 Hi everyone, this is Jason Zak from Nathaniel's School of Music. In this lesson, it's going to be like a mammoth exercise, sort of an all-in-one thing which I've prepared, which involves the study of a bunch of things, chord inversions, voice leading, arpeggios, circle of fifth study, a lot of music theory, cadences, the list goes on. Maybe even forgetting something as I'm talking to you, but there are a lot of things I've developed, but it'll all happen around the simple process of climbing something, be it the melody or the harmony. The melody will climb in a scale, ascending, descending, climbs will happen, as well as for chords, ascending, descending, and we are going to use things like cadences, circle of fifths, which are going to be musically beautiful. At the same time, we will be exploring pretty much all the permutations using tools like the circle of fifths. So before we get cracking, it'll be awesome if you could consider a copy of our notation, which is written for the entire lesson with all the variations. We have the notation waiting for you as a MIDI or a PDF download on our Patreon page. We also have my handwritten notes, which go along throughout the lesson, which will help you even after the lesson. You could download a copy and on Patreon, you'll get access to things which we've done before and what we are going to do in the future as well. So let's get cracking, guys. First of all, let's look at the circle of fifths. The circle of fifths, without all the sharps, flats, and the usual way we look at it, which is rather confusing, is in sense, a circle of notes. So you have C, G, D, A, E, B, F-sharp, also known as G-flat. Then you have D-flat, A-flat, E-flat, B-flat, FC. Now that is counting it in the clockwise direction. If you count it in the counter-clockwise direction, it's going to be C, F, B-flat, E-flat, A-flat, D-flat, G-flat, also known as F-sharp, B, E, A, D, G, C. Now why we need to count it in these different directions is to practice movements of chords. The simplest movements of chords we have are called as cadences. So if you take the motion of going from C to G, it could be C major going to G major, or C minor going to G minor, or whatever. Some version of C going to some version of G. That's clockwise circle, right? C, G, D, A like that. We call those as Plagal Cadence movements, also known as 4s going to 1s. So if you take C going to G, C is the 4 of the G, G is the 1, G, A, B, C, C would be the 4, right? So G, A, B, C, C, B, A, G, G, A, B, C. So C major will resolve nicely to G, that will be the Plagal, and then G will go to the D, D will go to the A, A will go to the E, F-sharp, B-flat, A-flat, E-flat, B-flat, F, C. That's the Plagal movement where we move clockwise. And counterclockwise if you go, you're going to do it in the authentic cadence movement. Authentic cadences in music or perfect cadences as we call them, are 5s going to 1s. So if you take it from, let's say A, A is the 5 of the D, okay? A goes to D, A, D, that's A, D, counterclockwise. If you have the circle in front of you, you could just picture that A, counterclockwise goes to D, that's a 5 going to 1, 5 of, A is the 5 of the D. We're using the circle of 5ths as the visual aid. And then A is also the 4 of the E. And you count that by going clockwise with the circle, with the clock, okay? So the exercise basically is going to revolve around the authentic cadence as well as the Plagal cadence. For most of the lecture, I'm going to go authentic because that is more common and otherwise this lesson is going to take a fair amount of time as well. So to make it concise, we look at the authentic cadence for the most part. But remember, the Plagal cadence is just the other direction. So remember what I told you at the beginning? This is going to be a climbing drill. So we are first going to look at authentic cadences to practice our chord inversions and how best to do it, then the circle of 5ths because the circle will give us every single chord there is to offer major or minor depending on how you want to roll with it. So I'm just going to hand pick any note in the circle. Let's pick A. So if you take A, play the root of that particular note in the left hand and play the triad in the right hand. That's A, C, C, B. Now the triad A, C, C, B can exist in three states or three piano inversions as we call them. You have root position which is A, C, C, B, first inversion which is C, C, B, A, second inversion which is E, A, C, C, so that's this, this and that. So you have three ways of playing the pretty much any triad. If you take C major, C, E, G, E, G, C, G, C, E. So we can start on any of these triad positions. I'm going to start with the A major in its root position and now you ask yourself, now I want to go authentic. Authentic will be 5 going to 1. So A is the 5 of the D. So my landing chord will need to be D major. So I will play A major, D major, how did I do that? I did A, C sharpie the most efficient way I would think is to time up to the D. So A, C sharpie, A, D, F sharp, A, C sharpie, A, D, F sharp. You don't want to do A, C sharpie, D, F sharpie which is a huge jump for which it's going to sound sonically annoying and also it's poor voice leading in general and it's just tough to play. You'll need your eyes to play the chords which ideally you don't want. You want it to be more guitar like, you want it to flow more freely like guitarists do with their things like the cage system and their easy way of shifting between chords of a scale degree. So A will go to D, that's the next target. Now that I'm here, A, D, F sharp, I have reached there, the job need not be over. In the left hand you could do the roots of the two chords just to tell yourself that oh I'm on A major and now I'm on the D major and now from D if you look at the circle if you stare at it moving counterclockwise after D the next neighbor is what? G, right? A, D, G and then C and then so on. So you could journey forward as the circle goes counter the clock. So A goes to D, now D goes to G, so it's a very natural tendency, isn't it? Because the F sharp wants to go to G, the D is common between chords so stay that state alone, don't move it. And in the lower end you're doing A, B, the higher end F sharp, G, A, B, D, D, so it's so far slowly but surely climbing, A to the D, D to the G, continue, G to the C, C, B to the A, B flat to the E flat, all flat to the A flat, A flat to the D flat or C sharp, C sharp to the F sharp or G flat, F sharp to the B almost over, B to the A, E to the A. So I started with A here and after going all the way up, A, D, G, C, F, B flat, E flat, A flat, D flat, F sharp, B, E, A, I will start here and I will end here if I did the exercise correctly of course. So root position A major takes us all the way up the circle, back to the same root position of A but only difference being played one octave higher. So we can do this with all the three piano inversions of let's say the A major chord which we have been happy to start with. So you can take up maybe C sharp, E, A, so C sharp, E, A going to D, F sharp, A same direction, D, G, B, G major, E, G, C, C major, F, A, C, F major, F, B flat, D, G, B flat, E flat, E flat major, A flat, C, E flat, E flat major, A flat, D, F sharp, F normal, D flat major, B flat, D flat, G flat, F sharp major, B, D sharp, F sharp, B major, B, E, G sharp, E major and end on A. So where did I start? I started with the first inversion of A and I ended with the first inversion of A. So that's the workout. A, D, G, C, F, B flat, A flat, A flat, D flat, G flat, D, E, A and similarly you may be guessing it. Why can't I start from the second inversion of A major? There are three inversions per chord, right? Root, first and second. So you can get from the second going forward A, D, G, C, B flat, E flat, A flat, D flat, G flat, B, A. So I started here and I will end there quite neatly. B, G, C, F, B flat, E flat, A flat, D flat, F sharp, B, E, A in the second inversion. It's quite an achievement actually. It feels like you've kind of climbed a mountain or at least a hill if you ask me. So that's the first exercise going in the authentic cadence using the three triad starting points and you'll find your right hand climbing gradually until it reaches the summit which is the same as where you started ironically. So another thing you could consider doing once the authentic cadence journey is over which is a circle of hips going counter the clock while your piano goes ascending, ascending climb. You could now climb down while going in the other direction which is clockwise circle that will form you the plagal cadence. So if you take A, how would you go to E? May not be naturally like that may not be the natural inclination to climb up to E. Maybe you'll be drawn towards A going to E. That's how it's played even in a church scenario. Amen, amen, amen. That's like the amen in a, that's why they also call it an amen cadence sometimes. So A, E and from E you go to B, F sharp, D flat, A flat, E flat, B flat, F, C, G, D, A. Let's do that again. A, E, B, F sharp, major, D flat, A flat, E flat, B flat, F, C. And you can do this with all the starting points, isn't it? You can do it with an A inversion perhaps. You pretty much just keep going down on the piano in terms of the circle of hips going in a clockwise direction. So plagal cadence, descending piano chords, authentic pick cadence, ascending piano chords, authentic is five to one in terms of the scale degrees and plagal cadence is four to one. So this should in a sense give you a fair chord workout along with inversions. So I think this is the best way to practice anything in the field of harmony. Look at the circle of fifths, form basic cadences and then do your job. I just tried to make it more interesting by making it into a climbing routine where you go all the way up, you cover all those chords in that cadence, you go all the way down, you cover all the same chords, but in the plagal cadence, right guys? So if you want to push yourself even further, remember the chords major need not only be played as major, you could even play it as minor chords going up and down like you can play all of those chords as minor and that will train your minor study as well. So I leave that to you to do over the week or the weeks ahead with this exercise. Remember, take your time with the exercise, don't look at it as something you have to get right now. It's a kind of a process and there are times where even if I've done this exercise, let's say today, I may not do it for about a month. When I come back to it, I feel, man, I have to practice this almost as a new player. So it's always a nice workout when you're playing the piano to do your chords, get your inversion circle of fifths, sort of like an all in one routine. So I didn't want to end the lesson here. I thought, let's make this a bit melodious as well. So using what we call as a tetra chord, we can develop some really interesting melodic content which can also give you a good insight into composing a melody for things like songwriting or composing anything in the field of music. So let's now move forward to get a melody out of this thing. So if you take, let's say the A major scale, three sharps, right, A, B, C sharp, D, E, F sharp, G sharp, A, you could look at this in a theoretical way as they call it into two tetra chords. Tetra means generally means four. So a set of four. So you go A, B, C sharp, D, the first four notes will form the lower tetra chord. And then the next four notes will form the upper tetra chord. So A, B, C sharp, D, lower tetra, E, F sharp, G sharp, E, upper tetra. So the way I've designed this routine for climbing is the melody when it goes up. You could do two chords for that climb and that's like a five to one if you think about it. A to the D, A is the five of the D. Or you could look at it as four going down to one, four going to one, one to the four, four down to one. So the four notes of the A major scale or the tetra chord of A. Okay, that's a good workout. At the ma or the four, you play the four chord. And now if you take the upper tetra chord, which is you can do another five to one or maybe a four to one. You could play the upper tetra chord around the same axis, like you could just play A. So A here, A, B, C sharp, D, keep it anchored, D, C sharp, B, A, now down, A, G sharp, F sharp, E, F sharp, G sharp, A. Again. Now, as I'm singing this, it's more naturally inclined to do this in a waltz way, in a three by four context where you do one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one. But you can feel free to even play it as a four by four, you know, up to you. But the way it is written for you in the notation just for simplicity is we've notated it as a three by four waltz method of playing. Now, we can extend this tetra chord system or this tetra chord knowledge to do a lot of things. So before I move back to the circle of fifths from where we started, I'd like to also tell you that this melody which you create in your right hand can be based on the chords themselves. So what if you didn't have the tetra chord per se, you had just the scale and you just have an A going to D, A going to D, A going to D. So now you ask yourself, what are the ways in which I can express my melody with the climbing? So A, D are the roots of these two chords. So you could do a scenario which is root to the root, root to the root. So that'll be what is the root of A major A? What's the root of D major D? That was easy, right? So root to the root. So you're kind of anchoring the melodic movement among the tetra in the tetra chord of four notes. The pivots or the anchors will be the root of the first chord up to the root of the second chord. And now you can continue the climb within the circle of fifths. So if you think about it A, D, then D to the G, how will that work? D to the G, D to the G. So A to the D, D to the G, G to the C, C to the F. I'm coming down because it's too high. The piano will run out of notes on the piano. And also the notes, you'll not be able to hear it because you don't have that great hearing. You can only hear till about 20 to 20k as we say in Hertz. So what you can now do is that's exercise one, root to the root. We have all of this notated for you by the way on our Patreon page. You can access each individual journey or climb if you call it. The next journey would be, we finish root to root. Why don't we now do third to the third. So what's the third of the A major triad? That's A, B, C sharp, the G of the chord, the third of the chord. So third to the third, third to the third. That's C sharp to the F sharp. It's still a tetra chord of four notes. C sharp, D, E, F sharp, third to the third. You may be guessing it. If I do third to the third, I've done root to the root. Can I not do fifth to the fifth? Isn't it? A chord has the root, the third and the fifth. So the fifth, fifth to the fifth. Now here's something interesting as you go fifth to the fifth. Are you going to do fifth to the fifth? That's debatable because are you on D major? In other words, is the landing chord the scale or is the first chord the scale? That would make it like an A major scale, isn't it? With the G sharp versus that would make it D major. Without the G sharp, D major has two sharps, F sharp and C sharp. So that makes it an interesting choice of notes in that tetra chord of four notes. And now let's combine two journeys together. A melodic journey where we do tetra chords with the same chord journey we learned earlier in the right hand. We've now moved it to the left hand. So that'll be the same circle of fifths climbing A to the D, G, C, F, B flat, B flat, A flat, D flat, G flat, B, E, A. But only thing in the left hand, circle of fifths as usual. So we have root to the roots and it keeps going forward, doesn't it? Root to the root, D to the G, G to the C, C to the F, F to the B flat, B flat to the E flat, A flat, D flat, F sharp, B, A. So right guys, so we've started the exercise with the circle of fifths. We've explained or explored the cadence and the circle and all the essential theory. Then we looked at the chord journey. The chord journey would be basically ascending on the keyboard if you're going counterclock the circle and it would be descending on the keyboard if you're going clockwise in the circle. Counterclock is the authentic cadence, five to one and four to one would be our plagal cadence. So along with the chords, after having done that in the right hand, we then said let's take all the chords in the left hand and move melodically with the tetra chord. That's the root to the root, third to the third or the fifth to the fifth, depending on the chord of course. Okay, and we have all this notated for you on our Patreon page. You'd have seen a few glimpses of the notes during the lesson. So it'll be a great way to kind of connect better with the exercise and kind of keep it in your archives of, you know, during your piano practice, you could even print it out. It's in good quality as well. And there are Patreon notes, there's also MIDI files and a lot of other documents not only for this lesson, we do year training lessons, we do song tutorials, we do theory lessons and more. So do consider becoming a Patreon member on patreon.com slash Jason Zach. There are other tires as well for you to consider. And if you'd like to learn in a more structured manner with our school, with regular exercises, with modular and structured learning, you can head over to Nathanielschool.com. We have either our video courses, which are structured courses at different levels, covering piano, theory, year training, and with an ever growing archive. And you can also learn with me in person, you can do a course, you could do vocals, guitar, piano, or whatever you choose and come aboard Nathaniel School of Music. Right guys, thanks a ton for watching. And before we forget, don't forget to turn on that bell icon and hit the subscribe button. Give us a like if you liked the lesson that helps the video do well and leave us a comment with something you'd like to learn in the near or distant future and we will figure that out. Cheers, catch you in the next one.