An Easy Way To Learn New Songs
September 17th, 2008
One of the easist ways to learn new songs that I know is by reading the chord symbols. By chord symbols I mean symbols like Cmaj7, D7, Ebmin, F#min7 etc.
Many musicians get turned off when they see these kind of symbols if they don’t understand them. Playing chord symbols is a very useful skill to have.
1. You don’t have to memorize the song
2. You don’t have to struggle to learn the song
3. You can communicate more effectively with other musicians
4. It is down right faster
I am going to show you some things that I have learned to make reading chord symbols easy.
FIRST you have to know all 12 major chords in root position. A major chord is simply the 1st, 3rd, and fifth notes of the major scale.
For example the C major scale is
CDEFGABC
Therefore the 1st, 3rd, and 5th are the notes C,E,G
The notes to the C major chord are CEG
You can figure out all of the 12 major chords like this by playing the 1st, 3rd, and 5th notes of the major scales.
In order to do this you have to start off playing your major chords in root position. Root position means you play the notes of the chords in order from left to right.
For example if your trying to play a Cmajor chord in root posistion you must play the C with your right hand furthest to the left the E in the middle and the G furthest to the right. This is C major in root position. You have to play the chords in root position to do this and then you can change it up after you know which notes to play.
To get a diagram of how to do it.
Here is a diagram of all 12 major chords.
Our DVD Gospel Pianist Basics Deluxe goes through how to do this in great detail.
Till next time.
Kenny Hollins
