Free A Player's Guide to Chords and Harmony by Jim Aikin Page A

less the norm, but it's by no means a universal. In some pieces, there are two chords per measure, or even a different chord on every beat. Going the other direction, it's quite common to see pieces in which a single chord lasts for two measures or even longer. Less often, but often enough to be worth knowing about, a new chord begins on the beat before the bar line and continues in the new bar. Quite often, you'll see all of the above in different sections of the same piece.
    The timing of the chord changes in a piece is called its harmonic rhythm. If there's always a new chord in every bar, the piece has a steady harmonic rhythm. If, on the other hand, a single chord lasts for four measures in the first section of the piece, while in the second section of the same piece a new chord falls on every beat within the bar, the chords change more quickly in the second section, so we'd say the second section has a faster harmonic rhythm.
    Using the chord voicing possibilities suggested in Chapter Three, we can begin to construct some simple keyboard parts that follow chord progressions. Figure 4-2 shows one possibility; Figures 4-15 and 4-16 show two others. The progressions shown in Figure 4-3 are a bit more interesting than the one in Figure 4-2, and again they use only triadic chords. We could construct thousands of other examples like these using only the ideas presented so far in this book. After a while they'd all start to sound similar, though. Throwing in a few more complex chords of the types shown later in this book will give a chord progression more spice.
    If you play much popular music, sooner or later you're going to find yourself staring at a chord chart (see Figure 4-4). A chord chart shows the harmonic rhythm of the music, but neither the chord voicings nor the melody is notated. It's up to the performers to choose appropriate parts to play, using the progression in the chart as a guide. A full discussion of how to construct your own part from a chord chart would be far beyond the scope of this book, but we'll touch on it from time to time. If you're playing bass, you'll usually play the root of each chord in the indicated rhythm. If you're playing a chording instrument such as guitar or keyboard, you'll more likely play full chord voicings in a rhythm that fits with the style of the music. The bass, guitar, and keyboards can all play from the same chord chart, yet each will play a different part, because the parts to be played are not specified in the chart. Only the bare harmonic skeleton is provided.

    Figure 4-2. A simple four-bar chord progression.

    Figure 4-3. Three original chord progressions that use only triads. The chord symbols above the treble staff show the progression. As you play or listen to these progressions, try to determine which of the voicings are inversions. Also, analyze the harmonic rhythm. You'll find that some chords last for an entire measure, while other measures contain two, three, or four chords. Note that in (b), the chord voicing sometimes moves even though the underlying chord (as indicated by the chord symbol) isn't changing.

    Figure 4-4. A four-bar excerpt from a chord chart. In a chord chart, neither the melody nor the chord voicings is indicated, only the chord types and the harmonic rhythm. Each slash-mark indicates a quarter-note duration. In bar 3 here, a G chord is to be played for two beats, followed by a D chord for two beats.

     

CHOOSING CHORDS BY THE NUMBERS
    In Chapter Three, I introduced the diatonic triads that are found in a major scale. Not surprisingly, some or all of these triads are used in many or most chord progressions. They're used so often that musicians have developed a shorthand way of referring to them using numbers. Because this system developed some hundreds of years ago, it was usual to use Roman numerals when referring to diatonic triads. (The same numbering system is used by musicians in Nashville, but they no longer use Roman numerals.) The