Ex 6 - The Scissors Grinder

Choosing the chords

When choosing chords, you look to see what harmonising notes already exist and try to match a chord for the notes.  The key signature is C having all these default diatonic chords, C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, Bdim. see Lesson 20. As you develop your ear to hear modes, you will choose a chord to create a feeling.

Choosing chords starts with the following steps.

Step 1: Write down the notes.

Step 2: Choose a root note for the chord, you do have options so you can try different root notes.
Step 3: Once you have the root note, write down all the unique intervals which appear on the bar into a harmonic interval series.

Bar 5, 6, 7, 8

Here we are going to choose four different chords, and we'll use the bass note as the root for each chord. 

Step 1:  Notes for each bar

Bar 5; C, E, G

Bar 6; D, G, B

Bar 7; C, F#, G, A

Bar 8; F#, G

Note bar 3 comes out of key at the note F#. Do you know your G major scale?

Step 2: The root note, here we can use chords having the following root note, although it might not sound great. You need more information to choose a better chord.

One less theoretical approach is trial and error, just play each diatonic chord with your left hand and the melody with your right hand and listen to what sounds better to you.

Bar 5; C

Bar 6; B

Bar 7; A

Bar 8; G

OPTIONAL

If you don't know how to find all your intervals, you can leave out step 3: Intervals are explained in Lesson 2

The reason you write down the intervals because you want to choose a chord associated with a particular mode. By comparing the harmonic formula of each bar with the following modal formulas, you can choose a chord to match a particular feeling.

Ionian 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Dorian 1 2 -3 4 5 6 -7

Phrygian 1 -2 -3 4 5 +5 -7

Lydian 1 2 3 -5 5 6 7

Mixolydian 1 2 -3 4 5 +5 -7

Aeolian 1 2 -3 4 5 +5 -7

Locrian 1 -2 -3 4 -5 +5 -7

Step 3: The harmonic formula.

root C; 1 3 5

root B;  1 -3 +5

root A; 1 -3  6 -7

root G; 1  -7

C      C

3 5    2

C < LT1 I7 M6 R5

Left hand patterns

Here are some left hand patterns to accompany the chords.