Seven Systems: Polychords

Root C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B Chord Major Minor Diminished Augmented Major 7th Dominant 7th Minor 7th Half Diminished 7th Diminished 7th Suspended 2 Suspended 4 Major 6th Minor 6th

Formula

Spatial Degrees

C Dominant 7th

Spatial

Major triad with m7

Degrees

1 3 5 b7

Symbols

C7, Cdom7

Active Formula

1 3 5 b7

C Dominant 7th selected

Polychords

alright our final system of thinking is stacking chords on top of each other also called poly chords a poly chord is written as fraction for example you might see D over C7 so D in the numerator and C7 in the denominator this represents two chords it means to play a D major chord over a C7 chord do you notice anything here with this poly chord well when we play a D major chord over a C7 chord it’s also our C13 sharp 11 chord right one three five flat seven nine sharp 11 13. so poly chords just like our slash chords can be used as symbols that make it easier to process a chord for a lot of people it’s easier to process this chord as a D major chord over a C7 chord instead of a C13 sharp 11 chord now they’re also more advanced uses of poly chords where they’re used to create complex harmonies that’s out of the scope of this video but now if you ever see the symbol you know what it means you’re just stacking two chords on top of each other alright you made it we Recap just went from learning the notes of the keyboard to poly chord fractions so in summary we learned how to play our standard basic chords through two systems of thinking the spatial system processing chords as intervals and the major scale degree system processing chords as degrees of the major scale we then learned how to adjust those standard basic chords Through replacing adding and omitting notes to create new chords we can replace the three of the chord for two or four to create suspended chords we can add the sixth scale degree to our major and minor Triads to create six chords then to our standard basic chords suspended chords and six chords we can add extensions and alterations we can also omit notes from the chord to make it sound less tense and dense or to create power chords we then went on to use alternate bass notes in our chord to create slash chords and stacking chords on top of each other to create poly chords both of these systems of thinking can be used to process a chord faster we can actually view our different systems of thinking in terms of the time required to mentally process Accord the spatial system requires a lot of mental processing time to see all those intervals the major scale degree system is a bit faster if you know your major scales the use of alternate bass notes or chord stacking can further reduce mental processing time for many people however as we learned it’s important to understand a chord spatially by intervals because it informs us on why chord sounds dissonant or consonant that’s why it’s also important to understand the spatial system these are the seven systems of thinking to play every chord you will see in music if for some reason you see a chord that wasn’t covered today you’ll still be able to reason it out based on what you’ve learned today for example you might see a c add two chord you know that c add 9 is a C major chord and then you add the ninth scale degree so you can reason out that a c add two is a C major chord where you add the second scale degree [Music] lastly we learned all the chords today Chord Voicings but not chord voicings I like to compare chords versus chord voicings as two different chicken soup recipes chords tell you the soup has olive oil garlic onion celery carrots chicken legs and water chord voicings tell you how much of each ingredient and how to prepare them here’s the c major chord c e and G and here’s a C major chord voicing notice here we have three C’s one e and two G’s and they’re spread out in a unique way across the keyboard in the chord formulas handbook as a last minute Edition I actually added a final chapter on the standard basic chord voicings both Triad and seventh chord voicings in Next Steps terms of next steps download the handbook have fun exploring everything we’ve learned today and become an absolute Master at playing and reading every chord and chord symbol then learn the standard basic chord voicings and take your first steps into professional chord style piano playing alright that’s it for this lesson thanks so much for watching I’ll see you in another video thank you foreign [Music]