Melodies & Melodic Phases with 3rds!

[Music] i want to share with you something that'll help you sound better when you play melodies and melodic phrases and what i'm talking about here are thirds for melodies and melodic phrases now thirds are just intervals okay and intervals are just the distance between notes now different intervals have different characteristics in other words thirds sound different than six intervals and fourth and fifth intervals so they have their own characteristics now what i'm talking about here are diatonic thirds now diatonic just means in the key so if i'm harmonizing notes with diatonic thirds in the key of c that means the notes are that i'm harmonizing with are going to be in the key of c okay and we're going to talk about two different types of thirds we're going to be talking about major thirds and minor thirds okay so here we have the key of c major c d e f g a b and what we're going to do is we're going to build some thirds and use these seven different notes as our melody or or our melodic phrase okay so here we have c and we're going to build a third on top of this now a major third is one of which you have a bottom note and you have a top note and they're separated by three keys now it doesn't matter if the keys are black or white it doesn't matter what combination of those are so if i have a c here and i want a major third above it i'm going to have three keys between them so here we have c here's c sharp here's d and here's let's just call this e flat so our major third above c would be e now so if i have a d as my bottom note and i want a minor interval i'm going to have a d and i'm going to have a two notes between this bottom note and the top note so i have e flat here e here and my note above it my minor third would be an f so that's really a very simple formula now here is um how we're going to harmonize these seven different notes in the key of c major but we're going to put the intervals below them so here we have a c and let me add this by saying the key of c major is the only major key in which you can actually do this because it's all white notes and it's very simple because all you have to do is take the note above it the the note below it you skip it and to get your third interval you play the very next note so here we have c we're skipping b with a so c is harmonized with a above it we have a d and we're going to skip c and play b so we have d harmonized with b here we have e we're skipping d and harmonizing that with c you see what's happening here all we're doing is just skipping a note and then above that here we have f harmonized with d g harmonized with e a harmonized with f and then last of all we have a b harmonized with a g now there's a very simple pattern and this works in every key it's just the key of c is the easiest key to visualize so it's really easier to see this in key of c than any other but there's a pattern here that works in every key and this diatonic pattern is a pattern of third intervals and it goes like this minor minor major minor minor major major and don't worry too much right now about trying to memorize that pattern because you're going to see that as you interact with thirds on the keyboard so let's take a look at these thirds on the keyboard and let me show you how simple they are to play especially in the key of c major okay so here's c major and we're going to look at major and minor thirds to harmonize these notes so here's the key of c major okay one two three four five six seven back to one so if we have a c here and we want to harmonize that with a third well we're going to just like i just showed you we're going to skip b and play a okay all right on to d now listen to these tones listen to these thirds [Music] okay now uh that's the pattern right minor minor major minor minor major major and then back to minor where you started and we're going to talk about how to study these thirds in a moment but let's look at and see what you can do with them let's say you have something like this [Music] okay there's nothing wrong with that nothing wrong at all but if you want to add something to that melody and of course especially when you have that much space and you have a simple melody like that thirds are a really good option [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay and i played the all the whole thing with thirds which you wouldn't necessarily do because you know thirds are an option that you add in with other tones that you're going to play under the melody here's an example of a song that you can play with thirds as well as other tones [Music] so you see there's thirds as well as triads full chords other things that you can do here's another example [Music] right you've got basic you know single note melodies but thirds are added into it okay what if you have a melody like this [Music] and you can add chords to that [Music] and how nice is it to be able to add thirds [Music] right so thirds are a great option for you to harmonize in any melody or any melodic phrase as i just said now how do you study thirds well we just talked about using the key of c major and that's where i would start using thirds or start studying thirds now i showed them to you like this but obviously you want to be able to play them with one hand so to start with i will usually put my index finger on c and i'll put my thumb on the minor third below it which is a and i'll just move up the key of c so i'm going to start on c d e f now i've run out of fingers so i'm just going to lift my hand up and put my index finger on g and just repeat that same fingering pattern and then bring my hand up again to start all over if i want to go farther [Music] okay now if you're starting or if you're let's just say that you're you're not quite you don't quite have that dexterity well just start with the first two tones what you're doing is you're developing that kinesthetic sense and that kinesthetic ability with those fingers you're familiarizing your hand with thirds and after you go beyond two tones go to three tones and go to four and then go to five and you can just go all the way to the end from there and you don't have to start all over again you can just play the c with your pinky this time and play the a with your middle third if you're not going to go any higher [Music] obviously you can use the pedal to smooth things out um that'll get that'll wear a little thin so what you want to do is you want to be musical about it so in my left hand if i just play one note with some of these third patterns it'll sound like real music so what i'm going to do here is i'm going to play c a d g and back to c again all right if you know anything about the number system you know that's a one six two five one pattern or chord progression rather so let's just do these two uh minor thirds here excuse me these two minor thirds from c to d now let's just play just two beats one two [Music] and we could go to play three beats we could go from c d e d c all right then go to go to the fourth or go to the the f [Music] all right that sounds more musical now don't forget there's other keys that have thirds in them but i would stick with the key of c major for now but if you're looking at the key of f well you know we have one black note in the key of f one two three four five six seven one so we have a b flat but the thirds are essentially the same you just have a different a different fingering pattern just a different um different uh you know black notes there are different combination is the word i'm looking for a different combination of black and white keys that are in these other keys so [Music] okay the key of g [Music] and of course i'm using the pedal to kind of smooth that out to make it more musical but start with the key of c major and get really good because when you have the key of c major underhand when you move to these other keys such as f or you have one black key and g where you have one black key as you move and you progress around the circle of fifths you're going to accumulate more black keys but what happens is you're developing your kinesthetic ability to play these thirds and what you're really doing is you're making it easier for yourself to progress to these other major keys of music thirds are a great option for you to play and interject ins into a melody or melodic phrase so be sure that you learn them have you ever noticed that most instructional materials for piano use the same boring signs and symbols that are centuries old it's uninspiring and it makes musical concepts more difficult to learn and retain i want to send you this free instructional guide that has colorful tools and illustrations to make it easier and more fun for you to play music at your piano or keyboard just click the link in the description and i'll send it to you

Channel: Learn Color Piano

Views: 2,289

Keywords: piano, keyboard, tutorial, melodies, how to play, thirds, 3rds, harmonization

Id: PLYtppu44x4

Length: 13min 15sec (795 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 29 2022