The GOLDEN RULES for Perfect Chords on the Piano

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, Robert Estrin.

Today is about the golden rules for perfect chords on the piano. You ever hear somebody play and everything sounds so beautiful and sometimes you try to get nice sounding chords on the piano, whether it's written music or improvised music and you wonder why do some chords sound great and other chords just clash and don't sound good? And you know what, it's amazing it's being in harmony with nature, believe it or not. Have you ever heard of the overtone series? The fact of the matter is all the music you hear whenever there's a musical instrument, as a matter of fact any pitched sound, it doesn't even have to be a musical instrument.

The fundamental pitch is only part of the story just like when you see different colors, they're comprised of several different colors. It's not just pure one type of color. It's the same thing because if you just heard the fundamental tone without the color tones that make music and sounds interesting, it would sound like this.

Now that's a pure sine wave with no overtones. Listen to it again how boring it is.

You listen to it in a different octave and you hear same idea.

You probably all heard that with test tones and things like that.

Absolute pure sound with no overtones. I've demonstrated this on the piano how you can actually prove that there's overtones by striking lower notes and sympathetically the higher notes will vibrate if you release the dampers as follows.

Push this C down and play this one hard.

The next overtone is this one.

Isn't it interesting how you hear this note even though I'm playing this one? So this is the overtone in a nutshell and if you want to know what the pattern actually is, you'll notice something about it that's really important that relates to how to make chords sound good on the piano which is the overtones start out higher above the fundamental tone and they get closer and closer together. So here's a complete overtone series for you.

And from here on in it's all half steps. So that is the overtone series in a nutshell. Now what does this have to do with chords? Well when you play chords voiced with the notes far apart from the bottom note to the next note it has a very pleasing sound. When you play chords in the left hand with a melody you don't get a very very pretty sound.

Now that's a really simplistic example of this but let me show you the derivation of western harmony in a nutshell.

It all is derived from Bach chorales and vocal writing and listen to how the Bach chorales have this spacing between the bass that is the lowest note and the higher notes getting a very pleasing sound.

So it's the same thing if you played happy birthday or whatever little tune.

It sounds a lot better that way doesn't it? Well you can't even imagine how pervasive this is in almost all the music you hear and play. For example if I were to play a second movement of Beethoven's Patetique Sonata you all know it. It sounds like this. I'll play just the beginning for you.

Now here's where it gets interesting. Instead of playing those 16th notes if I play this in block chords watch how the voicing is just like the Bach chorales and influenced by the overtone series itself.

Look at the spacing here between the bass and the rest of the notes.

So you can see how the overtone series is a fact of nature and when you voice your chords in balance with nature it just sounds better. Otherwise you get these clusters of tones that's hard for you even to hear. It sounds like a bunch of mush whereas when you space out the bass note and then play the rest of the underlying chords in the right hand what a sound you create. Try it when you're playing any kind of chord progression from a simple type of establishing the key.

Whatever chords you play.

Compared to...

Doesn't sound very good that way does it? Much better. So remember to keep your chords in balance with nature the overtone series itself from Bach chorales to Beethoven to contemporary music. It all has to sound beautiful by having space between the lowest note and the rest of the chords. Play the chords under the melody with your right hand and you will get a rich rewarding sound and I want you to all of you classical players out there study your scores and you'll see how completely pervasive this is in all music from even before Bach to 20th century and beyond. I hope you enjoyed this I'm Robert Estrin this is LivingPianos your online piano resource. We'll see you next time.

Find the original source of this video at this link: https://livingpianos.com/the-golden-rules-for-perfect-chords-on-the-piano/

Automatic video-to-text transcription by DaDaScribe.com

Thank you for your comment, question or request!

Comment/Question deleted successfully.

Post a comment, question or special request:

Comments or questions must be between 3 and 10,000 characters long.

You may: Login  or  

Otherwise, fill out the form below to post your comment:

Add your name below:


Add your email below: (to receive replies, will not be displayed or shared)


For verification purposes, please enter the word MUSIC in the field below

---