- Ever wondered how to
add chords to a melody if they don't give you any chords? Well today your piano
teacher Tim has you covered because I'm gonna teach you how to add chords if
you're given a melody. This lesson is broken down
into three main parts. First I'm gonna teach you about how to figure what key you're in. Really important. And then I'm gonna teach you how to figure out what
chord you're gonna be able to choose from in that key. And then lastly we're gonna go through a sheety music together
putting everything to work. Putting those chords in there. So let's get started. Okay the first thing I need to teach you about is how to figure out what key that you're in. Now what does a key tell you exactly? A key tells you what sharps
or flats you're gonna find throughout a piece. Really important. To tell you a couple of other things, it also tells you basically what note, all the other notes are centered around. So if you're if you're the other key C and you play the scale the key of C. It begins and ends on key C. If you're doing the key of A, you're beginning and ending on A. Everything is centered around whatever the key that you're in. How do you figure out what key you're in? Well the first thing
you need to do is know that for every key there is a major key and a minor key. I'm gonna teach you how to figure out the
major keys right now. So if there's nothing written there at all and by the way all keys or all keys are designated
by the key signature and that tells you, it will show you what
notes are sharped or flat. And there's absolutely
nothing written there, like there is. It's either gonna be in a key of C major or it's going to be in the key of A minor. So just keep that in mind
if nothing is written there that's what you have. Now I do have a trick for the rest of it. But you have to have some
sharps or flats for it to work. So let's do sharps first. Okay so here we have a sharp here and if I didn't know right where that sharp is, I wonder where would that be, that would be on the top line. Well that would be F. They tell you that all F's in the
entire piece are sharped. No matter what unless
it tells you otherwise with a natural. Now the confusing thing is that the sharps or flats that you have aren't necessarily the name or the key that you're in. So keep that in mind. So even though we have an F sharp that doesn't mean that
we're in the key of F. So what key are we in? Well what you got to do is, you got to go to the sharp that's written and that's F sharp. So let's get this up here. So you wanna find F sharp on the piano. Or you can even play regular F. And what you want to do, so you go to the sharp that you have and then you gonna go
one note up from there. So the key is G. Now let me give you a different example so we can kinda get the pattern here. What if there are two sharps. So you know if there's one you just go to the sharp you go up one. But it's not always that easy. So here we go. Now we have two sharps. Well what we're gonna do now, is you're always going to actually take the sharp
all the way to the right. Now when you only have one
sharp that's just that sharp. But when you have two
it's gonna be this one. So one thing you want to determine is what note would that be if I had right where that sharp is in
that third space up. Well that would be a C. So our key signature tells us that we have two sharps
in the whole song F and C. And now we have to figure out what key that we're in because like I said just because we have F and sharp and C sharp, does not mean that we're in the key of F or we're on the key of C. So what you got to do is you gotta go through the last sharp which was C and you go up one note. What's one note right after C? Now let's show you on the piano. Here's C there is D. So we are in the key of D. So what you do is you go to the last sharp all
the way to the right. You go to that sharp and
then you just go one note up and that will give you the
answer perfect every time. Now let's do a tricky, a hard example. Just to make sure that it checks out. So we're gonna do all sharps. All seven sharps. And as you can see from the thing here it does tell you the answer when the key is C sharp. Let's check to make sure
that this is legitimate. So what do we have to do? Well you may wanna go through and see what sharps they have F, C, G, D, A, E and the last one is B. So you got to do on the piano is this, this is where it gets tricky though. Here's B right. Well if you go one note up that's C. But you got to be careful because remember the key is
here at zero sharp zero flats. And the key we wanna get to is C sharp. So what gives? Well do you do see that between B and C and also E and F but
let's look at B and C, there is no sharp in between there. So when if you're starting from B you want to go a whole step they call it. So you actually want to go one note and then another note. So say back when were in the key of D and we had C sharp and we were going from C up to D. We really went up two notes. We've going up two notes the whole time. It's just that when we had
the black key in between we can just go up to the next white key. You just gotta be careful
that when you're on B, you actually have to go up to C sharp and not C. A little confusing at first but it will make more
and more sense as you go. As I mentioned just a
second ago or a minute ago. There is a major key and minor key for every key signature and all the ones we've been doing in the last few minutes have been all major keys. Now what if it's a minor key? Well the first thing you want to do is with every key signature you're given, figure out what major key
that you might be in first. So what we're gonna do is we gonna take this note right here the D and we're gonna go one note from there that's gonna be the key of E. So we're in the key of E or we could be in the key of E major. Or I'm gonna show you how to
find the minor equivalent. So once you find the major what you do is not including, this is really important, not including the note you're touching. You go down one two three half steps. So you may be thinking okay well that's either the key of C sharp minor or D flat minor. Depending on how you look at it. Well see how we have sharps
in our initial key signature. Well then you're resulting
key signature when you go to minor will actually be in sharps. So it was C sharp not E sharp. And minor is usually designated
with a little m and a dash or with a straight out minor. Now what if we have the key of C major? Well real quick let's go to the piano. We already have our key. So where do you go? You're not including that
note you go down one two three and so the key of A minor
like C major has zero sharps, zero flats in its key signature. If you have a piece how in the world do you figure out whether you're in major or minor? Well here is a little tip for you and I'll show you when
we do our example here but I would say 99% of the time whatever the first chord is of your piece and whatever the last
chord is of your piece, let's say it's this one
all the way over here. I would say 99% of the time
those chords will match whatever key that you're in. So if you're in E major, you're gonna expect to see an E major chord
between the right hand and the left hand I won't
write it out for right now. But just keep in mind that it might not appear as
a straight chord like that. It might be you know, broken up between each, or between each clef. And then the last chords
same kind of thing. You would expect it to be in whatever key that you're in. So if we have this piece and that's not much of a piece, we're in the key E major and the reasons behind that
is its an E major chord. If we are in C sharp minor what kind of chord would you
expect right in the beginning? Well you would expect a C sharp
minor chord just like that. So if you have that, that would kind of insinuate. Now obviously things do get
more complicated sometimes but that would insinuate that your probably in
the key of C sharp minor. Okay now I caught you all
about how to figure out what key you're in if you have sharps. What about if you have flats? Well here's the thing. Here's how it works. And it works best if you have two or more flats and I'll explain why. Remember how with the sharps we went all the way to the last one and then we went up one note and that gave us our answer? Well this time it's not that. So just keep in mind that
only works for sharps. With flats what you do is you
go to the next to last flat. So you go to the last flat
all the way to the right. You go one over. So if you only have two flats, it's just the first flat they have since that's the next to the last
one all the way to the right. And then you figure out okay what note if I had a note there what would it be? Well that would be B right? So what you do is you go to B and since we're talking about and since we're talking about
flats you go from B to B flat. And that's your answer. So just to sum it up. You go to the next to last flat you know. The one all the way to
the right is the last one. You go one right to the left of that and then you just figure out what note that would be in flats and that's your answer. Let's do another example. Although before we move on. What would the minor relative minor key, just meaning what minor key
also shares the same two flats? Well just going from the piano we have B flat here. And then you're gonna
go down one two three. So the answer that you're looking for is we could also be in key of G minor. Now another question that
I'm gonna as a review. How you gonna determine whether you're in B flat major or G minor? Well leave it in the comments if you know. But the answer is you can
pause the video if you need. But the answer is the first and last chords will most times
you will see about the trend but most times it will match up with whatever key you're in. Okay. Now we have four flats. So what do we do? Well remember the process is you go not to the very last one. But you go to the next to last note and you just kind of figure out what note that would be if it was flat. So it would be the second space up and then you go to A but not just A, B. You go to A flat right there. So next last flat. And then you flat that. And that's it. So we're gonna key A flat major. You could also be in one
two three counting down. F minor as well determined by what your first and last chords are. And I mentioned that you had to have two or more flats for this to work. Well what if you only have one flat. Well. I got bad news for you, well maybe good news depending on who you are. You just gotta have to remember that that's the key of F. It obviously doesn't
work for that first one. Because there is no next to
last flat there is only one. So the one you're looking
for doesn't even exist. So you just have to remember that that one is F. That's all. Okay so once you've figured out what key you're in, next we need to figure
out what chords we can use or even what notes we can use. So let's take a look. Okay for simplicities sake and the example that we are using today let's
say we're in the key of C. How do we know we're in the key of C? Well there's no sharps, no flats and I'm just gonna tell it we're in the key of C major. Now building onto this, how do we figure out what
notes in chords we can use? Well here we go. Okay the first thing you need to understand if you don't already that the musical alphabet
goes from A to G. Help if I know what the alphabet was. And then what happens it repeats, so just keep that in mind. If you're not aware of that you probably are. But just letting you know. And then et cetera. So here's this comes in. So what you gotta do
is once you figure out what key you're in, so what we spent the
last 20 minutes doing. You need to figure out basically what notes you can use. So if we're in the key of C, what you wanna do is, you want to write up the musical
alphabet starting from C. So C D E, oops. E, F, G, A. For some reason this is
the hardest part for me. All right so starting from
C going to the alphabet, music alphabet order keep in mind that they repeat here up to the next C. So these are actually all the notes we get to use in the key of C. Showing on the Piano. Play it simply. This marks out this C major scale. So that's another reason it's important to learn your scales. One thing I wanna mention is there's seven individual
notes in the scale. One two three four five six seven and that the last note and
the first note are the same. So you don't call this eighth. You would just call it one again. Really important. Now you can build a note. A chord on each note of the scale. Just by playing that note
evenly spacing a note. Evenly spacing a note. Now you have to be very very careful that when you're doing this that you have any necessary sharps or flats in the key signature in there. But if we're in the key of C you don't need to worry about it. But just for an example if you're doing them in the key of G anytime you have an F. There would be an F
sharp in there instead. But we don't have to worry about that. So you just play the chord
on each of these notes. So now we have seven
chords to choose from. C, D, E, F, G, A, B and C. Now I'm not gonna go over each of the chord qualities and basically how you figure that out
meaning if they major or minor. But I'ma tell you right now for every major key
there's a pattern to it. The first chords are always major. Second and third chord always minor. Fourth and fifth chord always major. Sixth chord minor. Seventh chord always diminished and major. So remember that the pattern's
major and then minor minor major major and then
minor diminished major. Keep mind of the next last one is the only diminish you have. No augmented chords here luckily. So now we know the chords
we can choose from. These are literally the
chords we can pick from when playing our piece. So I want you to do after that is you want to actually write down these or when you first beginning anyway. Write down the key that you're in as well as
the note you choose from on a piece of paper just like I did. You don't necessary even need to write it out in music paper. So what I want you to do
now is under each note. Each starting note write out
the spelling of the chord. And what I mean by that isn't C-H-O-R-D. Is actually what three
notes make up that chord. So as you can see in the
beginning we have a C chord with C, E and G. The next chords D, F and A
just spacing out the notes. So I'm just writing out the
chords themselves E, G, B. So just give me a second to do this. So I know I'm doing it right. Now that why do I want you to write out all the notes of the chords? Well when you're actually
going through your music, you're actually going to be looking through what note in the
melody belongs to any of these chords. So let's actually start
putting all this to practice and take a look at an example together. If you find the lesson helpful so far make sure you smash that like button because it lets other students know that this is a quality lesson
they can learn from as well. All right back to the lesson. Okay here's our example. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. So what's our first step? Well you need to figure out what key that we're in. Well there's nothing written there. So we're probably either in the key of C sharp or A minor now there are no chords written in here right. So it's kind of backwards
from what I told you you know, look at the first and last
chord to figure what key that you're in. But I have another suggestion for you. Now this isn't as common but still most of the
time even in the melody, you're gonna see some of
the notes in the C chord or the A minor chord
appear whichever they are. So take a look at the first two notes here and let me know what you think C, C, G, G. Now the question is does that
fit as C major chord better? Or does that fit in A minor chord better? Well let's take a look. The C major chord is
made beneath C, E and G. Well hey I have two notes in that chord already in that measure. So we're probably in key C major because at A minor you only have the C that belongs in that major. So it's whatever note whatever chord has more notes going on in that measure is probably
what key you're in. If you have second
guesses about it you know, you can always look it up online. There's a ton of information out especially on popular
pieces or well known ones. Okay so we're in the key of C major. So what I wanna do is generally you have one chord per measure in a piece. Now is that always true now? You're gonna see a lot of things that where you have chords. Maybe two chords in a measure or something like that. So in general when you're first starting to do this you want to only
put one chord per measure. Now can you have more than
one chord per measure? Absolutely but for a simple song like this just playing one chord with your left hand while playing the right hand. One measure at a time. That works out perfect as you can see. That sounds just fine. So there's no need to figure out a chord for every single note that you have. Okay so now this is where it
all comes together everybody. We're gonna take this first note of the piece in the measure and it's C. So what do we have to do now? Well we have to figure out what notes out of all of the, out of all the available
chords we had best fits the C. There's actually a bunch of examples because you know. Obviously the C major
chord fits it really well. Which is probably what we're gonna do. Because like I said the first
and last chord of the piece whatever key that you're
in that's probably what we're gonna go for. You do A minor as well. Doesn't work quite as well. F sorta works but not quite. So let me show you one more little tip to better decide these chords. Okay I have to mention
about primary chords and primary chords are
the most common chords you're gonna find in music. Can you find other chords
either than a primary chords? Absolutely! But the primary chords
are one four and five. So whatever note, whatever chord on the first note, the fourth note and the fifth note scale, you're gonna be seeing those the most. So out of all the chords
that you have to chose from you're probably gonna
be looking there first. So I'd say that the C best
belongs in the C major chord that's what key that we're in. So as I play that first measure I'm just gonna add a C chord in there. Next measure we have A,
A so our first note of that measure is A. That's really what we're looking at there. So now what we gotta do
is we gotta figure out, out of our especially our
primary chords remember that was C major F major or G major. Which of those primary
chords does the A fit into? Well it doesn't fit into C major. That's made of C, E, G. What about F? Well hey F does fit. Visit F, F. A there we have a match. So you're looking to see what
chords match with your melody. What about the G chord? Well no because that's G, B and D. And you have an A here. So we're gonna choose an F
chord for that second measure. You only need one chord per measure and hey that sounds pretty good so far. That's perfect. Now the next measure is more F's again. So you know why don't
we try another F chord. You can have the same chord in a row. Sometimes for a very long time. So let's try the F chord. See if that works out. Wow that sounds pretty good. So. And then the next measure has a D. I may wanna move these chords down because as I noticed they are
crossing over a little bit. But here in this next measure we have D, D, C so it's first notice D. So now we gotta figure out which of our primary
chord best fits that D. Well C major aint gonna do it. That aint it chief. Because you got C, E and G. And it doesn't match. What about F major? F, A and C. Doesn't match. Oh hey G major has a D in it. Boom! We gonna use that G major chord there. And as you're going along let me see if it will let me do this. And as you're going through
you wanna start writing and whatever chords that you're using. So C. You got F. We got F again. G there just so you can keep track of it. As you get really good at it. You're really not gonna have
to worry about that anymore because you'll be able to
just fill them in on the spot. But in the beginning
that's what you wanna do. Okay next measure here. We have G. In the beginning of that measure. So now we gotta figure out what which of our primary
chords does G fall into? Well hey, it actually fits in the C. So that's an option. Does it fit in the F at all? Well no. F doesn't have a G in it. But G has G in it. Doesn't it? Well then you could, either you can choose either one here. Or you can choose the G chord. I think that the G chord
works a bit better there. So you know I'll use G there. And then the next measure has an E. Well we can probably use C major. F doesn't work. G doesn't work. So G, that sounds pretty good. If you really wanted
to mess around with it, you could choose some of your
secondary chords as well. But that work, looks like it's working out so far and at the very end I
will write these all in. And I'll go through and play them. Okay and then at the end we just kinda have to just start twinkle
twinkle star thing again. So you can actually use the same chords we had in the beginning. C. F. And then F again. And then at the end. What I would do see how that sounds weird there
I put the G chord right before the end. But when I hit that final note that didn't sound too good. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna add in a C
chord right at the end. Oh that sounds so good. Okay I'm gonna go through and play it with all the chords we had added in. I'm just gonna quickly write them in. (bouncy piano music) Now that sound pretty good. But you're find sometimes
that you'll play through it and there's actually another
step in the whole thing. You'll play through it and you'll be like you
know there is that one spot that I think would've
sounded a lot better maybe with another chord. And I think it is really
here in the second measure. Okay and as I was going
through I kind of realized that playing through here. As I was playing through
this spot right here. On the second line I kinda felt like, there should've been another
C chord in there as well. So I'd write another C chord right there and then just kind of
playing the rest of it. Adding a C you might wanna go through a few times trail and error. And there are multiple answers to some of these chords that you can put in there. As you saw that if you have two chords that have the note in common
you can actually choose between them just make sure to choose the primary chords
over the secondary chords and you'll be all right. If you really wanna
get good at this stuff, you need to check out some of these other music theory lessons. They gonna teach you a lot more
about chords, key signatures and all the things we talked
about today but in more depth. So that you can master them and apply them on command. So it's been your piano teacher Tim here. Thanks for coming by. And I'll see you in the next lesson.
