As musicians, our lives are built around the tonic chord (I) of a song. It’s like our home … which is a pleasant place to spend much of our time. But to keep things interesting, we also have to venture out every once in a while. Otherwise, life might start to get a little boring.

Back in the day, I remember taking a sociology class in school. The professor’s name was Dr. Gallego and he was about four feet tall. As a kid, he grew up as a rough street gangster in Los Angeles. But then, as luck would have it, he randomly received an academic scholarship that changed his

Musicians are always creating cool, new sounds by using different chord patterns in a song. Together with scales and melodies, chords and progressions are like the nuts and bolts of music. All we have to do is combine these patterns, and we really start to see the payoff of everything we’ve learned so far. You see, it

The nice thing about seventh chords is that they have just four notes … which means they’re as easy to play as our old friends, the basic triads. And while you’ll sometimes see different types of seventh chords in music, the most common one is definitely the dominant seventh chord. For some reason, notes “1-3-5-b7” just sound good together.

With a little bit of practice, we’ll be rocking out in no time. We just have to get our hands working together. And for most people, that means sitting still at the keyboard … and staying focused on which notes to play. After all, every music teacher in the world will tell you to sit still

Because all four basic triads are similar, they’re all easy to play. Each one has just three notes … and each one is pretty common in music. But the major triad and minor triad are (by far) the most popular. Together, they just sound more pleasant to the ears. So musicians use them a lot more often. To see what

I think my power bill has doubled in the past couple of weeks. “Why?” you ask … well, because I’ve been listening to Queen’s greatest hits for days on end. If someone could live on music, then this band offers a very good diet. To be totally honest, I’m kind of embarrassed to say that

You’ve got to admit … music just sounds better with chords. And in our last song, it was pretty fun to move between two different chords. But things would have been a lot easier to play if our left hand didn’t have to move so much. I mean, when we go from playing a C major

Pop quiz, y’all. What was the first thing that was ever recorded in audio? Since we’re all music fans here, then it’s good to know a little history. Was the first line: a)  “Oh, Romeo. Oh, Romeo. Where for art thou, Romeo?” b)  “Mary Had a Little Lamb … whose fleece was white as snow.”

After you’ve had a little practice, it’s easy to add chords to any melody. You just have to play the melody with your right … and hit the chords with your left hand. It’s as simple as that. And this combination of notes makes our music sound a lot more interesting. But things get even more