Introducing the Chord Families

have you ever wondered how someone can listen to a song just once and then magically be able to play it how do they know what courts to play well it's not magic courts live in families we call them court families the reason a person is able to play a song after only hearing it once is because he's playing chords that are all in the family okay so some of you won't remember that TV show let alone know what I'm talking about but that's okay you get the idea okay so you know all those major scales you've been learning well the chords that belong to a chord family are built off that major scale for our example here I will use the C scale I'll show you how that applies as I introduce you to each member of the family in my cord family portrait because the easiest way for me to explain court families is to relate it to a real family here's what you need to know about cord families in a nutshell first court families are built from the major scale second chords one four and five are major third chords two three and six are minor and fourthly chords seven is diminished okay so let's break it down chords one through six are commonly used in contemporary music chords one four and five are major chords traditionally major chord numbers will be written in capital Roman numerals like this one four and five in modern music you're most likely to see major chord numbers written like this one four and five as you gather chord charts from different sources you'll run into both so that's why I'm showing you both now let's look at chord one chord one is a major chord we're gonna have God represent chord one why well he's the foundation of the family chord one tells us what key a family will be in in other words he gives the chord family it name for example if a song is built off the C scale it's the C chord family if the song is built off the G scale its the G chord family and if the song is built off the D scale its the D chord family and so on and so on each scale tone from which these chords are built have a musical name as well the first note of a major scale in our case the C note since I'm using the C scale as our example is called the tonic the tonic is the root note from which chord one is built in this case a C chord the tonic is the tonal center of a song and has the feeling of finality [Music] and there's the tonic the feeling of finality okay so let's look at chord five chord five is a major chord and built off the fifth note of the scale one two three four five the musical name for the fifth note of the scale is called the dominant and is the root note from which chord five is built in this case a G chord I have the dad representing chord five because he's a very dominant part of this family I mean check out those muscles in music the dominant function has the role of creating tension that requires the tonic or chord one for resolution and there's court 1 the resolution here's court 5 the dominant it feels like it needs to resolve and ears court 1 so as our court family story goes chord 5 dad is looking to God court 1 for resolution let's look at cord for court four is a major chord as well and built from the fourth note of the scale one two three four the musical name for the fourth note of the scale is set dominant and is the root from which chord four is built in this case an F chord sub means below hence the word sub dominant because hey it's immediately below the dominant here's the dominant and here's sub dominant I have the mom representing chord four and as you can see in our chord family portrait she's right below the dad court for in many cases of today's western music acts as a dominant preparation chord meaning she the mom wants to look to court five the dad and of course the dad has the feeling he wants to resolve to one an example of this would be the ending to the star-spangled banner and the home there's court floor there's court five [Music] in the dictionary the word major means greater in size so God mom and dad cords 1 4 and 5 are the adults and major chords in our cord family portrait courts 2 3 and 6 are minor chords traditionally minor chords will be written in lowercase Roman numerals like this 2 3 and 6 the fact that they're lowercase means that they're minor in modern music you're more likely to see minor chord numbers written like this 2 minor 3 minor and 6 minor when children are under the legal age of full responsibility they are often referred to as minors this should help you remember that in our court family portrait chords 2 3 & 6 the kids are gonna be our minor chords of the family let's look at chord to chord 2 is a minor chord built from the second note 1/2 of the scale the musical name for the second note of the scale is supertonic and is the root note from which chord 2 minor is built in this case a D minor chord 2 is a real daddy's boy and here's why because he like mom is a dominant preparation for the tension he causes makes him want to run to Daddy five dominant and then of course the dominant has the feeling he wants to resolve to one an example where this plays out would be in an old pray song classic I Love You Lord may it be a sweet sweet sound if there's the two chord or D minor in your there's the five chord [Music] and ending on the tonic or the one chord let's take a look at chord three chord three is a minor chord built from the third note of the scale one two three the musical name for the third note of the scale is mediant and is the root from which chord three minor is built in this case an E minor mediant is a Latin word meaning middle since the third scale note is smack in the middle of the 1 and the 5 that's how he got his name he's mediant he's kind of a mischievous kid when he doesn't get his way he'll give you the third degree and then run to mama chord 4 so in many cases of western music chord 3 likes to resolve two chord four let's look at chords six chord six is a minor chord built from the sixth note of the scale one two three four five six the musical name for the sixth note of the scale is sub mediant and is the root from which chord six is built in this case in a minor chord I have the daughter representing the sub mediant or chord six she sub because she is below the tonic here's the tonic and here's the sub mediant below the tonic and she's mediant because she smack in the middle of the sub-dominant which was four and the tonic which is one sub mediant she can be kind of deceptive at times just when you think a song is about to come to an ends she'll jump in there and say AHA just when you thought we were at the end I'm gonna make you tag the ending and play it again [Applause] oh she deceived us again she's gonna make us tag the inning again four five and now she ends on the one which is the tonic in music this is called the deceptive cadence here's an example of the deceptive cadence in the star-spangled banner' and [Music] just when you thought it was gonna end it's gonna make you repeat cuz we went to chord six minor the deceptive cadence and there's your tonic court one the feeling of finality okay let's look at courts seven court seven is what we call a diminished chord traditionally a diminished chord will be represented by a small Roman numeral with a little circle next to it like this in modern music you would see it written like this or this the diminished chord is composed of all minor third intervals and built from the seventh note one two three four five six seven of the scale and it's called the leading tone on the right of your screen we have dim seven the dog he represents our diminished chord since he's built from the leading tone of the scale he has a leash in his mouth and he wants to go for a walk you see dim seven doesn't go for walks by himself in the same way by itself the diminished chord doesn't get used a whole lot in western contemporary music but look what happens when dim seven goes for a walk with dominant dad were musically speaking when the diminished chord gets combined with the dominant 5 scale tone he creates a 5 7 chord in this case a g7 chord and that is common in contemporary music oftentimes we'll see the 5 chord used in the first inversion where the leading tone notes 7 is in the bass and that leading tone B wants to resolve to court one the tonic for this reason in a contemporary application of music some musicians like to think of chords 7 as a 5 over 7 or in this case a G over B the five being the G chord and the 7 being the B note or the leading tone which leads to or wants to resolve to chord 1 which is C ok so if you didn't grasp everything in the court family portrait no worries hang in there it will come to life and the light bulb will go on in your head as we start plugging in our cord families to real life musical applications for now just memorize these 4 points first chord families are built from the major scale second chords 1 4 & 5 are major 3rd chords 2 3 & 6 are minor and fourthly chords 7 is diminished watch this video every day until you have the gist of the court family portrait in your mind

Channel: Worship Music Lessons

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Id: xGYTkR8lcNg

Length: 13min 11sec (791 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 09 2017