At the turn of the century, and I refer to the one that we’ve all lived through, I was busy collecting my thoughts and ideas on piano improvisation.  The Quaverbox Sessions is a 37 page free piano improvisation book containing a collection of these principles. Back then, I offered it as a free download on the Quaverbox website, but after numerous upgrades to the site, and to my computers, the book was lost on one of the discarded hard drives.

I found it recently. Now it’s available free again, but before you download it, all I ask in return is that you click the Facebook Like button in the top left corner of this page.  Once you’ve done that, please click the image below to go to the Quaverbox Facebook page and Like that page too!

Clicking Like helps others find us, who may also learn something from resources like this free book or our Video Lessons. It also makes me happy! =)

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By the way, for those of you who have purchased the Quaverbox Manual, don’t worry… this is not the same book! Think of the Quaverbox Manual as an upgraded, supersized version of this book with twice as much info and Audio Files.

The A minor triad is often the first minor chord a student learns.  After all, it’s the relative minor of C major and we all know C major. When you see an Am chord piano symbol, how many of you play it as A C E or one of its inversions (ie. C E A and E A C)?

Am7 = A C E G

Hopefully you’ve watched a few of the video lessons on this site and have at least learnt that Am can often be modified to an Am7.  As an improviser, you don’t need to wait for the Am7 chord symbol to appear.  Just play your Am as Am7 whenever you feel the Am7 sound is more appropriate.

By adding the G (the minor 7th or flat 7th of A), your chord now resembles a C major triad with an A in it.  In fact, if you play the A with your left hand and remove it from your right, you’re left with a C triad, C E G.  As a result, the Am7 sounds brighter and happier than a plain Am triad.  Am7 also sounds more modern.

Am7add11 = C D G (with A in the LH)

But wait, in Lesson 7 you learnt all about Major 2nd chords so we could apply that principle here and play a C2 chord, C D G in the RH. Your Am7 chord is now evolving into something cooler – Am7add11.

If you’d like more detailed info, examples and exercises, check out Lesson 9 on m7 chords.

Am9 = A C E G B

What else can we do? Well, we can stack on more notes, like adding a B into the mix. This makes it an Am9. Playing five notes with the RH is getting a bit tough now, so play the A in the LH and the rest of the notes with the RH.

It’s a great, rich chord. Notice how the RH looks just like a Cmaj7 chord, C E G B.

Am9 = B C G

By experimenting with its inversions and moving notes around, you could play an Am9 like this, which is one of my favorite ways of voicing an Am9.

It creates a harshness and there’s a certain tension with this sound, but it’s pretty cool and easy to play. Break these notes up and you’ve got yourself a good run or fill.

Am7b5 = A C Eb G

Here’s one for the jazz folk. It tends to lead to a D7 or D7b9 chord.  Sometimes I play this as Eb G A D for extra dissonance. This is known as a “minor 7th flat 5″ chord or a “half diminished” chord.  But if we head down the jazz path, there’s also Am6, Amin-maj7, etc. Try this progression:

Amin-maj7 (A C E G#) – Am7 (A C E G) – Am6 (A C E F#) – it has a certain James Bond-ish kind of feel.

Am = So many options!

As you can see, you have a stack of options when playing an Am chord. Don’t settle for A C E unless you really want a traditional, plain minor sound. Remember, each chord has its inversions so you’ve got even more voicings available. And that’s one of the beauties of playing the piano, your Am chord on piano can take on a lot more forms than on any other instrument.

If you have a favorite way of playing an Am chord on the piano, share it by posting it below!

As musicians, we come across the terms ‘major’ and ‘minor’ everyday yet not many of us really know what they mean.

What does major and minor mean? As musicians, we come across these terms everyday yet not many of us really know what they mean. I think I did 10 years of classical music before somebody explained it to me… that’s quite sad really.

Most of us associate ‘major’ with happy sounds and ‘minor’ with sad ones, and it’s true, these are the qualities of major and minor chords, but they’re not defined as such. So what do these terms mean? Well, if you woke up with a major headache, or you had a minor problem, what are you really saying? Simply put,

major = big
minor = small

These terms refer to the distance between two notes. For example, the distance (or interval) when you move from C to D is known as a major 2nd. Why? Because D is the 2nd note in the major scale of C. Makes sense. When moving from C to Db, this interval is known as a minor 2nd, because the distance is shorter (or smaller) so it’s the small 2nd. Db isn’t the 2nd note in the C minor scale, but it’s known as the minor 2nd simply because it’s smaller than the major 2nd.

In other words, all major intervals come from the major scale. Whereas all minor intervals are one semitone smaller than their major counterparts.

C – Db = minor 2nd
C – D = major 2nd
C – Eb = minor 3rd
C – E = major 3rd
C – F = perfect 4th
C – Gb = diminished 5th
C – G = perfect 5th
C – Ab = minor 6th
C – A = major 6th
C – Bb = minor 7th
C – B = major 7th
C – C = octave

If you’re wondering why some intervals are known as ‘perfect’ it’s to do with the whole number ratio of their frequencies. Go ask a physics student and they’ll explain it to you. =)
The point here is… minor intervals are always one semitone lower than major intervals, and major intervals come from the major scale. The next article will discuss the various types of 7th chords so it’s important to understand intervals before we can move on.

There are many improvisers out there who can hear a tune and instantly create a rich palette of chords to support it.  If you asked them how they did it, you might receive a response like, “you just hear it in your head and you kinda know what’ll work”. Unfortunately, that’s how it’s done, and more unfortunately, that response doesn’t help you achieve much.

So here are a couple of tips to help you add chords to a melody.

Know the qualities of each type of chord

Before I play a maj7 chord, I already know that it will produce a floating, unresolved effect. Other words I might use to describe the chord are “airy, light, rich, jazzy”.  In comparison a diminished chord is dark, sinister, and sounds like a sadder version of a minor chord (I loosely call dim chords double minor because it contains two minor 3rds stacked on top of each other).  A sus chord has strong major sound but sounds like it’s going somewhere – it needs to be resolved.

In my head, I’ve got a worded description tagged to each type of chord, so if I hear or create a melody, and I want to produce a certain effect at some point in the melody, I know roughly which type of chord(s) to choose from.  Often we sit at the piano and say things like, “For this spot in the melody, I can sorta hear the chord that goes with it” and we proceed to randomly mash a few chords but it’s not quite what we heard.  If that happens a lot, take heart – at least you’re hearing something, which means the difference between you and a professional is that they know which chord they’re hearing and you don’t.  Once you work it out, you’ll remember it and the next time you hear the same chord in your head, you’ll know what it is.

If however you don’t hear anything in your head, then you can either randomly play some chords and hope for the best, or use some theory. I recommend the latter.

Use a bit of theory

Let’s say your song is in the key of C, and you’re trying to find a chord that will work with the current melody note B.

Jot down all the chords that you know that contain a B and begin with the obvious ones.  G and Em are the only triads in the key of C that contain a B, so try them first. If they don’t produce the sound you’re after, try some 4 or 5 note voicings that contain B but stick within the key of C (ie. white notes only), eg. Cmaj7, Em7, G7, Am9, Fmaj7#11, etc.  If that still doesn’t work, then try chords from different keys that contain B, like E, F#sus, B, etc. There are also numerous jazz voicings that may work like upper structures.. try playing an E root position triad in the RH while playing F and B in the left (your chord should read F B E G# B from left to right).  Now there’s a cool way to accompany your B melody note! OK, now I digress.

Although this provides a system for you to find the right chord, our goal is not to go through 50 chords each time using a wonderful system.  The aim is obviously to get to the desired chord with as few attempts as possible. And this brings us back to the hearing side of things.  The more chords you experiment with, the better you’ll know what they sound like.  For beginners, start by asking a friend to play a bunch of triads in various inversions and you try to distinguish between major and minor triads.  Then work in a few sus chords and slash chords like C/E, G/F, F/G.  Then you’re ready to train your ear at 4 note voicings like Am7, Cmaj7  and so on.

Most of us lead busy lives. If you’re a student, there are exams and assignments.  As an adult, it’s even tougher – work commitments, raising children, everybody and everything demands your time.  Unfortunately, piano practice adds to that list.  So let’s be realistic.  Most of us aren’t striving to be world-class performers – we have moderate, personal goals and would like to improve as quickly as we can with as little practice each week.  Sound about right?

The key to consistent progress is consistent practice and there’s no way around that, but if we practice efficiently, we can make the most of each minute we’re sitting at the keyboard.  As a minimum, aim for 3 practice sessions per week and try to devote 20-30min for each session.  If that seems very manageable, then practise more. If it seems too much of a commitment, aim for 10min practice every second day. Regular amounts of practice will see you improve, even if it’s only 10 minutes at a time.

Technical work involves playing scales, broken chords, ear training, etc. For most of us, it’s a struggle to diligently practise our scales and other exercises. But if I can show you their importance and relevance, then maybe this would motivate you a little more.

Here’s a simple analogy. Let’s say you’re a athlete, training to compete in the 100m sprint. In preparation for the event, you’ll need to do more than just run 100m every day. Sure, that will help, but it’ll take more than that to win the event. There’s weight training, proper diet, exercises and a lot of other activities that contribute to your success as a 100m sprinter. The same applies to playing and improvising songs well. Scales and broken chords strengthen our fingers, improve our coordination, provide evenness in our playing and internalises chord structures. Ear training helps us to identify chords upon hearing them which is essential for playing by ear, music composition, transposition, etc.

Practically speaking, start off each session with a few minutes of scales and broken chord exercises. For beginners, aim to learn 2 major scales each week. Focus on correct fingering, evenness and smoothness, rather than speed. Practise hands separately, then together. Broken chords help improve your grounding of triads and their inversions, and prepare you to execute some fancy runs in the future.

Now you’ve warmed up and are ready to practise your songs. But, don’t just play songs from start to finish, stumbling past the same mistakes each time. Break your song into verse and chorus, and break that down further into smaller 2 or 4 bar progressions. Practise these progressions repeatedly until you can vary the inversions of each chord without hesitation or gaps in your playing. There’s so much more I can say, but hopefully, this will give you a start to proper practice techniques. All the best!