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Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman.
Today we're learning how to play a three note chord, which is called a triad.
By the way, for some younger students,
I'm thinking ages five and six and under, this may be too difficult a technique.
If so, that's okay. You can simply skip this lesson.
It won't be a problem at all. Just come back to this in a few months when your
hands are a little bigger.
If you're staying with me, let's close the lid of our piano to have a flat
surface to practice on.
If your piano doesn't have a lid that's ok, just find something flat like a table
or desk to use.
First let's review a two note chord. All right, you already know how to do a two
note chord with fingers one and five,
so lets practice just touching fingers one and five on a flat surface like we're
playing chords.
Remember that finger one plays on its side near the tip and finger five should
touch near the tip as well, not flat on this part of the finger.
So let's practice touching three chords. One, two, three.
Whenever you finish playing a chord remember to lift from the wrist to relax
the hand while the fingers stay near the keys. Now for a three note chord, in
addition to fingers one and five
we're also going to add finger three, so touch with one and five and then add
finger three.
while fingers two and four stay floating in the air. Now try to touch those three
fingers at the same time and then float up with the wrist, five times,
go. One, float up, two, float up, three, float up, four, float up, five.
Now you're touching with fingers one, three, and five to make a three note
chord.
Good, now let's try it with the left hand. So with our left hand let's start by
just practicing our two note chord again, fingers one and five touching, and then
lift the wrist to relax.
Let's do it three times. One, relax, two, lift the wrist,
three, relax. Good, now let's turn that into a three note chord by using fingers
one and five and then lowering down finger three so it's touching too. So we
touch with fingers one, three, and five. Fingers two and four float in the air. We'll
do that five times. We'll touch and then release, touch, release by floating the
wrist.
Three, relax, four, relax, and then five, float up.
Good, now let's try it on the piano keys.
So to play our three note chord or triad,
today we're going to be using DO, MI, and SO, probably the most common triad in
music.
So let's place our right hand on the C major pentascale and try to only touch
with fingers one, three, and five on C, E, and G. Let fingers two and four float up in the
air a little bit, and then using the weight of your arm, drop on C E G to
make this sound.
Isn't that a great sound? Try that on your own now.
Good, now let's try it three times together, touching only C, E, and G, and then
dropping, then remembering to float your wrist back up after each chord.
Let's do it three times. Go. Chord, release, chord,
release, chord, release.
Good, now let's try it with the left hand. Cover up the C major pentascale with the
left hand and allow only fingers
five, three, and one to touch with fingers two and four floating gently in the air.
Let's try a chord using the left hand.
Now you try it by yourself. Good, now let's do it three times together.
Go, chord, release, chord,
release, chord,
release. Good job, ok, now let's try a three note triad in D major. If we're in
the D major pentascale, DO is on D, MI is on F sharp, and SO is on A. Once again
we'll use fingers one, three, and five. Only touch those three notes, and we try
to drop down.
Can you try that? It's your turn. Good, now let's try it in the left hand. Cover up
the D major pentascale and only allow your fingers to touch DO, MI, and SO,
and now let's drop down to make a D major chord.
Your turn.
Good job. So from now on, now that you know about triads, when you play hand
over hand chords,
let's use triads. So we'll have D major,
then we cross over,
and then back down.
You can also add triads to songs you're already familiar with like, let's try
"Mouse in the House." With your left hand can you cover up the C major pentascale?
We're going to play a triad using C, E, and G while we sing "Mouse in the House."
We're going to play one chord every two beats, like this, one,
two, one,
two. Let's sing "Mouse in the House" while we play chords
Ready, go. ♫ mouse mousy in the housie ♫
♫ hurry, hurry do, or the kitty in the housie ♫
♫ will be chasing you! ♫
Run! One last thing you can do with triads is to improvise.
Let's go back to the D major pentascale. My left hand is going to play the D
major triad, which sounds like this.
While my left hand plays triads my right hand is going to make up a melody. I can
play any note that sounds good to me, like this.
And that's a song I just made up.
You can try doing the same yourself in the D major or the C major pentascale.
Great job learning how to play three note chords today. For practice
I'd like you to try hand-over-hand triads in C and D major every day.
Also try adding triads to "Mouse in the House" and "Frog in the Middle."
Finally, try making up your own original music by improvising using triads in one
hand while the other hand plays a melody. Have lots of fun making music, and as
always, thanks for watching. I'll see you next time.
How am I supposed to play a three note chord?
I only have two claws! But... I have lots of teeth!
ARRRR!