Minor-Key Jazz-Piano Chords and Progressions (intermediate)
What you'll learn
- Playing and creating Jazz Piano chords and progressions using Minor Keys
- About the Basic Natural minor scale, how it’s constructed and what are the minor chords built on its notes.
- About Harmonic and Melodic Minor scales, their structure and the chords they form, and in particular the important Dominant 7th chord.
- How chords can be “borrowed” from one version of the minor scale to another.
- How chords are either Dominant, Sub-Dominant or Tonic and behave in different ways , enabling you to create effective Minor chord progressions
- What are Relative Minor and Relative Major, how are they related, and how can they extend your chord progression by moving from one to other
- What is a Parallel Minor scale, and how can it be used along with Modal Interchange to mix Minor-key chords with major-key chords.
Requirements
- No need to read music, but should not be a Beginner in understanding and playing Jazz Chords and pieces; also have some Music Theory knowledge
- Must have a Keyboard, either an acoustic piano or electronic keyboard
Description
Hi, and welcome to this six-lesson course about “Minor key Jazz piano chords and Progressions”. It’s at an Intermediate level, which means that it follows on from what was studied earlier in my other lessons previously published here, at Beginner and Intermediate level, under the title Pop and Jazz Piano Keyboards and Harmony ; however there's no definite requirement for that, of course.
Introduction: In these previous courses, all the chords we’ve explored have been based on the major scale. But it’s perfectly possible to base chords on minor scales. In fact, if you’re not aware and knowledgeable of minor-key Harmony and the things it can do, both by itself and mixed-in with Major-key Harmony, you’re missing a lot! In my opinion, some of the richest and evocative chord-progressions are created with minor-scales and chords. With this knowledge, you could perhaps discover new musical dimension in your playing and composing.
Where this course will take you :You will definitely expand your jazz-chord playing and your knowledge of chord-progression composition, whether you're dealing just with the chords in a minor-key or mixing them together with major keys, as you'll study in the course. You'll also have the knowledge to analyse such techniques and chords as played in examples of classic standards.
What You'll Learn :
How a Natural Minor Scale is constructed, and how this affects the chord-types built on each scale-note.
How Minor-Key chords each have definite functions, Tonic, Dominant and Subdominant, within chord-progressions.
How two other Minor Scales, Harmonic and Melodic, are used to supply other, harmonically important chords to Natural minor chord progressions.
How Natural Minor Scales and Major Scales are related and how shifting from a minor verse to a major-key chorus can be done easily, to provide contrast and a change of mood.
How Parallel Minor is another type of minor scale whose chords can be used within a Major scale to provide richness and colour, a technique called Modal Interchange.
All of these features and qualities are pointed out within a range of classic and modern songs, played on piano.
It’s important to know that written music-notation is not used in the course, as not being in the spirit of Jazz. Chords are shown by note-names and Roman Numerals etc., to be interpreted in improvisatory way by the student, rather than simply read from conventional notation, arranged elsewhere.
Who this course is for:
- Those who have studied Jazz Chords at least at Basic level and possibly Intermediate with one teacher (such as myself) or another.
Instructor
- 4.5 Instructor Rating
- 142 Reviews
- 1,072 Students
- 3 Courses
I am a professional pianist and keyboardist, writer and producer in the genres of jazz and pop. My most recent jazz-oriented album was in 2013. I am a graduate of the Berklee School of Music, Boston. As a pop artist and writer, and later as a jazz artist, I have been signed to numerous major and independent labels, with hits world-wide, notably in the Billboard Top 100, Billboard Dance Chart and UK Top 40, and have also been a UK MOBO award nominee as Best Jazz Act.