This is the grammar of western music. As with languages, you are free to ignore the rules of grammar if you wish, but if you do, you will struggle to say anything worth hearing!
So the rules given below are not absolute, but as with grammar, you will usually find you can say what you want to better within the rules than outside of them.
For this lesson we will concentrate on the major diatonic circle of fifths. Memorise the order of the chords, which is:
1, 4, 7, 3, 6, 2, 5, 1
Say it over and over. You need to know this.
1 is the tonic, the 'home' chord. Your musical wanderings will usually start and end here. But once you have played a 1 chord, feel free to jump to any other chord in the circle.
Once you have departed from 1 to another chord, follow the circle of fifths back home to 1. Some examples:
1, 6, 2, 5, 1
1, 5, 1
1, 2, 5, 1
These are called 'dominant' chords and are fairly interchangeable, so when you come across one in the circle, feel free to try swapping it for the other, or playing one after the other.
These are the chords of the greatest 'tension', and tend to make us feel like we are about to be sent flying back home to the tonic. I like to think of an archer pulling on a bow. The point of greatest tension is the dominant, and the arrow smacking into the target is the tonic.
These are called 'sub-dominant' chords because they tend to lead to the dominant (they are the chords before 5 and 7 in the circle). They are fairly interchangeable, so again, try swapping for the other when you come across one in the circle, or playing them consecutively.
1 is our tonic, but 6 is the tonic of what is called the 'relative minor key'. It is sometimes very effective to go to 6 instead of 1.
The 1 and 4 at the start of the circle is often rocked back and forth on, a bit like revving the engine before you really get going. 1, 4, 1, 4, 1, 4 etc.
We previously harmonised the start of Twinkle Twinkle with the chords
1, 1, 1, 1, 4, 4, 1, 4, 4, 1, 1, 5, 5, 1 Let's see how that is using the rules above.Initially we have 1 and 4 rocking back and forth
1, 1, 1, 1, 4, 4, 1, 4, 4, 1
Then 1 can go anywhere, so jumps to 5
1, 5
Then we follow the circle back home, which in this case means going straight back to 1
5, 1
Simple! You will be amazed how many tunes follow a very similar pattern, ignoring most of the circle and making do with just 1, 4 and 5.
Make some sequences!
Choose a major scale and work out a sequence using the rules above.
Write it down, then learn to play the chords. Use inversions to smooth it out.
Sing along with the top note of each chord. See if you start to imagine a melody based on those notes.