KEYS
MAKING YOUR CHORDS MORE INTERESTING | Ed Kerr
Besides doing my work as worship arts director at my church in Seattle , I try and give some time each week to songwriting . Whether I ’ m working on a new song by myself or collaborating with another writer or two , I ’ m regularly reminded that we have yet to exhaust the melodic possibilities found in our 7 note scale . Melodies emerge that sound fresh and original . Those 7 notes are used to create chords too , and writers and arrangers are still finding ways to do interesting things with these chords .
Worship songs are often described harmonically as using some variation of the 1-4-5-6 chord progression . The 1-4-5-6 numbers refer to which scale degree chords are built on . For example , here ’ s the D major scale along with the 1-4-5-6 progression in D major :
D Major Scale 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 D E F # G A B C #
Number Chord Notes 1 D major D , F #, A 4 G major G , B , D 5 A major A , C #, E 6 B minor B , D , F #
This week I ’ ve been working with Jennifer Holm , a talented young singer / songwriter from Nashville who ’ s a great acoustic guitar player and vocalist . She calls herself a hack guitarist , but I call her brilliant . When she reads a chord chart that uses the 1-4-5-6 progression , her fingers naturally land on certain fretboard positions that don ’ t just contain the notes of the chords . What the heck is she doing ?
She ’ s adding what many people call color notes to the chords . Listen to ten recent worship recordings and you ’ ll likely discover that hardly any modern arrangement uses only the basic notes of the 1-4-5-6 chords shown above .
If at your church you ’ re mostly copying the keyboard parts played on recordings , what I share in this article might not be particularly relevant . I suspect that those keyboard parts you ’ re imitating will involve some of these color notes I ’ m describing , though .
Because I know that not everything you play in your service is modeled after a recording , I hope you ’ ll keep reading . In those moments when you ’ re playing for a prayer time or communion
or transitioning between songs these color notes can bring so much to what you create . Here ’ s a summary of the color notes that are most often added to the 1-4-5-6 chords . I ’ ll continue with D major as my example key .
THE 1 CHORD , D MAJOR
Could be played as a D5 chord ( also called Dno3 ). In this chord , rather than playing the three notes of the D major triad , D F # A , you ’ d omit the F #, the third of the chord . This leaves you with just a 5 th , from D to A . It ’ s a very distinct sound from the full D F # A triad .
Could be played as a D2 chord . This chord is very popular in modern worship recordings . Similarly to the D5 chord shown above , the third of this triad is omitted and the two is added . The two is the note in the scale between the root and third of the chord . So , the D2 chord is D E A .
THE 4 CHORD , G MAJOR
Could be played as a G2 chord . This chord is also very popular in modern worship recordings . To create it , the third of this triad is omitted and the