Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman and in this lesson we're going to learn how to play
diatonic chords and inversions in the key of C minor. Let's come to the piano to get started.
First let's review what the word diatonic means.
Diatonic simply means it belongs to that key that you're in.
For example, in the key of C minor these keys that I'm touching
are diatonic in C natural minor. They belong in the key of C minor just like you belong in your family.
So you are diatonic to your family.
Now, in the key of C natural minor, these keys are diatonic and any other key, for example, F-sharp
would not be diatonic in that key. It would be like inviting a friend over for dinner.
You can have them show up, and sometimes in the key of C minor you can throw in some extra notes, sometimes
they're just, they're visitors, they're not diatonic to that key.
So, when we play the diatonic chords of C minor,
these are the only notes we will choose from.
I should say specifically C natural minor because right now that's the key that we're using right now that's the key that we're using.
So, let's try together to play and name out loud the chords.
The diatonic chords of C minor starting with the i chord. So, using your right hand try this along with me.
And we're going to say out loud C minor I chord. Now you try.
Good, now for the ii chord can you figure out what you would play next?
Remember every one of these notes has to step up to the next diatonic key in C minor.
So, C steps up to D E-flat steps up to F, G steps up to A-flat. So, this would be our ii chord.
D F A-flat,
and we would say out loud:
D diminished ii chord. Why a diminished chord? Well, we know that D minor is this:
D major is this:
How do we get a minor chord? We take the middle key of the triad, move it down a half step.
How do we get diminished? We take this and move it down a half step.
It so happens that in a minor scale, the ii chord will always be diminished
If it's a diatonic chord. Okay and that's what we're doing today. So D diminished ii chord.
Now all of these keys have to step up again to get to our III chord. D will move up to E-flat,
F will move up to G, A-flat will move up to B-flat.
How did I know that? Well, I'm just thinking of the keys of C minor.
If these are the only keys I'm choosing from, my chords are just one at a time going up the keys of the diatonic scale.
So if these are the only keys I can choose from, to get from the ii chord I know I have to next
go here. I'm just moving every key of each chord up one step in the diatonic scale.
So that lands me here. What's the name of this chord?
It's an E-flat major III chord.
The III chord because it's the third note of C minor.
Okay so say it with me E-flat major III chord.
Now we're going up another step. Can you figure out the iv chord and play it for me?
If you're playing this you're correct it's F A-flat C.
Again, we just took these keys from the III chord and everything had to go up a step.
We couldn't go here because E is not diatonic in the key. We had to go to the next diatonic key which is F
and the next diatonic key from G is A-flat. The next diatonic key from B-flat is C.
So, using those diatonic keys this is our iv chord, so say F minor iv chord now you try.
Now can you find the V chord?
Move everything up a step using only the diatonic keys.
If you're playing this, you're correct. So we would say G minor v chord.
Good, now let's go up to the VI chord right here.
Is this chord major or minor?
You can tell by your ear, or you can tell because there are
three half steps in between here on the bottom, but only two in between on top.
Whoops, and that's the formula for a major chord. A-flat major VI chord. Now you say it.
Now we'll go up another step.
Everything moves up. Now we're B-flat major VII chord. You say it.
That brings us at last back to C minor I chord. You say it.
Good. Now on your own, I'd like you to go through all of those chords one at a time naming them
as you play them like this: C minor i chord, D diminished ii chord, E-flat major III chord.
Remember, the diminished chord is your ii chord in minor.
A ii chord will always be diminished in a minor key. Okay, go through each chord playing and naming it
on your own. So press pause to do that on your own, then press play to go on.
Now let's try the same thing for harmonic minor.
Remember that in harmonic minor, B-flat becomes B natural.
So now B natural is diatonic, but B-flat is not. So we'll go straight from A-flat to B natural.
So what chords will that change?
That won't affect the i chord. It won't affect the ii chord, but our III chord used to be here with the B-flat,
so that has to become a B natural.
And this actually introduces a new kind of chord that we've never seen before. It's called augmented.
An augmented chord is a major chord where you raise the fifth of the chord up a half step.
And it has kind of a spacey wild sound like that. Hear that sound?
That is the sound of an augmented chord. Try saying it: augmented.
Now you're getting very advanced in music theory, okay.
Some kids don't learn this until college music theory.
So, you know college music theory stuff now. This is an augmented chord. So we'll say E-flat augmented III chord.
Now you try.
Now, up another step. Our iv chord is the same as before. So say F minor iv chord.
Now the V chord is this. Now we're G major V chord.
Up another step. A-flat major VI chord.
Now the vii chord remember we'd normally step up to B-flat but now that we're harmonic minor,
B is natural so now there's another diminished chord
because this you might recognize from when we did C major diatonic chords. This is a B diminished chord
and it's our vii chord
to C minor i chord.
Okay, remember in C major that vii chord is also diminished, so the vii chord is the same in C major as it is in C harmonic minor.
It's that same B diminished chord. B diminished vii chord up to C minor i chord. Okay, now
pause the video again, and on your own go through all the diatonic chords
of C harmonic minor playing and naming them out loud, and then press play to go on.
Now, why are we taking the trouble to learn all of these chords and naming them out loud?
It's so when you play music you're not just mindlessly playing. It's so you really understand how the chords
how the chords are put together.
And that will allow you to be able to create your own music whether you're improvising, or whether you're composing,
or whether you're just learning
a piece composed by someone else, you'll be able to understand how they put those notes together and why.
You'll start to recognize these chords in the songs that you play
and that will help you learn the songs faster.
Instead of the notes just seeming random, like ah here's some random notes, you'll see oh that's a III chord, or oh that's a V chord.
You start to recognize those patterns in the songs you play.
Now it's time to try some inversions in C minor.
So let's just take the C minor i chord and invert it. How do we do that?
You just take the bottom key and you put it on top. So I take this C and put it up here, but I've got to shift my hand over to play it like that.
And remember, in the right hand when we do first inversion we use a finger 2 in the middle.
And then we take the bottom note which is E-flat, put it on top. So now we shift our hand up to here.
That's C minor second inversion. Now we're going to take this G, put it on top, move our hand over to do that,
and we're back to where we started, which is root position. We repeat that and we're going to come back to second inversion
back to first inversion, and then back down.
So all together we have root position, first inversion, second inversion, root position, repeat, root position,
second inversion, first inversion, root position.
Okay being careful of the fingering,
try each of those inversions using your right hand. Pause the video to try that, and then press play to go on.
Now let's try that with our left hand. We have root position, finger 5 3 1, then first inversion is also 5 3 1
In the left hand we use finger 2 on second inversion.
Okay, trust me on these fingerings. It may not seem like a big deal,
but I want you to use these exact fingerings. They've been tried and true for over a hundred years by pianists.
Okay, then back to root position, then 1 2 5, 1 3 5,
1 3 5.
Okay, pause the video and now work on your left hand C minor inversions up and down.
Repeat that top root position, then come back down. Press pause to work on that, and then press play to go on.
Now for a bonus when you're practicing inversions, after you use blocked chords like this
Here's another way I like to practice inversions: When you get to the bottom, now try broken style.
Play it nice and legato.
See how I did that? I was playing the same chords, but the second time I was playing them broken.
Try and make it nice and legato. Okay that's another way to
vary your practice.
Last thing today I'd like to do is show you how to play a new chord progression in C minor
using the chords i. We'll start with a i chord and our left hand is going to play the root of each chord.
The right hand will play a blocked chord, then we're gonna do a VII chord, and for this VII chord we're going to use natural minor.
So can you tell me what the root of the VII chord is in C natural minor?
Take a moment to figure that out.
Well, when you have to play a VII chord you could count up one, two, three, four, five, six, seven
to figure out that it's B-flat. Or you could remember that a scale has eight notes.
And so instead of counting up, you could just say oh seven is a step below my tonic
or my one, which is C. Okay, so save yourself some time. If you ever have to play a VII chord
count down from 1. It's just a step below. So here's my i chord, here's my VII chord using natural minor.
Remember, the seven chord would be this in harmonic minor, but we're going to use natural minor
because it sounds better when you come from a i chord.
In most cases this will probably sound best, and then we go to the VI chord.
How do we find the VI chord?
Well, once again it's just a step below the VII chord. So we're going to A-flat major.
And then we're going to go to the V chord using harmonic minor. So this time we will use a B natural.
And you'll find that in music the V chord is most often
in harmonic minor. It just has a cooler sound you'll find, okay.
And you can do this kind of rhythm if you want to make this progression sound really cool, or you can do broken chords.
Lots of ways you can vary this, but first let's start with just the chord. Try it with me this time.
Play the i chord using the left hand for the root, right hand the blocked chord,
left hand can use finger 2 for the B-flat while the right hand shifts down there, then use finger 3 for A-flat.
A-flat major VI chord, and then G major V chord. Let's try it one more time. C minor i chord,
B-flat major VII chord, A-flat major VI chord, G major V chord.
Now I'd like you to pause the video and try improvising your own accompaniment patterns. You could go broken style:
Like this.
You could go block style.
See, I'm just repeating staccato, quarter note chords. 2 3 4 You could go:
Some combination of broken and blocked. There are so many possibilities, okay?
that's the fun of improvising you can make up your own patterns using
these simple chords. Okay, you can even use inversions.
See how did that? I just took that B-flat major chord and I put the B-flat on top.
The possibilities are endless. You could turn them into arpeggios.
See how I did a one octave arpeggio for the C minor?
Then B-flat with an A-flat on top. G on top.
See, I'm just taking that G major triad and adding an extra G on top using our arpeggio fingering.
So many possibilities when you improvise. Okay so pause the video and just take this chord progression
and have some fun improvising some different patterns, then press play to go on.
So remember, one of the other reasons we learn diatonic chords in a key is so you can try different chord progressions.
This is just one of so many almost
unlimited number of chord progressions you could create in a key. This one was i VII VI V, but you could do
But you could do i IV VI V, that's also a cool progression
you can experiment with others
and just try and mix and match different chords from the C minor scale and see what sounds good to you.
Also remember that when you practice diatonic chords you can use the pedal
to make it legato. Do an up down, up down, up down. Every time you change chords
you can use the pedal to make it legato from chord to chord.
Great job learning how to play diatonic chords, inversions, and a new chord progression in C minor.
Happy practicing, and see you next time!
All right, I'm so glad that you could all make it to our C natural minor diatonic family picnic!
Is everyone here? See there's, me, C D E-flat F G A-flat B-flat.
Ah, great we're all here!
Who's that over there?
Oh, that's a friend of mine!
Did you invite another note to our diatonic family picnic?
Well, yes but it was kind of accidental.
Hi everyone, can I join you?
Sure, we'd be happy to have you as our guest. With you here, we can make even more chords!
We won't be diatonic anymore.
Let your worries be diminished D.
Yes, with an extra note our fun will be augmented!
Come on over B and join the picnic.
Gee thanks!
Later on maybe we could do some inversions!
Mmm, let's eat!
Somebody pass-- [unintelligible chatter]