Khái niệm #8 - Tạo sự khác biệt mới lạ
Hăy tưởng tượng sống trong một thế giới nơi chỉ toàn là một màu đỏ, một màu xanh không thôi.v.v... Bạn sẽ quen dần đi, nhưng sẽ thú vị hơn nếu có nhiều màu sắc khác nhau.
Cũng tựa như vậy đối với hợp âm trong một ca khúc. Nếu có vài cách khác nhau để đàn cùng một hợp âm th́ sẽ hay hơn.
Chúng ta có một số chọn lựa sẽ giới thiệu. Đây là lănh vực khảo sát thích thú, nhưng nó có thể trở nên phức tạp một cách mau chóng.
Tôi sẽ giới thiệu với bạn nhiều khái niệm khác nhau. Đọc qua, nhưng đừng lạc lối ở đây.
Cảnh cáo - Nếu đây là lần đầu bạn thấy khái niệm này, thoạt đầu,nó có thể lẫn lộn. Chỉ nên liếc qua, rồi xem tiếp Part Five. Nhớ rằng, bạn cũng có thể viết ca khúc thật hay với simple chord .
(Tôi sẽ vẽ vài khái niệm với keyboard chord diagrams, nhưng có quá nhiều vấn đề cần phải bàn tới bây giờ nên chưa thể vẽ tất cả. Ở một lúc nào đó bạn có thể t́m kiếm một cuốn sách có đầy đủ các hợp âm cho keyboard và guitar. Vài keyboard chord diagrams đă được đính kèm theo phần này được gọi là Charts and Maps.)
Bạn sẵn sàng chưa?
Adding Interest
1. Chord Inversions
2. Slash Chords
3. Chord Variations
4. Seventh Chords
5. Altered Chords
6. Chord Substitutions
7. Secondary Chords
1. Chord Inversions
Suppose you are playing a simple D chord. You look down at your hand and notice you are playing three notes: a D, an F#, and an A. You ask -"What would happen if I let go the D note and replaced it with another D further up the keyboard?" You would still have a D chord, but it would be a different arrangement of the three notes.
The idea here is: As long as you are playing a D, an F#, and an A, regardless of where they are located on the instrument, you are playing a D chord.
Here is a picture showing the D chord with two inversions.
Do you see how the same three notes are involved? They just show up in different places.
2. Slash Chords
Until now, every time we showed a D chord, the bass note was always a D. What would happen if we played the F# or the A instead? We would still be playing a D chord, but changing the bass note makes a big difference. It makes such a big difference that we have a way of indicating when we want the bass note to be one of those other possibilities. We call them slash chords.
When we want a D chord with D in the bass, we write D. When we want the F# in the bass, we write D/F#. When we want the A in the bass, we write D/A.
Did you notice that the middle chord, D/F#, has only two notes in the right hand? This is intentional. When the "third" of the chord is in the bass, it often sounds best to leave the "third" out in the right hand. (F# is the "third" of the chord because the D scale goes D, E, F#...)
3. Chord Variations
There are some very common variations musicians use all the time to keep chords sounding fresh. Here are a few.
The added second - D2
The suspended chord - Dsus
The major 6 chord - D6
The major 7 chord - DM7
The major 9 chord - DM9
4. Seventh Chords
Minor chords will often add a 7th to them.
This is E minor 7 - Em7
Here is F# minor 7 - F#m7
This is B minor 7 - Bm7
V chords often have a 7. In the key of D, the V chord is A, so you would see A7 appearing in the music. Here it is.
The A7 chord
5. Altered Chords
So far, all the changes we've made have added notes that are in the scale. There are other notes though that are not in the scale. Switching a note in the chord to a non-scale note gives us an altered chord.
Two very useful altered chords are the iv chord (notice we switched from IV to iv... from major to minor), and the iim7b5 (pronounced "two minor seven flat five"). In the key of D the IV chord is G, so the iv chord is G minor.
G minor - Gm
The iim7b5 is Em7b5. It looks like this.
6. Chord Substitutions
There are a whole group of chords with wild names like nines, elevens, thirteens, nine sharp fives, nine flat fives, and the list goes on. These chords have very interesting sounds. A good player will use these chords when that particular sound is needed. Often the player "substitutes" one of these complex chords for a simpler one in the music. Suppose the music calls for an A7. An A7b9 might sound even better. That's why we call them chord substitutions. You can use them in place of simpler chords you already know. Here are some substitutes for A7.
The A7b9 looks like this.
Another substitute for A7 is G/A.
7. Secondary Chords
This topic is addressed in Part Five. Before going there, it might be good to step back and see where we've been.
Let's Review
In this part, we saw the number of chords available to us suddenly explode. We learned that even simple chords can be played in several ways called inversions. Slash chords were introduced to keep track of bass notes when the bass is playing something other than the root. We used scale notes to get chords like 2, 6, M7, sus. We used non-scale notes to get iv and iim7b5. Chord substitutions like nines, elevens, and thirteens came along to replace sevens when needed.
We still haven't discussed how these new chords fit into our Map, and we haven't covered secondary chords yet. These topics are just ahead in Part Five.
