Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Know Your Intervals by Ear
Even More Perspective

The point of last Tuesday's tip: when you are playing a melody along with a chord, you need to be aware of how your notes fit with the chord. Are you playing the 1, the 5, or the 3? Very stable. When you play B along with a G chord, can you hear that you are playing the 3rd of the chord? Are you playing a 6? If so, you might feel that you need to change to another note - perhaps slide down to the 5, or up to the 8 (that is, the root note, an octave higher).

The point of this week's tip: there are almost no songs that sit on one chord for the entire length of the song, and as a melody player, you will need to change the notes you are playing as the chords change. Typically the chord will change every few seconds or so. Simple songs (perhaps 50% of all songs) have three chords - the I, the IV, and the V - you can learn more about these chord progressions in the Wednesday Tip Archives. Some very simple songs have two chords. Most jazzy songs have 5, 6, or even a dozen or more chords floating around. And every time the chord changes, the "1" "5" and "3" change, and all of a sudden a note that used to build tension will be totally stable - and vice versa!

The thing to think about right now: in the key of G (i.e., Alto or treble Kalimba standard keys), G = 1, A = 2, B = 3, C = 4, D = 5, E = 6, F# = 7, G = 8 = 1. A simple chord progression will be I (= G chord = G-B-D), IV (= C chord = C-E-G), and V (= D chord = D-F#-A). Now, a first minor miracle is that all of the notes in those three chords are in the key of G and are on your kalimba - therefore, if you just mess around and play notes on your kalimba without really trying to drive them, you will hit all of the notes in these chords.

Remember - if you ever get lost, just go back to the major scale, "Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do", either in your mind or on the kalimba - that is the reference point, that is what "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8" means. Sing or play your way up to the note you are interested in - "1 2 3 4 5" will get you to the 5th.

But I am going to ask you to try to be a bit more directed than that. For example, look at the G chord. A very stable melody line would be to play G, then B, then D - if you do this, it will sound like "Clock Struck One" in "Rock Around the Clock". You are playing 1 - 3 - 5. BUT when the chord changes to the IV - or C - chord, you may want to play C - E - G - which is the 1 - 3 - 5 of the C chord, but it is the 4 - 6 - 8 of the key of G. One specific example: while E is the 6th of the key of G, it is the 3rd (major 3rd to be exact) relative to the C chord. In other words, you need to understand how to reference a note to both the key you are in and to the chord that happens to be playing by at the moment.