By now, we know that time or “duration” is an important part of music. And we’ve seen exactly how a song moves forward—using things like time signatures, beats, rests, dots, ties, and so on. By combining pitch and duration, we’ve been playing some pretty cool music so far.
But no matter how good each song has sounded, everything has also seemed a little thin until now. I mean, melodies are nice and all … but there’s not much to them. If you think about it, melodies are just rearrangements of the same, simple scale patterns. So, even though it can be fun to play one note at a time, it can also get boring.
Don’t get me wrong … everybody loves a good melody. And scales are cool, too. But music sounds even better (and more full) when we also play notes together—at the same time.
When notes are played together in a group, it’s called a “chord.” And chords are used a lot in music. They can make almost any song sound better … and help make music more interesting. By combining different notes into a single sound, chords add weight to a melody. And they keep listeners engaged.
Think of it this way … a melody line is just like a string of Christmas lights. It’s nice to look at with all its different colors. But like any good string of lights, a melody needs to be attached to something. After all, it seems sort of empty just floating there on its own.
So to give our melody support, we simply add a few chords. Like a group of poles holding up those Christmas lights, the chords in a song lay a foundation for the melody. Each chord is like a little column that props up the melody line and keeps it shining bright.
It’s true, chords are a big part of music. So let’s take a look at how they work—to make our music even better….