 Hi everyone, this is Jason here from Nathaniel. In this lesson, I'm going to take all of the normal chords which we might know. By normal, I basically mean two of them, major and minor. And then look at various strategies, various natural or very piano friendly strategies to kind of easily navigate and find all the other chords and the extensions or the more advanced sounds as we call them like the sevenths, the fancy jazz tensions, also some suspended intervals. So basically chords which are not major and minor. Major chord as we know, one, three, five. So that's a root, major third, perfect fifth, minor chord. Minor chord, root, minor third, perfect fifth. The same perfect fifth for both major and minor, right? So we are going to start with those chords. And also what's important to consider is that each of these chords have their own inversions. So if you take C major, C, E, G, or you have E, G, C where you just take the C and move it on the top. We call that an inversion or in this case, the first inversion and then we have G, C, E, the higher one. So just remember that there are 12 major chords, 12 minor chords, and then obviously the inversions of each. So we are gonna start with that and then expand and build all sorts of other sounds. So for example, if you take a C major chord which I just call as vanilla C major, right? You know, like an ice cream. So you take C and then you add stuff to it. You get a more sophisticated sound, maybe. That's sort of a sound. So all of this is based on just a simple concept called intervals and on the piano, it's laid out really well for us and theory will help us as well. So using theory and using the geography of the piano so to speak, we are going to find all sorts of advanced chords. So stay tuned till the very end and before we get cracking, don't forget to hit that bell, very important. We'll be doing a lot more videos as probably some of you already know and if you haven't already, hit that subscribe button. Let's get cracking. So if I take a chord, let's say D major, D F sharp A. So the first thing you want to note is when you construct a major chord, it's the root. Any of the 12 roots we have in music, C D F G A B, B flat, E flat, A flat, D flat, G flat. You have all those options. Right now I'm considering D as my root and to form a major chord and to form most chords along with that root, you need to at least know the fifth interval. So that would be the fifth there. D's fifth is A. Similarly, you take C. C's fifth is G. So knowledge of the fifth is, I think, very important and obviously the root itself, which is not a big deal, it'll tell you it's C major or C seventh or whatever it may be. So you have the fifth, which you need to know and a very important trick will be the circle of fifths. You could just see the circle and anything clockwise will be the fifth and anything counterclockwise in that circle will be the fourth. That's your fourth, C to F or D to G and anything clockwise will be the fifth example. D to A or C to G. So fifths and fourths become very important and then the next order of business would be to remember the thirds. The thirds is something I would really suggest that you just mug up, you memorize. There are only 12 of them and trust me, they are super important. So it's worth your time to learn those thirds really, really getting them at the back of your head. So major thirds and minor thirds. A major third, for example, from D will be two steps from within the major scale or you go up a third like that, one, two, three or a crude way would be you go up four chromatic steps from anywhere. One, two, three, four. So D's major third is F sharp. So if ever you're struggling with that, well, count up chromatic steps and you got your major third. However, make a chart, remember it really, really well and practice it. The more you practice these things, just like a sport, it'll start becoming second nature, like how to serve a ball in a game of tennis or whatever. So make sure you template these things. If you want to study harmony which is beyond a major and a minor chord, you have to know fifths. You have to know fifths from every single root. Then you have to know the fourths. Then you have to know your thirds, namely major and minor third. Once you've got all that done and dusted, you can form your chords. For example, a major chord is nothing but a root, it's fifth and it's third. Major chord will have a major third, which is F sharp with respect to D and a minor chord will have a minor third, which is F with respect to the same D. So that's about your triads. Now if you want to add some additional triads, some other interesting triads, given the knowledge of the thirds, the fifths, major and minor chord, you most definitely can. So if you take the same D major chord here, to create a suspended two, what you need to do will be remove the third and then play the second instead or play the sus two as we call it. So how do I remember the two, the major two? The major two is just the root plus two steps. Go up one, two there. You've got yourself the sus two and then you have your sus four, which is either the third plus one step or the fifth minus two. So that's how I like to look at it. From your root, get your second if you want. That'll be sus two. From your fifth, you go down two steps, two chromatic steps, that'll give you your G, which is your sus four and then back to major. So sus two, major, sus four, back to major and another interesting chord will be the diminished chord or the augmented chord. So to form the augmented chord, you start with the major, take the fifth and move the fifth up a chromatic step. Move it up by one. Up means right side. So there's your augmented. Again, there we have it. That's your augmented. And if you want to do diminished, you start with the minor chord and now you take the same fifth and you move it down a step. What did I tell you for augmented? Take a major chord, move the fifth up a step. What do we do for a diminished chord? Take a minor chord and move the fifth down by a step or a semitone as we call it. I just prefer to say down a chromatic step that just throws away all the doubts. You know chromatic is like one by one, right? The closest possible interval. So you go diminished chord right there. So we have augmented, diminished, sus two, sus four and then you can obviously build some other chords. Like if you want to do an add two, right? You can play a major chord and then add that two. That's why they say add two. You're adding a two to the existing triad. That's an add two. That's like an add four, a very nice sound. So that's how you kind of embellish the chord from there. So this is pretty much about triads. Now, if you want to do extended chords or seventh chords, the bigger chords, what you could start working on now is, okay, let me come back to let's say a C major chord and now you're trying to find, let's say a dominant seventh. Now you tell yourself, what is a dominant seventh? A dominant seventh will be a triad you already know, namely a major chord plus what? You have to say, okay, what more should I add to this to create a dominant seventh sound? What you add there will be a minor seventh interval. So you go C major and you ask yourself, okay, what is a minor seventh or a dominant seventh interval? The answer is quite simple. You just answer the problem by saying root minus two. So if you take C, the root is C. You do a minus two, which is one, two and you got yourself a C seventh chord right there, which you add to the triad. Now, let's say your fingers were like this. You're doing thumb index middle and you have some fingers this side open. You ask yourself the same question. A dominant seventh chord is nothing but the root minus two, which is B flat. So root minus two gives you a minor seventh across the board, wherever you play. Now, I have two shapes for you right now, right? So I have a C seventh, where the seventh flat is played there or C seventh, where the seventh flat is played down below, okay? Now, what if I was on another inversion of C major? Let's say this one. You don't have to bother about the shape of the dominant seventh. Just you need to just know what is the dominant seventh interval from C? Intervals are way more important in this case because the piano is what you see is what you get instrument. So you have to know the name of that interval. So what is a flat seven from C again? Well, I'm repeating myself a lot, but it is nothing but the flat seven B flat. So you ask yourself, where is the closest way to play my B flat? Well, it's right here. And you've got the other shape for this rather advanced chord. So you take this one at the B flat down below. Take this shape, fingers are free. At the B flat up there. Take this one and your B flat's right here. It will always be close to your hand. And last but not least, you take the G C E and you find that the B flat is here. You just need to give yourself a free finger in order to play that additional note. So this is your dominant seventh chords. Now this is no different than all the other chords. For example, a minor seventh. How is a minor seventh formed? You take a minor chord and then you stack up the minor seventh, which is the flat seven. Same flat seven B flat. So here we go. B flat here, B flat here, B flat here, B flat here. So those are the ways you can really remember a more advanced chord given the fact that you already know the existing triad. Okay, that's minor seventh for you. Of course, you need to practice and get used to all these shapes, but the fact remains to form it, all you need to know that it's a minor chord plus B flat. C minor plus B flat is C minor seventh. C major plus B flat is C dominant seventh. What is the other popular seventh chord which people use, the major seventh chord? So what is a major seventh? A major chord as the name suggests plus a major seventh. So how do I get a major seventh now? Minor seventh, I told you, is octave minus two. Major seventh will be octave minus one. So there we have it. And then a dominant back there, minus two. Minus one would be the romantic major seventh. Okay, and again, I can play that B either up there or down there, very nice for arpeggios. Or C major with the B there or with the B right there. So we've discussed dominant sevenths, minor sevenths as well as major sevenths. What about the sixth chords? We have major sixth and we have minor sixth, don't we? So you take the major chord and now you ask yourself, what is the major sixth interval? It's very simple. It's just the five which you already know is G plus two. What is the five plus two major sixth A? And you add that A to wherever you are, whether it's here or maybe here, right? That's your major sixth sound, right? Now you're probably wondering, I should probably remember my major sixth intervals as well or my minor seventh intervals as well. Yes, the answer is true, but the odds are that if you're sort of new to the piano or haven't worked on your intervals enough, you're not gonna get all the 12 intervals from every 12 root notes. It's gonna take some time. So my advice was since you're already fairly efficient with the major and the minor chords or at least their formation, start with that. Master your fifths, master your thirds, major third and minor third. Octave is a piece of cake. It's the same as the root. Your fourths and then we add more to it, right? To remember the major seventh, octave minus one, minor seventh, octave minus two. Major sixth will be, well, you could argue octave minus three, but it's maybe a bit more easier to do five plus two or octave minus three. So the advantage of these major sixth and minor sixth chords is they are the same in terms of the sixth, okay? So you go C major, major sixth, A. C minor, the same A and you get your minor sixth or the James Bond-like sound. Or if you want more exotic sounds or more and more basically, you could like say, okay, I want a minor chord which I know and then what is the combo left? I've done minor chord with a major sixth which gives you a minor sixth flavor. I've done a minor chord with a minor seventh that gives me a minor seventh flavor. What if I tell myself minor chord plus a major seventh? Let's see how that sounds. One of my favorite chords called as the minor major seventh chord. Minor major seventh, okay? So you can just form chords like that. For example, you wanna find a minor seventh flat five, okay? So minor seventh first. So minor chord plus a minor seventh and now the chord is minor seventh flat fives. You take the G and you flat the five or you could just say it's a diminished chord with a minor seventh, right? So you can get even some of the more complex chords, I guess, like even if you want to say, if you wanna find an augmented chord, let's say by now you kind of know that an augmented chord is one, three, five, sharp. You could kind of then add a seventh flat to that. That becomes an augmented seventh or you can do a major seventh sharp five chord which is major seventh. You take the five and go up. That creates a more sophisticated sound, right? So I just wanted to share these thoughts at the end of the lesson, just to show you that you can build some of the most supremely advanced chords there are under the sun. Even if you say you wanna build like a Phrygian chord, you know, which is a root fifth and then you add the flat two maybe, right? That creates a Phrygian sound. So you just need to know your intervals or maybe you want to do like a very nice Lydian sound. Maybe you do a root, sharp four and a five or add a third there. You can get these modal sounds. You can get a lot of things using the foundation, right? So let's recap, guys. We've done basically triad, different triads apart from major and minor in this lesson using nothing but intervals. I have sort of highlighted the importance of remembering your triads and also the intervals in which, through which they are formed, namely the perfect fourth when needed, major third and minor third. Make a few charts of all this stuff and keep it ready, right? Before you explore. And then all the other chords we saw over the lesson. We saw diminished chords, augmented chords, suspended chords. Then we moved into seventh extensions or seventh chords. We looked at dominant sevenths, minor sevenths, major sevenths. Then we did a few other permutations using the chords. So if this was a bit too much to digest this entire lesson because I've covered, I think I've covered a lot. What you could do is head over to our Patreon where I've prepared a rather like a booklet of all this information. So you'll find the, you'll find a chart where I've written down all the intervals, all the important intervals. You'll find the circle of fifths, all with my handwriting, of course, which I think is quite cool. Then also tricks to form your intervals, major seventh, minor seventh and whatnot. So get yourself a copy of the PDF booklet on the Patreon and what's also cool, if you follow us or if you subscribe to Patreon for just five bucks a month, five US dollars a month, you're gonna get whatever was done in the past, all the previous lessons, as well as this one and what we are going to do in the future. So it's just in kind of a subscription which will keep growing on you, notation and a lot of other things along the way. So I hope you guys found the lesson useful. Again, this is Jason from Nathaniel. If you haven't already, do consider subscribing to the channel, hitting that bell icon. And if you want to learn with us, any of our team from Nathaniel, vocals, piano, guitar or whatever instrument you like in person with us in our online music method program, there will be a form in the description. You could perhaps fill that out and connect with any of us in the Nathaniel team. Cheers and see you in the next one.