12.2 Chords and primary chords

Accompanying the wistful or plaintive melodies, the second element that W.C. Handy wrote about was a repetitive chord sequence. This is another complex-sounding concept, but you don’t need to be a musician to understand it. A chord is simply two or more notes sounding simultaneously. We use the word harmony to describe generically how musical sounds fit together. The video in the previous section introduced you to scales. In that section you focused on the melody, that is, what the singer was doing. Now you are going to turn to the accompanying instruments and focus on harmony and the way in which chords are used. The next video will explain what chords are and how they are constructed. Watch it now before progressing to the next section.

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NAOMI BARKER

A chord is simply two or more notes sounded simultaneously. I can put my hands on the piano and play three or four notes together at random, like this.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

And that sound could be called a chord. But for chords to make musical sense, they are constructed in relation to a scale. In this demonstration, the chords that we're going to be concerned with are constructed from a major scale, the do, re, mi pattern that you're becoming familiar with.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Each chord is composed of notes from the scale that line next door but one to each other. So a chord starting on do comprises the notes do, mi, and sol. And on the piano, it looks and sounds like this.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

If I move to a different starting note, let's say fa, and do the same thing, playing notes that are next door but one to each other, the notes are now fa, la, and do.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

You'll remember from the song that the sequence of do, re, mi ends by going back to do and restarting. So this fa chord uses a do that is higher than the one we started on, like this.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Now, if I want to play a chord on sol, it also overlaps a note from the do chord because it starts on sol, the top node of the do chord. It's made up of the notes, sol, ti, and re, and also takes us into the repetition of the do, re, mi pattern that is higher than the one we started on. On the keyboard, it looks and sounds like this.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

In any scale, these three chords are known as the primary chords. And so I've chosen to use primary colours to illustrate them. As a musical shorthand, these three chords are represented by the Roman numerals I, IV, and V, as they start on the first, fourth, and fifth notes of the scale, respectively. That is, on do, fa, and sol. Now, instead of using do, re, mi, I'm going to use letters of the alphabet to identify the notes. You're already familiar with the concept of a major scale. The simplest major scale starts on the note C. That means the note we've been calling do is C, and the do, mi, sol pattern will be C, E, G.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

We call this a C chord. A chord starting on fa would start on F.

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And a chord starting on sol would be on the note G.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

All of these chords made up of notes from the C scale can be said to be in the key of C. The notes comprising a chord can be manipulated in an almost infinite variety of ways. But however complicated they might sound, they are simply fancy ways of doing things with the three notes that make up that chord. A C chord like this--

[MUSIC PLAYING]

--or like this--

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--or like this--

[MUSIC PLAYING]

--is still just a C chord. There are many, many types of chords and many types of scale. These primary chords are just the beginning. However, they are also the chords that are important for understanding how blues songs are structured.

End transcript: Video 2

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Video 2

There are many types of chords and many types of scale. You only need to be familiar with the concept of chords that have been explained here in order to understand the fundamental structures of the blues. Before you move on to the next section, review your understanding of chords by studying this graphic representation of the primary chords which you saw these briefly in the video.

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This shows the primary chords.

Take some time now to review how the notes of each chord relate to each other and how each chord fits into the major scale that you heard in video 1. If you have access to a musical instrument you could have a go at creating some of these sounds yourself. Note that all the graphics illustrating the primary chords here and in the videos use the same primary colours so chord I will be red, chord IV will be yellow and chord V will be blue. In the video you learned about primary chords in the key of C. In practice, Doh is not always the note C but chord I is always constructed in the same way regardless of the note on which the scale starts, so these colours will remain unchanged, even though you may be listening to music in a different key.