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Just like anything else, this may seem like a difficult exercise at first. It’s very similar to an artist who is learning to draw. At first they have to learn to draw straight lines, circles and other geometric objects. The temptation is to get frustrated, skip the learning curve, and say “I guess I’m just not cut out for this”. But the artist who sticks with it and hangs onto the promise that they eventually will be able to create beautiful things is the one who will really become successful.

A similar analogy in the music world is from Charlie Parker- he was one of the greatest jazz saxophone players of all time. His advice to musicians was to “Study, learn as much as you can, practice, practice, and then when you get out there on the stage, forget everything and just blow!”

So today, in this piano lesson, I’m going to give you many different techniques that you can use when you’re learning to add chords to melodies. Eventually, you won’t even be thinking about these different techniques – eventually this skill will be as natural as breathing to you. But for now, it’s time to dig in and study this piano lesson!

Before we dig into the techniques that you can use to match up chords with different melodies, the first thing you have to do is find out the “key” of the song.

In order to do this, you first have to be able to distinguish between higher and lower notes on the piano. In addition, you need to be able to accurately hear “intervals”, or distances between notes.

If you can’t do these things, you may have had some cruel person in your life say that you’re “tone deaf” and you’ll never become a musician. People can be so cruel!

Unfortunately, the label “tone deaf” has been stuck on way too many people, discouraging them from a life of music. Distinguishing between the different notes of the piano simply by using your ears is not a mysterious skill that God gave to just a few people, it’s a skill that can be taught.

So don’t be discouraged- If you fancy yourself as one of those people who can’t “carry a tune in a bucket”, we’ve got a fantastic piano lessons ear training program for you. If that’s you, take a break from this lesson and check out “Ear Training 101” at: PlayPianoTODAY.com/et

So now if you’re still listening, I’m going to assume you’ve gone through the ear training program and have got your ears all tuned up!

The concept of finding what key a song is in involves learning to find the “tonic” of the song. This is nothing more than a fancy music theory term that refers to the note that is the most important, or significant note in a song. Once you have found this “tonic” note, you’ll be able to find the key that the song is in.

Some music theory teachers will call this “tonic note” the “home base” or “resting note” of a song. This is because when the song is beginning, the first chord is usually built on this “tonic note”. And then when the song is over and done, it usually comes to rest on a chord built on this same “tonic note”.

Remember that I said this “tonic note” is also referred to as the “home base” or a “resting note”, because songs usually seem to rest naturally on this “tonic note”, which is the most important note of the song. We’ll talk more about that later.

Now you probably noticed that I used the word “usually”. Just like every other field of study, music has some general rules, but it also has some exceptions. But because we’re starting very simply in this lesson, we’re going to ignore the exceptions and stick with the examples that happen most of the time. We’ll stick with the “usual” examples. Once we get into some of the advanced studies, we’ll look at some of the exceptions. Now let’s go back and study that “tonic note”.

I know this will probably seem obvious, but there are only 12 different notes on the piano. The good news is that the tonic note of any song in the world is one of these 12 notes! So your odds of finding it by accident are pretty decent. But seriously, at first, it will take a while until you can start learning to hear this tonic note! When you first start learning this technique, you’ll find yourself playing through those 12 notes until you find the note that is the most significant note at the beginning and the end of the song, and from there, finding the key of the song.

Let’s take some simple melodies, check out the beginning and end points, and see which note seems to be the most significant note at the beginning and end of the melody. This will usually be the tonic note, and will usually give us a clue as to what key the song is in.

Here’s a really important point when you’re looking at the beginning of a song:

The first note or notes you hear may be what’s called “pickup notes”. This means that the song may have notes in the melody that happen even before the downbeat of the song.

The downbeat of the song is where you would first start playing chords underneath your melody.

[ transcript note: piano music plays in video here ]

Not all songs have these mysterious “pickup notes”, but you need to learn to recognize them, because “pickup notes” don’t usually help us in our search for the tonic note of the song.

[ transcript note: piano music plays in video here ]

Once you have found this most significant note, you’re ready to confirm what key that the song is in. To find the “key” of a song, you need to find both the “Tonic Note” as well as the “Mode” of the song.

If you’ve been a musician for awhile, you may have heard of the term “Mode”. Some musicians really dive into “Modes” in a big way, and they explore all of the many different modes available – and there are quite a few.

However, in western music, we deal with two modes primarily – the “Major” mode and the “minor” mode. You probably have heard these referred to as “Major keys” and “minor keys”.

So let’s take that last song as an example – we found the tonic note, which was “D”, and now we need to find out whether the mode of the song is “Major” or “minor”.

Once again, this is a usually a pretty simple process. Of course there are exceptions, but this general rule will usually work perfectly: Take the last musical phrase of the song… – “as we used to long ago…” and when you get to that last note of the song (which is the tonic note), try forming a Major chord and see if it sounds correct. If not, try a minor chord and see how that sounds. When you have tried both and found which one fits better, you usually will have found the key of the song. Remember that “Key” is a combination of the Tonic note as well as the mode (major or minor)

Confused? If this is over your head at this point, you need to go through our piano lessons course titled “Pattern Piano and Keyboard”.

In this piano lessons course, we go through the intricacies of what it means to play minor or major chords. If you have not yet gone through “Pattern Piano and Keyboard”, you can find it here.

Again, I’m going to assume that you’ve gone through that piano lessons course and have a solid handle on what major and minor means.

So to recap, by now, you’ve found what key the song is in, and have found out whether it is a major or a minor key.

To take a chapter from modern psychology, up to this point we’ve been in “right brain” territory. I’m not quite sure how much stock I put in all of it, but modern psychology says that the right side of a brain is the creative part. This is the part of your brain that listens to melodies and chords as an art form.

Now we are going to jump over to the other side of your skull and put your left brain to work. Ha. As you may know, the left side of your brain is the side which is more analytical, or mathematical. I guess if I had to choose, I’d keep my right brain.

So now that we’re in solid left brain territory, let me lay out something for you: There are specific chords that exist in major and minor keys.

[ transcript note: piano music plays in video here ]

Jumping ahead in the piano lesson…

If you had determined that the key of your song was C minor, the chords would be:

i,ii,III,iv,v,VI,VII -

Here’s an odd ball rule that 99% of the musicians of this world don’t get – this is a musical nugget that you’ll find yourself using many times in the coming years.

When composers create a melody that is in a minor key, many times they will specify a Major V chord, even though the normal V chord is minor. Why? Because the seventh tone of the scale (B Natural in this case) is so very important as it leads back to the tonic note. The seventh note of the scale is called the leading tone because it leads up to the next tonic.

Now be careful, that last paragraph was a gem – go back and listen to it again. It’s that important!

I’m not sure if I say this often enough, but there are exceptions to these rules. When you get into advanced jazz or rhythm and blues music, or when a song changes keys, or when you’re talking about classical music with lots of chromaticism, of course there will be exceptions. But we’re talking about the vast majority of songs that you’ll play on the piano. They usually conform to the basic rules we’re laying out in this piano lesson. This is a great place to start.

Let me take just a second and encourage you – this is foundational music theory. Don’t skip what I’m saying, because once you understand this concept, your understanding of chords and how they fit together in songs will increase dramatically.

Finding the chords to match the melody:

Jumping ahead in the piano lesson…

To be honest, many people get by just by using this first technique. Once you’ve nailed down the key of a song and know whether it’s major or minor, and have narrowed the choices down to only seven chords, you can quickly get a feel for which of those chords go with any particular note of the melody.

[ transcript note: keyboard plays in video here ]

Piano Lessons Technique Number Two:

Jumping ahead in the piano lesson…

[ transcript note: piano music plays in video here ]

Number Three: “Clues from the melody”:

So far, we know which seven chords belong to the key (and the mode) of the song. In addition we know which three chords show up most commonly.

Now, we’re going to fire up the left half of the brain and start doing some analyzing to really help us nail down which chords go with the melody.

First, we’ve got to talk about rhythm and the concept of strong vs. weak pulses in music.

As you probably know, in musical rhythm, a song is divided into something called “measures”. If you can repeatedly count to four underneath your melody, you can say that each measure in your melody has four beats. If you can repeatedly count to three underneath your melody, you can say that each measure in your melody has three beats.

Sometimes a musician will say “this song is in four” if there are four beats in each measure, or “this song is in three” if there are three beats in each measure. Songs “in four” are by far much more common than songs “in three”. The funny thing is that the song I’m using for this lesson is actually in three.

Just a side note: in other cultures, many songs have rhythms that are called “asymmetrical rhythms”. This means that they may have five or even seven beets in each measure. This is super unusual in western music, probably because you can’t dance to it without breaking your leg! Jazz players like to really stretch people’s heads by playing songs in five or seven. Probably one of the most notable is a jazz piece by Dave Brubeck called “Take Five”. Check it out and count along – it’s pretty interesting.

So once again we’re going to talk about the examples that “usually happen”. Let’s talk about songs that have four beats per measure, then we’ll talk about songs that have three beats per measure.

Within each measure of four beats, there are strong and weak pulses. The interplay between strong and weak pulses is what makes rhythm come to life.

Let’s take a look at it:

For songs that have four beats for measure, beat number one is the strongest pulse. The next strongest pulse is beat number three. Beats number two and four are considered weaker pulses.

For songs that have three beats per measure, beat number one is the strongest pulse. The next strongest pulse is beat number three. Beat number two is considered the weak pulse.

Here’s how this helps us to find out which chords go with any given melody:

The melody notes that occur on the strong pulses of the measure usually (there’s that word again) will define what chord should be played.

Let’s take for instance the song “amazing grace”. This song has three beats per measure.

The first two notes of the melody are G and A. These two notes in the song are called “pickup notes” and happen before the first beat of the first measure.

If you simply start counting to three you’ll see that the pickup notes happen before you get to beat one.

[ transcript note: keyboard plays in video here ]

The note that occurs on the downbeat of the song is the note C. Let’s run to the end of the song and see what the last note is.

Jumping ahead in the piano lesson…

[ transcript note: keyboard plays in video here ]

So using the technique called “clues from the melody” we have determined that the chord in the first measure is C major. What about those two extra notes at the end of the first measure?

[ transcript note: keyboard plays in video here ]

These notes don’t occur on beats one or three, the strong pulses of the measure. They don’t even occur on beat two, which is the weakest pulse of the measure. These notes occur between beat three and beat one of the next measure.

Notes that happen between beats are considered extremely weak pulses. Most of the time, they are not part of a chord in all. They are simply called “passing tones” because they pass between chords. So for the purposes of learning which chords should be played, you can usually safely ignore any passing tones.

Let’s do the same thing now on measure two:

On the first beat, the strongest pulse, we have the note E. On the third beat, the second strongest pulse, we have a D.

Both of those notes would suggest different chords. So which note should we choose? When you have a situation like this, you can usually safely choose the note that happens on the stronger of the two pulses. This would be the first beat, which is the note E.

So even though that D on the third beat is a still relatively strong pulse, it got trumped by the strongest pulse of all – beat number one. So we’re going to have to say that the C is a chord tone and the D is a passing tone. So we’ll play a C Major chord – just like the first measure.

On to the third measure:

This is going to be an interesting measure. On the first beat we have the note C and on the third beat we have the note A. If you just looked at the first beat you might think that the chord in this measure should be a C major chord. But the note which happens on the third beat will fit into one of the chords that C also fits into.

Remember the three most basic chords!

The IV chord has the notes F, A and C. Let’s try playing what we have so far and when we get to the third measure we will use that for chord and see how it sounds.

[Video]

On to the fourth measure:

The only note that shows up here, on both beats one and three is the note G. G will fit into two of those common chords: both C major as well as G major.

Now even though we’re pretty solidly in left brain territory here, analyzing everything as we go, don’t forget that your right brain is still connected!

Jumping ahead in the piano lesson…

Measure 15 and 16 – the only note is a C. So you could be very basic and play a C Major chord for measure 15 and 16. However C does fit within both the I chord as well as the IV chord.

A very common technique in gospel music is to do something called a IV-I cadence at the end of a song. This is nothing more than meaning a common ending that can be dropped on the end of songs. When you have notes at the end of melodies that fall within both the I chord as well as the IV chord, you can use both chords in a row to give a typical gospel feel.

[ transcript note: piano music plays in video here ]

Advanced Concepts are in Chapter 2 of this series.