Piano for Beginners 6th ED - 2016 UK

Playing the piano

Right and left hand, majors and minors, sevenths, inversions and progressions

Bringing it all together

Bars 1 and 2

Always look ahead when you are playing! Play the

G chord in bar one using the fingering 3 -2- 1 , that

way your fourth finger can add the F# in bar 2

Bars 3 and 4

Your fifth finger in the left should be free to play the E note.

Meanwhile your right hand takes over with the chords:

supposedly the only four needed in popular music

Bars 7 and 8

Here’s another chance to practise the plagal

cadence. As the third note of the triad is also

the bass it puts an emphasis on the switch

between the major and minor chord

Bars 5 and 6

The chords return to the left hand. Note

how the inversions create a smooth

movement in the bass that would not

occur if we only used root position chords

Y

ou may recognise the above as lyrics

from Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah; what

you may not know is that the words

describe a useful chord progression.

A chord progression describes shifting through a

series of chords within a key signature. Particular

sequences may also be used to move to a new

key. As you know there are seven possible roots

for chords within a major or minor scale, and with

regards to progressions these seven notes are

labelled with Roman numerals; that way you can

apply the method to any key signature. In C major,

for example, chord I would be C, II would be D

and so on. If the chord is not capitalised then it is

a minor chord; for example vi in C major would be

the chord Am. If the chord is a seventh, augmented

or diminished they will be labelled accordingly; V 7

in C major would be the chord G7. A cadence is

the name given to the progression between two

chords. Most pieces finish by moving from the fifth

(V) to the tonic chord (I) to give a finale effect. This

is called a perfect cadence. An imperfect cadence is

used where a break is needed, but the piece is not

finished. Common examples include I-V, ii-V and IV-V.

Returning to the Hallelujah example, in C major the

chord progression would be: C, F, G, Am and F.

“Chord progression describes shifting through

chords within a key signature”

Use chord

progessions

“It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift”

Top tip

You don’t have to

use the whole chord

Sometimes using all the notes

of a chord may sound too heavy,

particularly if the accompanying

melody is quite busy – you don’t

want to do make your piece sound

‘muddy’ and confused. Experiment

with your chords and try using

purely the first and fifth notes

of a triad, or maybe just the

first and third.

Audio file

Listen to the audio files

and follow along on your

own keyboard

Give it a try

G Gmaj7 Em C G D

G Am D G C Cm G