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Adding Color to Chords
26 students

Adding Color to Chords

Take your chords to the next level!
Created byJosh Cook
Last updated 1/2025
English

What you'll learn

  • Gain confidence in adding color to various types of chords
  • Come to understand the emotional qualities of various harmonic colorizations
  • Develop chord progressions with color so that you stand out as a player
  • Dip your toes into the harmonic language of jazz and romantic harmony
  • Take your chord knowledge/execution to the next level

Course content

2 sections • 12 lectures • 1h 25m total length

  • Benefits of Adding Color3:15

    Let's discuss the benefits of adding color to your chords and when/how this approach can be applicable within your playing.

  • Adding 7ths13:57

    A great starting point in our exploration of adding color.  You don't have to be a jazz musician to reap the benefits of the beautiful color of 7ths!

  • Adding 2's and 9's11:03

    One of my personal favorite colors, let's talk about 2's and 9's!

  • Adding 4's8:13

    A beautiful ambiguity of a 4 on minor, or the spicy cheerfulness of adding a #4 to a major chord, don't sleep on the expressive use of adding 4's to your chords.

  • Adding 6's6:32

    A great way to confirm or challenge tonality (the sound of major or minor), adding a 6th to your chord can be a great way to spice it up!

  • Sus Chords7:10

    Not quite ADDING color, but rather altering a chord so that it takes more of a floating and colorful characteristic.

  • Coloring Dominant 7th Chords12:51

    One of the most tense and colorful sounds available in modern music is the dominant 7th chords and its many variations!

  • Chord Voicings7:19

    Understanding how to arrange the notes of a chord is important, so let's get discussing the basics of this process.

  • Balancing Color4:37

    There are lots of ways we can approach adding color to chords, especially within progressions, so in this class I will go over some approaches that I think will greatly help you.

  • Suspending Color5:16

    Just like a sus 4 chord can move a note from our basic major/minor chord up one note, we can also move some into some of the other colors we've discussed.  This class will cover the basics of suspending into and out of color.

Requirements

  • You should have an understanding of notes on the piano
  • You should know your basic major and minor chord shapes

Description

If you're looking to spice up your chord progressions, you've come to the right place.

Once you have the basics of playing chord progressions, it's a great time to test your ability once more by adding color to your chords!  This course will help you gain a framework for how to internalize harmonic colorization.  You can use the teachings from this course to add intrigue to a rock piano part, putting spice on a funk keyboard part, and even twist the listeners emotions within film scores.  This course has something for all keyboard players!

Whether you are a:

Intermediate level keys player looking to improve their progressions

A film composer looking to internalize the emotional palette available within harmony

An improviser looking to spice up their harmonic approach

A music theory buff looking to fill out their musical knowledge

Then this course has something for you!


It's not enough for me to simply tell you how most people perceive various colors on chords.  It's important that you come up with your own interpretation and language for how you hear these more elaborate sounds.  That's why in this course I will give you common emotions for each chord color, but I'll also get you to take notes of your own impressions so that you can really internalize how you hear these sounds/colors.


In this course we will cover the benefits of adding color to chords, how to balance color within your progressions, and how to approach chord voicings.  Not to mention we will cover tons of various colors you can add to major and minor chords!

I hope you enjoy the content ahead, and happy practicing!


Who this course is for:

  • Intermediate piano players that are looking to improve their harmonic language
  • Piano players that wish to captivate their audience with their harmonic choices
  • Performers wanting to understand what colors can be added to various chord types
  • Musicians that wish to better understand what emotional qualities various colors can add to chords

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