasant to the ear, but will

most likely be extremely boring to listen to. For a listener, pleasure is produced each

time tension is resolved, so a piece without any tension usually results in a boring

composition.

In this way, one of the biggest secrets of music and what makes a music piece

interesting and pleasant to the ear is:

Finding the correct balance between creating tension and relief.

This concept will guide us through all of our lessons, will let you discover more about

the music you’re already playing, while opening your path into improvising and

composing.

However this is not a mathematical formula, there is no formula which will tell you

what combination of chords or melody is used to produce the exact needed amount of

tension or release.

Creativity plays a very important role in composing and improvising; nevertheless, it’s

important to have the right resources, the right tools and information to help you

make composing and improvising an easier task, and thus let your creativity flow by

using the right knowledge.

In this way, if you get to know which chords or notes in a melody will produce

tension or relief, you’ll be much closer to finally playing on the piano with what was

initially on your mind.

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That is what we are going to learn on the following chapters. We’re first going to learn

how to build the major and minor chords with intervals, and then head off to analyze

the different intervals to see if they more likely produce tension or relief.

As you already know, intervals form chords and scales, so understanding the nature of

intervals, will also let you predict which chords will most likely produce tension or

relief, and the same with your melody line.

It’s important to stress that the concept of tension or relief is also relative to the

context of the sound. In this way, if you play a very tense chord, and then play a less‐

tense chord, you will still feel a sensation of relief, even though the second chord is still

causing some tension and has not yet completely resolved.

Let me show you exactly what I am talking about. Let’s play a very simple progression

of chords. Play the following chords in order:

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Don’t worry about the chord names yet and just play it and feel the sound. As you can

listen, the first chord seems to contain no tension, then the tension seems to build up

with the second chord, and it’s finally resolved in the last chord, producing a sensation

of relief. So in this case it’s the distinction between the second while the first and last

chords are pretty clear, with the middle chord having the strongest tension.

However, let’s see another example where we actually have different degrees of

tension, and tension builds up and then slowly resolves, each time producing a new

sensation of relief to the listener.

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Play the following chords on your piano:

In this case, you actually feel that the second chord produces the most tension, and

then it resolves to the third chord, lowering the tension level and thus producing a

release. However, the third chord is the same one that was producing the tension on

the first example, and is now causing a sensation of relief as it produces less tension

than the previous one. Finally, the last chord resolves all the tension into a state of

complete release.

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If we could picture the tension‐level across time, we would have a graph that would

start off at zero, then get to a high peak, and then slowly get back to zero.

Actually, you could do that with every song you listen to –not just these three or four

chords‐ and you’ll discover that usually, once the tension level reaches it’s highest

point, you’ll be reaching the climax of the song or music piece. In this way, you can see

how this concept plays an important role in all music.

With these examples, I hope you have also noticed that the division is not black &

white, but that the different intervals and chords produce different levels of tension

and relief. In this way the overall sensation of each of the sections of your song or

music piece will vary depending on how smoothly and quickly the tension is built up

and how smoothly the tension is resolved, to produce a release.

Thinking about the concepts of tension and release will help you understand much

better what you’re playing, and will help you to get started with composing and

improvising,

To make things easier and practical we’re just going to divide the intervals into:

‘tension‐producing’ and ‘non‐tension producing’ intervals for the most common cases.

On the upcoming lessons, we’ll see that this can be studied in a deeper way using

terms such as consonant, dissonant, unstable, ambiguous, and many other

classifications and considerations. However, I would first want you to get all the

practical data, so you can start applying this on your piano, before getting technical.

Now it’s time to take a look at some intervals and see all this in action as we learn how

to master the major and minor triad chords.

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The Octave Interval

You might already know this interval, even if you don’t know its name. This one is

actually one of the easiest ones to learn, as it’s just the same note repeated in a higher

pitch, which is called an octave higher.

The Octave interval is not really necessary to build the major and minor triads, but it’s

useful to know as it is one of the most fundamental intervals of music, and it’s very

easy to master.

Let’s see how it looks in all keys before moving on.

Please take a look at the next page.

PianoEncyclopedia.com Master Composing, Improvising, and take your Piano Skills to the Next Level

Page 49


Play this interval on any key, for example on Key of C:

You may notice that this interval does not produce a tense sound, but produces a

quite comfortable sound.

However, let’s move on to one of the most important musical intervals that will help

you as the basis for building many chords: The Fifth Interval.

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The Perfect Fifth Interval

Not only is this interval present in almost all of the chords and scales of conventional

harmony, and we’ll help us build our minor and major triads, but also plays an

important role in composition and harmony.

This interval is also related to something called "The Circle of Fifths", which we'll see in

the upcoming lessons, and will help us for creating chord progressions that will define

the underlying harmony of our compositions.

In this way, you should definitely master this interval.

Now the question is...

Q: How can we build up a Fifth Interval?

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Let’s see some examples of what the Perfect Fifth Interval looks like:

You won’t have to memorize all of the individual notes of each one. If you count the

notes by key, including both the black and white keys, you'll notice that there are 7

keys‐ not counting the key that you are on‐ from the first to the last key of ANY Fifth

interval. In music terms, the 7 keys are referred to as half tones‐ where a key distance

determines each “Half‐Tone”.

You might also see the music term “Whole‐Tone” in some texts, which represents 2

half tones. Throughout the lessons we’re going to be naming distances only using half

tones, as they are easier to count.

Back to our explanation, the good thing to know, is that the distance from the first to

the last note is 7 keys (not including the first key that you play), which means that

you're now ready to build the Fifth interval on ANY key!

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Let's do an example; if you wanted build a D Fifth Interval, you would play the D note:

…and then you would count up 7 Half‐tones starting from D.

In this way you would be able to build the D Fifth Interval by playing both

simultaneously:

I have created a chart for you, with all the Fifth Intervals in all 12 tonalities, so you can

master the Perfect Fifth interval in all keys. Please take a look at this chart on the next

page.


Page 54


If you play any Fifth interval, no matter what key you play it in, you’ll notice that the

Fifth interval produces a comfortable sound and apparently no tension. In this way,

you can be sure that if a Fifth interval is part of a chord, it will not add tension to that

chord.

While the formal name of this interval is “Perfect Fifth”, I have actually named this

interval as “Perfect Fifth” and “Fifth” indistinctly, and the latter is widely used

informally.

The reason why the “Perfect” is added to the name is because, as we will see on the

following lessons, there are other types of ‘Fifth intervals”, where the spacing changes

by a half tone. These are also sometimes referred to as augmented and diminished

fifth intervals, and so the word “Perfect” usually enforces that we’re talking about the

interval with the seven half tones that we have presented.

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The Major and Minor Third Intervals

Now that you understand the Fifth Interval, we can advance faster, and I can show you

the types of third Intervals so that you can start building complete triad chords. There

are two types of third intervals, which work with the perfect fifth to make a complete

triad.

However, before I show you how, let me first show you how the two types of third

intervals look like in the key of C:

Let’s look at another example in the key of F:

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As you see, they are very similar, with the difference being in a lowered note of a half

tone. The difference is one chord has a raised Third, while the other has a lowered

Third.

Again, you won’t need to memorize the notes of every Third interval in all keys. All

intervals follow a certain pattern, and if you count the number of notes from the first

to last note, in both the interval examples, respectively, you should notice they are the

same.

The two types of intervals that are used for Thirds are the “Major” and “Minor”

intervals. Just by knowing how the Major and Minor Intervals that are defined, you

should be able to master them on all keys.

Q: How are the major and minor third intervals defined?

If we define these intervals, we would have:

Major Third Interval: 4 Half Tones from the first to second note

Minor Third Interval: 3 Half Tones from the first to second note

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I have also prepared for you two interval charts to show you the Major and Minor‐

Third Interval on all keys so that you can practice.

Let’s first take a look at the Major Third Intervals on all keys.

Please go to the Major intervals chart on the following page.


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Remember that you can get to a minor third from a major third by lowering the second

note one half‐tone. In this way, take a look at the Minor Thirds Intervals on all keys.

Please take a look at the Minor Third Interval chart on the following page.


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Before moving down to triad chords, I want you to tell me if you think that the minor

and major third intervals cause tension or not.

Go ahead and play the D Major Third Interval, for example:

You’ll notice that the sound is quite pleasant with no sign of tension. You may try

playing the same interval type on different keys. Even when pitch changes, the sound

texture will feel the same, which should still feel pleasant or un‐disturbing.

Now, let’s experiment with the Minor Third Intervals. Go ahead and play an E Minor

Third Interval, for example:

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Although you’ll notice a change in the sound texture, quite more sad or melancholic,

you’ll still feel that the sound is pleasant or un‐disturbing. Again, that will be same, no

matter what key you play it in.

So for now, we could say that the Perfect Fifth, Major Third, and Minor Third Intervals

are intervals that do not cause tension and that usually sound pleasant or un‐

disturbing.

Now if I told you that the Major and Minor Triad Chords are actually made up of a

combination of these three intervals, would you be able to guess if the Major and

Minor triad chords will produce tension or not?

I know you already know the answer, but keep reading and we will go into that as soon

as I show you how to create the major and minor triad chords in any key.

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The Relationship Between Intervals and Chords

Now we get to the interesting part.

You already know that chords and intervals are closely related and that intervals are

actually the building blocks.

Even though intervals are usually stacked up to make chords, it’s useful to think about

the relationship of each of the notes of the chord in respect to the Root of the Chord.

The Root of the chord is simply the name for the first note of a chord.

If we had a C Triad Major Chord, for example:

The Root of C Major would be C.

The same works in any other complex example, for example a B m9b5 chord:

Still, B is the Root of B m9b5. Don’t worry about the chord naming, we’ll see those

chords in future lessons, but the concept I want you to get is that the Root is just the

first note of any chord, when the chord is in its ‘original’ position.

So the point is that you can think of chord as adding up several intervals, and can

predict how a chord will sound from this. This can be done with the intervals forming

at the root of the chord, as we’ll see in a minute.

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Before going into that, let me tell you about a very important characteristic of the

Minor and Major Third Intervals.

These intervals are actually really important, and have a special characteristic that

usually divides most scales and chords into two distinctive groups, in addition to the

division we made regarding the tension / relief.

If you listen to them on the piano, you'll perceive that while all of them sound pleasant

and un‐disturbing, the Fifth interval sounds neutral, the Minor interval usually sounds

a bit sad, melancholic, blue, or dark, while the major interval usually sounds happy,

cheerful, or playful.

As you already know, the above intervals don't produce tension and you might have

already figured out that neither the Major nor minor triad will be tension producing

chords. However, the last bit of information regarding the quality of the third will

become more useful in predicting more about the chords’ sound, as you’ll see next.

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Building the Major and Minor Triad Chords

So let's finally get into chords, and the two basic piano chords: Major and Minor

Chords.

Q: What is a chord?

A chord is usually defined as at least three notes played simultaneously, which means

that at least two intervals are played at the same time (with one note in common

between both intervals).

Before going to that explanation, let’s take a look at some examples of the Major and

Minor triad Chords.

Let’s see some major triad chords examples:

And now some Minor triad chords examples:

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As you can see both the Major and Minor chord triads are very similar. Again, you

don’t need to memorize the notes of every major and minor chord in every key. By

knowing the Perfect Fifth, Major Third, and Minor Third intervals, you’ll be able to

build up any major or minor chord on ANY key. Let’s see how this works.

Let’s see what would happen if I play a C Fifth Interval:

…And then ADD a third from the Root (from the first note as we mentioned before):

We would actually get a Major chord!

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Yes:

+

=

Therefore you can see that by knowing intervals, creating chords is just as easy.

The best part, is that not only will you be able to build any chord type on any key, using

this method of relating the intervals to chords, but will also be able to predict how

each chord will sound.

Let’s take a look at this now by playing the past examples.

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The major chord does not only sound pleasant, without producing tension, (as neither

the major third nor perfect are tension producing), but it also sounds quite cheerful,

happy, or playful, as it is composed by a major third interval, which has that nature.

The same easy procedure can be applied to build up all the Minor chords in ANY key:

Let’s play a C Fifth Interval:

And then ADD a Minor Third Interval from the Root:

And we actually get a Minor Chord!

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That’s right:

+

=

Page 70


Again, this chord not only sounds pleasant and non‐tension producing (as it’s

composed of a perfect fifth interval and a minor third), but also sounds quite sad,

melancholic, or dark, as it is built up from a minor third interval, which has that

nature.

Therefore, the quality of the intervals of a chord, really determines the quality of the

chord itself, and knowing more about the intervals, will let you become more

creative into creating your own chords, adding more tension, building a more

pleasant sound, or making a melancholic or happy mood.

Before we continue, let’s take a look at all the Major and Minor Triad Chords in the

following pages:



Page 73


The Relationship Between Intervals and More Complex Chords

Now that we’re done with the triad chords, let’s see what happens with more complex

chords and intervals.

The relationship between chords and intervals not only happens with 3 note chords.

Actually almost any chord that has a minor third will have a sad or melancholic feel,

and any chord that has a major third, will most likely have a more happy or upbeat

feel.

Complex chords are made up of more than three notes or may include different types

of intervals.

Just to give you an example, let me show you some more complex chords.

Play and compare the two following more complex chords and feel their sound. Both

are Seventh chords. This means that there is a fourth note that includes a Seventh

interval from the root, thus the name “Seventh Chords”. But you’ll probably feel that

the first one, that has a major third from the root, has a more upbeat sound, while the

second has a more mellow or sad sound, as it has a minor third from the root.

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Now do the same with the following Ninth Chords, another type of chord concept that

includes usually five notes. A ninth chord means that there will be an interval that is a

ninth above the root note. Again, the only other difference between both chords is the

chord’s third, which is major in the first one and minor in the second one.

Even though these chords contain more notes than the previous, each still has a

feeling of sadness/darkness or happiness/cheerfulness, and this is caused by the

quality of the third of the chord.

You’ll also feel both chords produce more tension, and are a bit more disturbing than

the major and minor triads.

Page 75


The reason is that they both have the Minor Seventh Interval, which is a tension‐

producing interval, while the second chord also has the Major Ninth Interval, which is

also tension‐producing interval.

Let’s see an example of the Minor Seventh Interval in C:

Do you feel the tension? Can you experience the clashing sound between the two

notes and an unpleasant sound?

So as you can see, the different intervals add color and tension to the chord, to

produce a different sound texture.

The previous chord type is actually called “dominant” chords, as they produced an

important amount of tension from the interval spacings, which ask for a resolution.

The seventh chord is widely used in Classical Music, while the ninth chord is used in

more Contemporary music such as Jazz and Blues. We’ll see how we can use these

chord types to build up the tension in our songs in the next lessons.

This division caused by the quality of the third interval is very important, and in this

way, all chords that have a minor third from the root are usually included into the

group of "Minor chords" and all the ones that have major thirds are included into the

group of "Major chords"

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Adding more intervals to a chord gives more complex moods and more interesting

chords.

Page 77


The Relationship Between Intervals and Scales

Intervals also have an important role in scales, and we can also divide them into

“Major Scales” and “Minor Scales”.

Similar to chords, if a scale has a major third interval from the root, then it’s usually

categorized as a “Major Scale”.

If the scale has a minor third interval from the root, then it’s usually categorized as a

“Minor Scale”.

So as you can see, practically the same rules that work with chords can be applied to

scales. Even more, the third interval affects the mood or sound of the scale, in a similar

fashion it does with chords.

Let’s compare some examples:

If you examine carefully both examples, you’ll notice that there is only one difference

between them. The first one contains a major third interval from the root (colored),

while the second one contains a minor third interval from the root (also colored).

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Now if you play these two scales from the first note to the last note, in order, you’ll

notice that the first one has more cheerful or upbeat sound –as it’s a “Major Scale”

(has a major third from the root) ‐ while the second one has a more sad, dark, or

melancholic sound as it’s a “Minor Scale” (has a minor third from the root).

So as you can see, changing the quality of the third interval also changes the mood or

sound of the scale, in a similar way it works with chords.

As an aside, you can appreciate from the image’s footer that the Jazz Minor is widely

used in Jazz licks. So if you want to have some fun, you might as well give it a try .

Now we’re going to look at another interesting example, but this time with a five‐note

scale. We previously mentioned at our formal definition, that scales usually have seven

notes. The reason we used the word usually is because there are some exceptions, and

the following is one of them:

This scale is named “Pentatonic Minor” scale (“Penta” = five, hence the name).

However, it’s more widely known simply as the “Chinese” Scale. You might be

wondering why is it called Chinese Scale? Believe me; it will be very easy for you to

Page 79


figure it out once you play it on your piano. I suggest you go ahead and give it a try

right now.

The great thing about this scale is that it’s very easy to play; by just using the black

keys of your keyboard you’ll get a real Oriental sound.

Now take a look at the scale right below it, the Pentatonic Major Scale. Even though

it’s on a different key, it really has the same structure as the previous scale, but has a

minor third interval instead of a major third interval, from the root.

You’ll appreciate that just that small ‘architectonic’ change produces a different mood

on the scale.

So it’s interesting to know, that independent of how many notes the scale has, the

third interval always plays a very important role.

Make sure that when you try out the different scales that you give some attention to

where the scale begins, as usually the first note of the scale is the most important one.

This first note is like the ‘home’ of the scale, usually named as the ‘root’ note of the

scale. You’ll discover that if you play the same scale in ascending and then descending

order, from a different starting point, then the scale will indeed sound different and

have a different mood or characteristic depending on the note you choose to begin

with. Regardless of that, that doesn’t mean you need to play all the scales in order,

from beginning to end without changing anything‐ because that could be plain boring

.

But instead‐ try building up any melody your ear tells you, but for now try that by

starting on the scale’s first note and finishing on the same note, while doing any

movement you want in the middle. Highlighting the first note –the root note‐ in this

way, and making it the concluding point, will give your ear a stronger feeling that

you’re actually playing a melody based on that scale and key that you’re trying (and so

Page 80


that you get familiar with more technical terms, this is also called ‘establishing

tonality’). We’ll see more about that in the next lessons.

Page 81


Mastering the Major and Minor Triad Chords

To start mastering all these music concepts, you should first be able to play the major

and minor chords in all keys. I am sure that by now you already know how to build

them on any key, by using the intervals formula, but it's also very important that you

play them on the piano.

Simple major and minor chords are almost 90% of many classical piano pieces and pop

songs, so you should definitely know them well.

For this purpose, now that you understand how intervals are related to chords, let’s

review the two major and minor triad‐chord charts I’ve shown you previously.

Please continue to the following page.



Page 84


The good thing about this is that once you now understand where the chords come

from and how they work, you don't need to memorize them.

Page 85


PART 3

Mastering Intervals and Chords

DISCOVER THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INTERVALS AND CHORDS AND TO BE ABLE TO PREDICT HOW A CHORD

WILL SOUND BEFORE EVEN PLAYING IT.

Page 86


Get Familiar with the Rest of the Music Intervals

Once you have the basics of intervals down, you can begin to find other intervals that

carry more tension or offer more release. Knowing what these alternatives are can

help you to build more on the pieces you are learning and can help you to hear music

differently.

Take a look at all the common Intervals in C


…Continues on the next page…


…Continued from the previous page…

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Following are the most common intervals that are used to build tension.

We have already seen the basic intervals; however without getting any deeper yet, it

would be a good idea for you to get familiar with the rest of the common intervals.

We’ll study each of these intervals in the depth as we move along! :)

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The Second Intervals

There are two 2nd intervals, major and minor. The minor is the same as a half tone and

the major 2nd is the same as a whole tone. This interval is known as one of the most

tense intervals and can be used repeatedly in order to build suspense.

I think you’ll completely agree that this interval sounds like Alfred Hitchcock’s

“Psycho” movie, right on the shower scene, when the actress is about to get killed by

the evil murderer.

Play the following on your piano:

How does it sound?

Play it repeatedly on the upper octaves of your piano. Do it many times.

You might also want to feel the same interval type on a different key. You’ll experience

the same sound type, but on a different pitch:

Page 90


I am sure you’ve had enough of that sound, and I think you’ll completely agree that the

Minor Second interval can really produce some terrifying and disturbing tension.

Nevertheless, if you were to make a complete song or music piece by just playing this

interval type, even if you changed keys, I am sure neither you nor your listeners would

appreciate it.

A sound that is not as tense, but still holds a similar build up of tension is the major

2nd.

Page 91


The Seventh Intervals

Let’s see some more examples of other intervals type that produce tension: the 7th

Interval.

This interval is a 7th from the root note, with either 10 half tones or 11 half tones

moving up from the root, depending if it is minor or major. Like the 2nd interval, the

7th is used for the clashes, anticipations and builds of tension.

You can expect the Major Seventh interval to stay as disturbing as the Hitchcock

interval. You might feel that the two notes audibly clash with each other, and that the

sound seems restless or uncomfortable.

Try the same interval type on other keys:

You might be wondering how do we know it’s the same interval type, even if it’s on a

different key? Easy, same as we did with the rest previous intervals, count the number

Page 92


of notes from the first to the last note, in each of the three examples. You’ll notice it’s

the same for all three examples, thus defining the Major Seventh Interval type. In this

way, when you play the same interval type in different keys, you’ll get the same

sound color but on a different pitch.

Now let’s move into other ‘tension‐producing’ Intervals that are less ‘stressful’ or have

more release: the Minor Seventh Intervals.

Even you still feel tension and a restless or uncomfortable sound; you’ll notice that

the Minor Seventh Intervals actually holds less tension than the Major Seventh

Intervals:

Let’s play the Minor Seventh and Major Seventh Intervals and compare them:

You may still feel them uncomfortable or stressful, but I hope you’ll agree that while

both are tension‐producing intervals, the Minor Seventh Intervals sounds a bit more

pleasant than the latest.

Page 93


So as you can see there are different levels of creating tension.

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The Tritone Interval

The Tritone is one of the most important tension‐producing intervals, and is

considered to be one of the most crucial elements in music from Classical to Jazz

because of the amount of tension it uses.

Let’s listen to its sound:

This interval still produces a restless, uncomfortable, or unstable sound, and

constitutes one of the main ways of creating tension in the Classical era, while widely

used in Jazz and Blues. Understanding how this interval creates tension will actually

let you understand how many music passages work as it’s widely used in Classical

music and also on most contemporary music styles, such as Jazz or Blues. Mastering it,

will let you get into applying advanced composing tricks in the upcoming lessons.

Page 95


Combining Tense Intervals into Chords

I am sure you have had enough of tension producing intervals, and you probably be

wondering: why is he making me play these interval types, if I am not planning to learn

composing for a horror movie?

Well, as you have seen in the past chapters, the truth is that these intervals are usually

not played alone, but played combined with other notes, thus forming chords. These

additional notes soften their tension‐ producing quality and combine it with their own

colors to produce different sound textures that can be very pleasant to the ear. In this

way, the intervals that produce tension are usually softened by their context and

thus all these intervals I showed you are used in many music styles, being the more

dissonant ones used especially in contemporary music.

Let me show you how this works by playing the C7 chord, which contains the Minor

Seventh Interval:

You’ll notice that even though the Minor Seventh Interval alone sounds clashing and

disturbing, once it’s played along the other non‐tense interval types, the overall result

is much more pleasant and smoothing, while still adding some tension into the music.

Following these lines, and knowing now that chords are made of intervals of different

characteristics, it’s easier to figure out which chords produce tension and which ones

produce release.

As you can see, the mixtures of intervals that are put together create the sound that is

needed to drive the music forward, through both suspense and romance.

Page 96


In about a minute, we’ll use all these information to create our own chords…

Page 97


Creating Your Own Chords

Now that you know the fundamentals of how chords are built, you can build your own

chords out of the intervals that you have learned.

When you begin putting together your own chords, you can do it just like you are

putting together a recipe with the different intervals. This gives you a way to see how

the intervals can fit together to make a perfect mix.

Begin with deciding on whether you will choose a major or minor third. If you aren't

sure, decide whether you want the chord to be melancholic or cheerful. This will give

you the basis of your new chords.

After deciding this, you can decide if you want the chord to have tension or if you

want it have a more pleasant sound. As you go, you will learn which intervals have

more tension and which have a more pleasant sound. As long as you use the interval

chart as a reference, with the common intervals in place, you should be able to find

which sounds fit better into different places.

When you do this, let your ear decide on what the best movements are between the

intervals. If you want to replace the fifth interval and have one that creates more

tension, try moving up or down a whole tone or half tone in order to change the feel.

You can also add in more notes, such as the sixth or the seventh intervals, so that you

can create even more tension with the song. But never forget; allow the ear some

release by the end of your piece.

Page 98


PART 4

Summary of Music Fundamentals

DISCOVER HOW TO CREATE MELANCHOLIC OR

CHEERFUL MOODS WITH YOUR CHORDS AND HOW TO

PRACTICE ON YOUR PIANO

Page 99


Lesson Summary

Let’s get a summary of all we have learned throughout this lesson:

Music is the balance between tension and release.

When you know how tension builds on intervals, you can predict how a chord

will sound before you play it.

When you understand how to use intervals, you can create your own chords.

The Octave = same note in a higher pitch.

Perfect Fifth Interval = two notes separated by 7 Half‐tones.

Major Third Interval = two notes separated by 4 Half‐tones.

Minor Third Interval = two notes separated by 3 Half‐tones (or one note less

than a Major Third Interval).

Major Chord = Perfect Fifth + Major Third Interval.

Minor Chord = Perfect Fifth + Minor Third Interval (or build up a Major chord

and lower the third interval one note).

Minor Third Interval usually sounds a bit sad, melancholic, blue, or dark while

the Major Interval usually sounds happy, cheerful, or playful.

Knowing this will help you to predict how a chord or scale, that contains any of

these two intervals, will sound.

Page 100


The qualities of the intervals of a chord, determine the mood of the chord

itself.

All chords that have a minor third from the root are included in the group

"Minor chords" and all chords that have a major third from the root are

included in the group "Major chords", independent of how many notes they

have.

All scales that have a minor third from the root are included in the group

"Minor Scales" and all scales that have a major third from the root are included

in the group "Major Scales", independent of how many notes they have.

It's very important you practice these chords on the piano and know them well; they

will be useful for our next lessons involving how to harmonize scales (that is useful for

composing and improvising) as well for playing many songs.

Page 101


How to Practice on Your piano

Q: How to Practice?

Print out the piano chord and interval charts that are in the appendix of this lesson,

and practice on your piano by following routine with the piano charts in front of you:

1. Play all the Fifth Intervals chromatically (note by note) first in ascending order

and then in descending order. This is the same as playing the perfect fifth

intervals from the interval chart from left to right, and then in reverse order.

2. Play all the Third Major Intervals chromatically ascending and descending.

Again, this is the same as playing the major third intervals from the interval

chart from left to right, and then in reverse order.

3. Play all the Major Chords chromatically, first in ascending and then descending

order. Do this by mentally joining the Fifth + Major Third interval together. Use

the chord charts to practice.

4. Play all the Minor Third Intervals chromatically ascending and descending.

Picture the major third interval and lower a half‐tone as you practice them.

5. Last Practice all the minor chords by playing them in ascending and then in

descending order. Do this by mentally joining the Fifth + Minor Third intervals

together. Use the chord chart to practice.

6. For all of these, try also playing them in a random order, to see if you can

remember each of them without looking back on the chart.

7. Create your own chords. Without worrying about the chord names, try

creating your own chords out of the intervals that you have learned.

Page 102


Make sure you know them well so that you are well prepared for our next lessons!

Page 103


Creating Cheerful and Melancholic Moods with Chords

Ok, that's all for this lesson.

I hope you enjoyed the lesson and you got a new perspective on how to build up

chords, and their relationships with intervals, and that you have a better

understanding of why they sound like they do.

With this short knowledge, you already know that if you want to create a sad

melancholic song you'll need to use minor chords, and that you would probably play

your melody on a Minor Scale, while if you're looking for a cheerful song, your song

will contain almost all major chords and you’ll probably be using a Major Scale to play

your tunes.

If you read this again, you’ll see that it’s quite a powerful and very simple concept that

will help you for composing and improvising your first simple music pieces and songs.

Real soon…. in the next lessons!

Page 104


Time to Join the Conversation!

Ask Questions & Leave us Feedback

…So tell me, what do you think of this book?

We have spent several months working on this one‐hundred pages book for you, so I

hope you’ll agree it was worth the read – and that you got great value out of it.

So if you enjoyed this lesson and it helped you in any way, I would deeply appreciate if

you let me know by leaving a message on our blog and I also encourage you to share

it with other people.

For me it’s very important to know that this lesson has been useful to you, and I would

love to answer any questions of anything you’d like me to explain further. I’d

appreciate knowing if you found this lesson too easy or too hard, so as to make

adjustments for the upcoming lessons.

If you benefited at all from this book, you can help us in two ways:

1. By going to our blog and posting your comments you can also help others

understand how this report helped you. Just go to the following blog post

now, and tell me and everyone else what you think of our book “Music

Fundamentals”:

Click here to Join the Conversation with and other Pianists!

2. Help us spread the word, and at the same time help your friends. Share our

site with your beloved ones!


Page 105


I am also looking forward to getting to know more about you as well. ;o)

So if you’d like to leave a comment or question on our blog about this book, please

join the conversation here:

www.PianoEncyclopedia.com/members/MusicFundamentals‐Talk

If you liked this book, let me tell you that this is just the tip of the iceberg. If you

enjoyed learning from this book, wait once you get to try our Digital Home‐Study

Course “The Logic Behind Music” with animations, sound, and piano recordings; the

integrated Community that will let you interact with other students and share your

recordings and compositions; and our interactive chord, scale, and interval piano

charts with more than 1000 pages of learning content, and over 3000 piano

animations with sound. All this content has been designed to teach you how to play

the piano freedom: improvise, create your own music, and play by ear without

depending on music sheet or memorization.

The main difference between this book and our Digital Home‐Study Course “The Logic

Behind Music”, is that our Digital Home‐Study Course is completely interactive and

goes way beyond the content covered in this book. It starts with a review of everything

you learned in this book ‐using more in‐depth examples‐ and then takes you step by

step –with on‐screen interactive examples‐ from how to play simple songs up to how

to improvise, create your own music, and play by ear.

I invite you to check out the video‐tour:

Click here to watch a video‐tour of our Digital Home Study Course



Page 106


Thank you for reading this book, and in the name of the whole team, I deeply thank

your support to The Piano Encyclopedia!

Best Wishes,

Rod Schejtman

________________________________________

CEO & Founder of The Piano Encyclopedia


Email: [email protected]

Page 107


The Next Lessons…

With our Digital Home‐Study Course “The Logic Behind Music” we will start by first

reviewing everything we learned on this book, but with more in‐depth examples, and

using multimedia content: interactive piano animations, sound recordings, and

animated piano‐charts.

After learning to play several songs using chords, we will learn about the relationship

between chords and scales, and how we can use this knowledge to harmonize any

scale. By being able to harmonize any scale –on any key‐ we will understand how

music works. With this new knowledge, we will review all the songs that we learned,

and discover why those songs sound “good”, and why the composers choose those

chords or melodies that we played before. We will have a new vision of how music

works –in a practical way‐ and we will be able to understand how chord progressions

are used in any music piece to create tension or relief.

With these new skills, we will not only be able to analyze existing music pieces or

songs, but also learn how to play by ear, improvise, and compose our own music

pieces. After discovering how some songs ‘work’ we will be using this knowledge to

create our own chord progressions. We will learn how to use different chords to create

interesting chord progressions on any key, and we will be able to see, listen, and

interact with examples taken from real‐world songs from famous composers. Once we

have mastered how to combine chords together to create an interesting harmony, we

will learn how to create our own melodies to go with our harmony.

We will be finally create our first improvisations and compose our first musical

pieces, guided by step by step animated interactive examples that include sound.

After mastering the fundamental concepts learned, we will even learn to predict which

notes will cause tension and which ones would cause release without even playing

them, given a certain melody or harmony. In this way we would not only be able to

Page 108


predict which parts of a song have more tension, but also which set of chords are a

good match for any given melody –and vice versa‐ without even touching the piano

keyboard. The most interesting part is that we will be able to do this not thanks to the

use of rules, but because we will have a true understanding of the relationship that

exists between chords and scales.

This new knowledge will help us to develop “playing by ear” skills, as we will be able

to determine which set of chords and notes would go well in a song, by just

determining the scale that the song is in. This will help us to “pick up a song by ear”,

as we will know beforehand, which chords will be a good match.

Finally, we will learn more advanced techniques to improve our piano playing, and our

ability to improvise, create our own music, and play without depending on sheet

music.

We will learn advanced chords and how we can use them, and we will even discover

how to create our own chords – even four (or more) notes chords‐ by understanding

the relationship between intervals and chords. After taking these lessons, you will not

be afraid of any strange chord names that are usually found on lead sheets, and by

understanding how intervals work (and which ones produce tension), you will be able

to predict how chords sound, before you even play them (you will be able to predict if

they will be tension‐generating or not, depending on the context). With this

knowledge you will be able to enrich your chord progressions and create more

interesting music.

Last, but not least, you will learn about voicings, chord inversions, and how to use a

smooth voice leading to add quality sound to your playing by making a soft transition

between chords. This will improve your piano playing in a very radical way. We will see

animated examples with sound that will show you how to use this new technique with

the previous songs we covered, and also how you can apply it to your own

improvisations and compositions.

Page 109


At the end of the course we will review all the concepts and show you how to create

your own composition through examples that combine all the techniques taught

throughout the entire course.

After each section of the course, you will also be given Interactive Practice Booklets,

so you can practice on your piano, along with practice routines. In addition to that,

you will also be provided with multimedia Reference Books that include all the

fundamental chords, scales, and intervals on interactive piano‐charts with sound.

Included with the course, you will also find The Piano Encyclopedia’s Ear Training

Suite, which is a set of ear training games with more than twenty levels that will help

you recognize chords, scales, and intervals by ear so you can improve or develop

playing by ear skills; and The Piano Encyclopedia’s Sight Reading Suite, which is a set

of music reading games that will help you instantly recognize chords, intervals, and

notes, using on‐screen interactive exercises, so you can develop sight reading skills by

playing interactive music reading games.

To make the experience complete, you will also be able to use The Piano

Encyclopedia’s Community, which is integrated into our course. With your

membership, you will be able to interact with other students, ask questions, share

your progress, enjoy a piano gallery with over 1000 videos, and even participate in

music contests.

If you liked this book, I invite you to check out a video where you will find more

information about our Digital Home‐Study Course “The Logic Behind Music”, and I

hope that you decide to continue your lessons with us:

Click here to watch a video‐tour of our Digital Home Study Course

I also invite you to read some of the comments we have received from students like

you. Here I am posting actual screenshots of some of the messages we received

through our blog, our community, and through email:


Page 110


Page 111


Page 112


We have hundreds of testimonials from our students. You can read them all here:

Click here to read more Testimonials

… and make sure you watch the Video‐Tour of our Digital Home‐Study Course:

Click here to watch the video‐tour of our Digital Home‐Study Course


http://pianoencyclopedia.com/testimonials/

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