Suspension (part 3)

Remember Sus4? Check out my previous posts on ‘Suspension (part 2)’ and ‘Improvising Sus4’ if necessary. Now, Sus4 is often applied to the II, III and VI major chords, particularly in the ‘Chord Association’ context. Let’s use the following notation for the Sus4 of these 3 chords:

· Let the Sus4 of the II major chord be II4

· Let the Sus4 of the III major chord be III4

· Let the Sus4 of the VI major chord be VI4

The following lists how the II, III and VI major chords associated with other chords from the previous post:

· Chord III –> Chord VIm (i.e., III major chord usually leads to VI minor chord)

· Chord VI –> Chord IIm

· Chord II –> Chord V

Often, however, Sus4 is used before each of the above pairs. For example, Chord III4 –> Chord III/M –> Chord VIm. In the key of C, that means:

· Esus4 –> E/G# –> Am

(That is because Esus4 is the III4 chord in the C key, G# is the M bass of E major chord, and A minor is the VIm chord in the C key)

Therefore you will often encounter such progressions as below in a lot of songs:

· III4 –> III/M –> VIm

· VI4 –> VI/M –> IIm

· II4 –> II/M –> V

Let’s go back to the examples in C. In the C key, the above progressions are translated as:

· Esus4 –> E/G# –> Am

· Asus4 –> A/C# –> Dm

· Dsus4 –> D/F# –> G

I will illustrate this using a song (and to include a video) on my next post. The following shows how to play E4, A4 and D4:

Figure 1: Esus4

Figure 2: Asus4

Figure 3: Dsus4

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Chord Association (part 2)

Let’s recap the chords in ‘Chord Association (part 1)’ post:

· Chord IIIm usually leads to Chord VIm

· Chord VIm usually leads to Chord IIm

· Chord IIm usually leads to Chord V

· Chord V usually leads to Chord I

· Chord I usually leads to Chord IV

The following are often associated with one another in the same way (You will see from here the reason to be familiar with II, III, and VI major chords):

· Chord III usually leads to Chord VIm

· Chord VI usually leads to Chord IIm

· Chord II usually leads to Chord V

In the key of C, that means:

· E usually leads to Am (i.e., E –> Am)

· A usually leads to Dm (i.e., A –> Dm)

· D usually leads to G (i.e., D –> G)

Before I proceed with video illustration of these associations, let’s revisit Suspension (Sus4).

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Changing The Bass Notes (part 3)

When you can see a pattern in the bass notes, you can then recognize a chord progression (or a pattern of chords) a whole lot easier.

For example, the chords on the right hand in the sample progression in my previous post (“Changing The Bass Notes (part 2)”) may seem rather random, but the bass notes reveal a pattern of walking down the scale, i.e., 1 (doe), 7 (ti), 6 (la), 5 (so), 4 (fa), 3 (me), 2 (re).

In fact, the easier way to recognize a chord pattern is by recognizing the bass note pattern.

To play freely by focussing on bass notes, however, you have to know which chords to accompany each bass note, and be familiar with their association.

Rule number 1: In general, use Chord I to accompany bass note 1 (do), Chord IV to accompany bass note 4 (fa), and Chord V to accompany bass note 5 (so). That’s easy enough. 🙂

Rule number 2: For the 2 (re), 3 (me), and 6 (la) bass notes, try accompanying them with Chord IV, V, and I respectively. That gives you the 3 minor chords.

Rule #2 applies only when the sound you are to produce is a minor chord, i.e., if you see on your music sheet that the chords are 2^nd, 3^rd or 6^th minor chords. In the key of C, that means, Dm, Em and Am chords.

Rule number 3: If Rule #2 doesn’t apply, then try Chord I for bass note 3 (me), Chord IV for bass note 6 (la), and Chord V for bass note 7 (ti),

Usually such chords are indicated on the music sheet, e.g., in the C key, they would look like C/E, F/A and G/B respectively.

Rule number 4: If applying Rule #3 still does not get you the sound you want, then you are very likely looking for the Major chords of II, III and VI. In the C key, that means D major chord, E major chord, and A major chord, for the 2 (re), 3 (me) and 6 (la) bass notes respectively. Now, that is a bit of a leap for those of us who want to learn piano the cheat way. So, I will cover that much later. Anyway, not to worry, because… (please allow me to repeat)… a lot of songs can be played with just the 3 basic chords. 🙂

As for now, there are still some tweaking we can do with the 3 basic chords that I should cover first. These include suspension and superimposition, just to sound sophisticated with the names. 🙂 Anyway, to conclude the 3-part series on “Changing The Bass Notes”, let me show you something interesting…

Let’s bring back the progression earlier… (from part 2):

I –> V/7 –> VI m –> I/5 –> IV –> I/3 –> II m –> IV/5

… and tweak it slightly to become this…

I –> V/7 –> VI m –> –I/5 –> IV –> I/3 –> II m –> IV/5

We have tweaked the 4^th chord (marked red) in the series above to become Chord –I over the 5^th bass note (so). Try playing it. How do you like the sound?

Now try the following shortened version of the above progression with the song “As The Deer”…

I –> V/7 –> VI m –> –I/5 –> IV –> IV/5 –> I

In the key of C, it would look like this:

C –> G/B –> Am –> Bb/G –> F –> F/G –> C

And not to forget the ‘Am’ may be substituted by ‘C/A’ (refer to the theory in ‘The 3 Minor Chords’ post).

Here is the video illustration…

Note: In the video, my left hand started from a C note that is very near to my right hand. This is solely for the purpose of the video shooting. If I were to play my bass notes one octave lower, then I would have to move the camera further in order to capture both of my hands on the screen. For your own practice, please do play the bass notes one octave lower.

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Arise

Basically there are 2 parts in this song – the verse and the chorus.

For the verse, the chords progress from Chord I to Chord V, then to Chord –I (minus-one), then to Chord IV. After that, simply repeat this chord progression (I, V, –I, IV) until you reach the chorus.

The chorus has a slightly different progression, i.e., Chord I followed by Chord V, followed by Chord VI m (i.e., VI minor), then Chord IV (I, V, VI m, IV). This pattern is repeated throughout the chorus and until the song goes back to the verse.

The song is in the E key. Therefore, the chords for the verse are E, B, D and A (i.e., E is the Chord I in the E key, B the Chord V in the same key, D the Chord –I, and A the Chord IV). In the video, you would see me play Chord IV (i.e., the A chord in this case) in its 1^st inversion, i.e,. C#-E-A notes. The reason is simply to minimize my right hand’s movement.

The chords for the chorus in the E key are E, B, C#m, A.

If you were to play this in the C key (and use your ‘Transpose’ button to transpose the song to the E key), then the chords are:

Chord I — C

Chord IV – F

Chord V — G

Chord VI m – Am

Chord –I – Bb

That means, you should play C – G – Bb – F (i.e., progression I, V, -I, IV) for the verse, and C – G – Am – F (i.e., progression I, V, VI m, IV) for the chorus.

So, there are only these 2 chord progressions for the entire song. A piece of cake, eh? Have fun!

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