I am a firm believer that we must always try to approach music at the macro rather than the micro level. Unfortunately many beginners and even some more advanced players are so focused on "the notes" that they really do miss the proverbial forest for the trees. Although, yes, we play "the notes," they are always part of some larger entity: chords.
All of the music you are likely to play at the piano will be built of chords in one way or another. The only exceptions might be ultra-modern music and I can't really speak to that. But if you are playing Bach through 20th century music, it is built on chords. Even if you think Bach is polyphonic, meaning a weaving of individual lines, those lines created harmonies, that is, chords.
I ALWAYS know what chord I am on at any moment. It has become so second nature to me that I barely think about it consciously, but I just know at a deep level what the chord is. I never just see or hear it as a bunch of notes. I am referring to chords whether they are blocked, that is, played all at once, or broken, such as an arpeggio.
Here are some of the ways that knowing what chord(s) you are on will help you;
1. Reading. If you are still at the stage in your sight reading where you see several notes and need to identify them one by one, rather than seeing the whole thing (maybe 3,4,5 notes or more) as a chord, then your sight reading will be slow and inefficient. Think of a chord as a word. When you read English, you see the word, not the individual letters. Imagine if you still had to sound out the letters of every word when you read. That would be the equivalent of reading note by note. If you've read my earlier posts on sight-reading, you know I emphasize reading by interval. If you see a group of notes and you immediately see it as a "shape," meaning its particular intervals, then you are much more likely to recognize it as a chord. That is the first step; the second step is to know which chord. Knowing the chord will always help you, but a situation where you will find it immensely helpful is when the chord is written with what I would call an alternate "spelling." Let's say you encounter the notes C-flat, E-flat, G-flat, B double flat; you might find that hard to read at first. But it is simply a B7 chord, written as a C-flat-7. (This would be the case if you were in a key with flats; it makes more sense musically to spell it in flats rather than sharps.) Once you see that, it becomes so easy, because it's something you are highly familiar with.
2. Memorizing. Although muscle memory is very important in learning to play by memory, it is not the only skill needed. Ear memory is probably the most important (see earlier posts). But sometimes those two skills need a little help, especially if, say, two passages in the piece are slightly different, and one chord progression leads to one place, and the other similar but not identical chord progression leads to another place. Knowing which chords are which will make sure you don't accidentally end up in the wrong place. Many a beginning or intermediate pianist has played, say, at a recital, and found themselves in a loop, or at the wrong place, to great embarrassment, because they just depended on muscle memory and didn't know the chord progressions.
3. Ear. Whether you realize it or not, you already hear chords as chords, because if you are playing, say, three or more notes, you hear the blended sound more than you hear the individual ones. But it is important to tie the auditory to the intellectual knowledge. Fusing the two together will make them both stronger. If your ear is very strong and well-developed, theoretically you wouldn't need to know the chord name. Some self-taught pianists may do this. But why would you want to be in the dark about this? I can assure you that jazz pianists, who play by improvisation and/or a "sketch" of the piece, would absolutely have to know every chord they play. In the moment of playing it goes by too fast to consciously "think" about, but at a very deep level they know all the chords. I believe classical pianists can and absolutely should do this as well.
4.Understanding musical forms and structure. The story of classical music is largely the story of harmony. While other cultures developed in different ways, classical music became more and more rich and varied in its harmonies through the last four centuries or so. The progression of the harmonies cannot by separated from the structure and form of the music. As an example: the sonata form has a first section which changes to a different key, then a middle section which may go through several keys, and a third section which must return to the original key for the ending. All of this modulating (key changes) depends on the harmonies to get it where it wants to go. There is simply no other way.
So how do you get this chord knowledge? If you don't have a teacher who knows it herself and can teach it, you can get a good book on harmony. But absolutely do not buy a chord chart or something which just tells you where to place your fingers for each chord; you will never have deep knowledge that way. You need to understand how chords are built, and then how they function. A textbook can be quite dry. But you need to start somewhere. Then I would encourage you to play songs, such as jazz standards, using a "fake book," where the chords are written as symbols rather than notation. In the course of playing many songs will get more proficient with chords. Then you can go through a classical piece and do what we call chord analysis. You will write (in pencil, please) the chord symbol over each chord. Don't do this with every piece you are working on; just do it now and then and see if your knowledge is progressing. Unless you have an enormous amount of time to spend at the piano, I think actually playing should be the bulk of your practice time. But you can supplement it with chord analysis.
Other instrumentalists do not have the opportunity to learn chords and harmonies as pianists do (with the exceptions or organ, guitar, and possibly harp). If you play a single line instrument, you may be aware of chords very little or even not at all. In the conservatory where I studied, other instrumentalists were required to take a few semesters of piano, for several reasons, but largely in order to understand harmony. In this area, being a pianist was a huge advantage. Chords are our "bread and butter." It is essential to gain this knowledge.
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