Is This Chord Red, Blue, or Yellow?

Let's start with a trick question.  

Is this a Red, Blue, or Yellow chord? I see that it is made of the notes C-E-G.

I was being really sneaky because I didn't show you the key signature (the sharps and flats next to the clef, that define where DO is.). 

Second year students will always tell me this is a RED chord, and for now, they are correct. But third year students have learned the magic of key change.  

But those smart third year students will say, "That's a C-chord and it could be RED or BLUE or YELLOW!  It depends where Do is!"

The Role of Chords

Imagine I were going to tell you 3 stories, and Linda happens to be in them all.  Here's a photo of Linda, a new mother.  Linda is the mother in the first story.

And here's another look at Linda with her mom. Linda is still the same, but she'll play the role of daughter in the second story.

Finally, Linda plays the role of  grand-daughter in my third story.  Linda didn't change anything about herself, but depending on who she was with, her role in the story changed.  





Now let's think about chords! A chord can play the role of RED, BLUE, or YELLOW depending on which other chords it is with and where DO is.  


Red, Blue, Yellow

The Red, Blue, and Yellow chords play roles in songs and music.

The RED CHORD is HOME. Songs begin and end with RED. It just doesn't feel complete otherwise.

The BLUE CHORD gives us a traveling, moving sensations in our music. We sing "we like to run and roam" because the BLUE CHORD helps us add interest and movement.

The YELLOW CHORD has a distinct sound that really pulls back to RED. "Yellow is the chord that leads us back to home."


Our songs are harmonized with these three players.

A chord can be ANY of these colors, depending on where Do is.  I'll explain more in the next post! Read it here.

- Gina Weibel, MS
Let's Play Music Teacher

Change Musical Key with Magic!

It's the third year of Let's Play Music class and time to learn the MAGIC of key change.  

Make A Major Scale

In a recent article, I showed you how you can choose any key to be the tonic, DO, and build a major scale using a pattern of whole steps and half steps (WWHWWWH).  Yes, DO can be on any note. What does it look like to play a song in one key (Do is C) and switch to another key (Do is F or G)? Let's check it out!

Magic Keys Song

It happens quickly in class, so here is a replay of what you saw in class:

 


Let's review all the music theory that we just mashed into one powerful minute, and YES when I ask these probing details of my students, they know the answers!

The Key of C
1. If there are no sharps or flats next to the clef, you're in the key of C.  
2. We say 'key of C' to mean that DO is C. 
3. A red chord (I chord) is always Do-Mi-Sol, so it is spelled C-E-G.
4. You can make a major scale, starting on C, playing all the white keys.

The Key of F
The Key Signature is the clef at the beginning of the song, with sharps or flats next to it. It announces where DO is.

1. If there is one flat next to the clef, you're in the key of F. 
2. The one flat will always show up on B. 
3. 'Key of F' is another way of saying that DO is now F.
4. A red chord is always Do-Mi-Sol, but now it is spelled F-A-C.
5. FA gets the flat. (Fa is the fa-lat)

So, you can make a major scale starting on F, but it only works if you always change the B to a B-flat. As you play a song in F, you have to remember to always change every B to B-flat, that's why the flat is printed at the beginning of the song next to the clef. It would get too tiring and messy to write a flat next to every B in the song.  

The Key of G 
1. If there is one sharp next to the clef, you're in the key of G.
2. The one sharp will aways be an F.
3. 'Key of G' means DO is G.
4. A red chord is always Do-Mi-Sol, but now it is spelled G-B-D.
5. TI is the tone that needs a sharp. (Do is G because the F# is a TI!)

You can make a major scale or play a song in G, but only if you always change every F to F-sharp.


- Gina Weibel, M.S.
Let's Play Music Teacher

Orange Roots and Bamboo Shoots

If your child is in the third year of Let's Play Music, your family is beginning the final semester: Orange Roots.  At a recent symposium, Let's Play Music creator Shelle Soelberg shared with me her process for choosing the semester icon, Orange Roots.  

It's Always Been About Making Musicians

By this final semester, Soelberg hoped parents would now have the years of experience to understand what creating a musician encompasses, to comprehend exactly what it takes, and then have a glorious moment to bask in the satisfaction of the achievement.  How could that all be conveyed in a semester name?

By now, Mom and Dad, your child has attended at least seventy-five classes: 3,675 minutes of classroom instruction.  You've found babysitters for siblings so you could be in class on parent week.  You've arranged schedules and meal-times and errands so your child could get to all seventy-five classes on time.  You set up a daily practice plan and played with your child and assisted in hundreds of hours of practice.  You helped with homework.  You may have even laminated ten complete sets of puppets!

And now something wonderful and exciting is finally happening: your child is learning some serious music theory, performing some fantastic songs, and even composing and transcribing her own music. Finally, your bamboo has sprouted!

The "Bamboo Lesson"

Shelle shared the popular motivational allegory , the "Bamboo Lesson" with me, and it makes perfect sense that this final semester should be a celebration of roots.  Before I share my version of the allegory with you... I invite you to watch this fantastic stop-film of a bamboo as it grows one meter per day!

There once was a music parent who felt discouraged.

Her child had been attending Red Balloon music lessons, 

but it didn't look like her daughter was becoming a great musician.

She began to lose hope, so she went to speak to the LPM teacher.

The teacher said, 

"Come, watch this fantastic stop-frame film of a bamboo tree growing."
Together they watched one day of growth.
The sprout rose from the ground and grew three feet.
Over the next several days it continued to explode upward.
At the end of six weeks, the bamboo was ninety feet tall.

Then he teacher asked, 
"So, how long did it take for the bamboo to grow to that impressive height?"
"Six Weeks!" the parent excitedly replied.

"Ah.  This interpretation will definitely set a person up for disappointment," 
said the teacher. 

 You see, this bamboo was grown from a seed:
Shortly after  planting, a tiny and fragile seedling appeared.
For a year, the grower watered and tended the seedling in a heated greenhouse, 
but the seedling did not appear to change. 

For a second year, the sensitive seedling was kept warm.
The farmer carefully watered and fertilized it.
Still it appeared unchanged.

For a third year, the seedling was kept in the greenhouse and carefully tended.
Finally, it was robust and stable enough to transplant outdoors.

For the fourth, fifth, and sixth years, the seedling was tended.
Each spring, a few new shoots appeared.  
Each spring, the shoots grew a bit taller, and a bit stronger.

In the seventh year, during the wet spring, new shoots sprang up.
They grew three impressive feet in the first day!
After six weeks, they reached 90 feet tall.  
It took seven years for the bamboo to develop, unseen, 
the strength to produce the 90 foot shoots.

What was happening during all those years when there was no visible growth?

Underneath the ground, out of sight,

a  network of roots was developing to support the bamboo's sudden growth.
If at any time the grower had stopped fertilizing and tending the bamboo
there would be no amazing performance in the seventh year.

Growth takes patience and perseverance.

Every practice session counts.

You might not see the change right away, but growth is happening!
During the entire Let's Play Music program, 
your child is developing an enormous network of roots.
Your child is growing a musical foundation that will support future years of practice.
Your child's roots will support amazing performance!

How Deep Are the Roots?

In Let's Play Music, we train students with a wide range of skills for musicianship; creating a foundation like musical roots that will support the fantastic growth that comes in this final year and for many years to come. In every aspect of music learning in the program, we grew the foundational skills first. This is the way to cultivate more than a students who can play piano...but students who are musicians.

For all these years, Mom and Dad, you watered and nurtured your bamboo and didn't give up!  When the teacher was asking your child to audiate, and you had no idea what she was really hearing in her mind; it was like trusting that roots were growing unseen below the ground.   All the time spent on listening to the chords, perfecting the hand shapes for playing, and singing cadences may have left you thinking, "Why doesn't my child just play something amazing already, and stop with these games!?"  Well, that bamboo would have missed out developing a critical foundation without those games.

But NOW you WILL really start to see the evidence of that watering and pruning and care: students who understand how music is put together and are ready to write their own songs.  Students who can talk about notes and rhythms using the correct terminology, and play correctly with correct counting.  Students who can harmonize a song (add chords to a melody) or hear chord progressions in music, and transpose it to other kids.  Students who ARE real musicians!

The "Chord Root" Lesson

The story of the bamboo forests and the importance of building a solid foundation (roots) is not the only reason we have Orange Roots as a semester name.

Students are now ready to learn how to build chords upon a root note.  You'll be learning this at Orange Lesson 5, but in case you get home and it's become a blur, let me run it by you one more time.

I. Choose Any Note.  We'll start the lesson by building a chord with three notes: a triad. (P.S. There's a song on your CD to teach you every triad.) You can choose ANY line or space note on the staff to begin; let's choose F for our example.

II. Add a Third and a Fifth.  You'll remember from our interval lessons that a third is also known as a skip.  So, a skip up from F is A.  A fifth up from F is C.  The top note is the "fifth", the middle note is the "third".  What special name do we have for the bottom note?  The ROOT! It's on the bottom, just like plant roots, and beautiful sounds grow out of it, just like beautiful flowers grow from roots.   

III. What shape do you see? Our chord is definitely looking like a snowman-shape.  It looks like a snowman because there are no gaps between the notes; they are all stacked up nice and neat.  We call this snowman-shape the ROOT POSITION.  Root position is super handy because it is super easy to identify the root: it's simply the guy on the bottom.  Since it's the root that gives a chord it's name, this is an F chord.

IV. Inversions. The reason this is an F chord is because it has F, A and C.  Even if those notes were in a different order, it would still be an F chord!  Let's try it...what if the F (root) were played on the TOP instead of the bottom? Gosh...now this chord has a very yellowy, bottom-heavy shape. We call this shape the FIRST INVERSION.  Well, drat, now when we look at something with this shape, how will we ever quickly identify the root?  The note above the gap's the root, it just has rearranged.  So...the root is STILL F. This is still an F CHORD.

V. Take it all the way.  That was fun, moving the F to the top.  Let's move the A to the top, too.  Well, now this thing has a very top-heavy, blue shape and we'll call it the SECOND INVERSION.  Even though it's a new shape, the note above the gap is STILL F, and this is still an F chord.  

Challenge Question: You just saw the F chord, and even though it was always the F chord (the root never changed), it was drawn with the shapes of what are commonly used for Red, Blue and Yellow chords.  So which one is it?  Now that you're in Orange Roots, it's time to learn that the SHAPE does not define the chord as red, blue or yellow.  It is the NOTES that define the chord.  In the key of C, an F chord is the BLUE chord (aka the IV chord because F is the 4th step up from C.)

Why Did We Do That?!

Now that you're a master of looking at these chords and finding the roots, you'll go through old songbooks and notice that our Red, Blue, and Yellow chords in the key of C are C chord, F chord, and G chord.  On page 1, you'll be playing the Primary Roots Song so you can see just how much jumping around your hand will have to do in order to play these 3 chords in root position all the time.  Jump your hand to C position, then F position, then G position! Whew!  (Mom and Dad, take the time to learn to play this song...it is not too tricky and teaches a great lesson.)  

With the blessed use of inversions, we can play the Primary Chord Song with the Red chord in root position, the Blue in second inversion, and the Yellow chord in first inversion.  You have mastered the hand shapes required to do these chord structures and you'll be able to play all 3 chords without having to move your hand away from C position.  Well, that is super helpful!


So, congratulations and welcome to ORANGE ROOTS! Our amazing musicians are really starting to shine now.

-Gina Weibel, M.S.
Let's Play Music Teacher

** Yes, folks, I changed the original bamboo lesson a bit because it didn't line up very well with the science of bamboo growth. In the original story, no shoot comes above ground for several years, and the very first shoot to ever come up achieves maximum growth rate and height.  In reality, it likely takes 15 years for a rhizome to mature enough to send up a culm of maximum height, and growing from seed is not a great idea (in part because bamboo flowers as rarely as every 50 years).  Bamboo is fascinating (read more), so I didn't want to propagate (pun intended) false data about it, but I do love a good parable when I hear one.  

Yankee Doodle Comes to LPM Class!

History of Yankee Doodle

"Yankee Doodle" was first sung as a ditty used by the British to mock the rag-tag, disheveled American soldiers.  Yankee began as a negative term to identify Americans.  The word itself might possibly have begun as a Native American mispronunciation of "English," resulting in "Yengeesh."  Doodle is an old word for a fool or simpleton.  Macaroni  was not pasta but a term for a man dressed in a ridiculous style.  So, this is a song about a rag-tag simpleton who thinks he is fancy even when he is ridiculous!

Ironically, this song was adopted and adored by early Americans proud to be identified as Yankees.  It has even become the official state song of Connecticut! Just as Yankees took control of the British during the Revolution, they also took command of this song and sang it proudly as an anthem to tease their foes.  

Lyrics and Tune

Lyrics were written in 1755 by an English doctor, Dr. Shackburg during the French and Indian War to describe those ramshackle colonists fighting alongside the well-dressed British soldiers.  Because the tune was popular and easy to remember (it's a turn on the nursery rhyme tune Lucy Locket), new versions of lyrics were written during the American Revolution and the Civil War. Of course the South sang lyrics mocking the North, and the vice versa. The song has over 190 versions from different dates.

The song was revived in 1904 by George M. Cohan with "Yankee Doodle Boy", providing the verses most of us are familiar with. You can hear them here.  John Philip Sousa was so fond of the tune that he used it in many of his works.

Since the lyrics to this melody have been written and rewritten many times for inumerable uses, let's write some Yankee Doodle verses  just for Let's Play Music! If you and your child come up with additional LPM verses, please add them in the comments!

Yankee Doodle went to class

Singin' a soprano

He played the harp, he played the bells

And then he played piano.

*Chorus* Yankee Doodle Do Mi Re,

Yankee Here We Go Now

Mind the solfeg and the chords

and sing Sol La Ti Do, Oh!

A Red Balloon went up up up

as Yankee Doodle watched it.

When it came down the Major scale

He reached right up and caught it!

Yankee Doodle sang on pitch
He knew that 'Do is  Ho-ome'
He always followed Echo Ed
and never sang alo-ne.

Bill Grogan's goat was eating shirts

All down his throat they'd go-

He coughed one up and stopped a train

With just Sol La Ti Do-o!

Yankee Doodle had two pets
in little turtle she-lls,
seconds, thirds, and fourths and fifths,
he learned them very we-ll!

Yankee Doodle found the root

Of each and every chord

He harmonized I, IV, and V

And rarely needed more!

Why Use Folk Music?

True folk tunes withstand the test of time.  If Yankee Doodle had poor melodic or rhythmic qualities, it would not have been recreated over 190 times and passed down through generations of oral history.  These simple tunes have excellent, simple structure for students to study when developing an understanding of musical composition and theory or experimenting with playing styles as we do in Orange semester. Even the greatest composers began with a foundation in folk music.

And in terms of your musical foundation, hold on to your Orange book because there are many ways to progress as a musician as you play with Yankee Doodle.  Here are some ideas to help you progress, especially if you'd like to keep practicing into summer to complete them all:

Easy: Play block chords as written and sing the melody.

Nice: Play 2-handed marching style chords and sing the meldoy.

Double Nice: Play 2-handed marching style while your friend plays the RH melody an octave above, then switch roles.

 Fantastic: Play the melody with RH and block chords with LH.

Superstar: Play the melody with RH and play marching LH chords. 

Tricky: In some of my lyrics above I refer to Ti Sol La Ti Do Do as the last two measures of the song, which is a very common ending for this tune. In your Orange songbook, another common variation (Ti Ti La Ti Do Do) is written; it's easier for you to play since you won't have to move your RH in a great jump to get down to Sol.  If you would like to play the Sol La Ti Do ending, give it a try!

Brilliant: Now that you know how to examine a song, figure out the chords, and play them in 2-handed marching style, try it with the song Hurry Hurry Drive the Firetruck from your Green songbook. You still have your Green book, right!? First use careful listening to decide which chords are needed for each measure.  Use half notes, just like we did in Yankee Doodle. (Here's a hint: you will only need red and yellow chords.)  Then proceed through all the levels of mastery as listed above. Tip: when playing measure 4 RH, use fingering 1 2 1 'pop'2.  You'll have to really reach that 2 finger over to the G.  If you have a younger sibling in Let's Play Music, s/he is really going to love playing a duet with you on this song.

Have fun and post your additional lyrics to share in the comments!

- Gina Weibel, M.S.

Other Posts of Interest:

A Happy Ending for 3 Blind Mice; Why use folk music?

Learn to Play "Cockles and Mussels"

In Dublin's Fair City
Our 3rd year students are learning to play the traditional Irish tune,  Cockles and Mussels.   My all-time favorite version is sung by Maxine Sullivan. (If you can get your hands on Maxine Sullivan sings 1955-56, it's my favorite Lindy Hop dancing album of all time! The piano riffs with Fats Waller are inspirational, too.) 

Cockles, And Mussels.  Alive, Alive-O!

In Dublin's fair city, where girls are so pretty,

That's where he first met her, sweet Molly Malone.

She wheeled a wheelbarrow, through streets wide and narrow.

Crying cockles and mussels, alive, alive-o.

She was a fishmonger, and sure it's no wonder.

For her father and mother were fishmongers too.

They wheeled a wheelbarrow, through streets wide and narrow.

Crying cockles and mussels, alive, alive-o.

He asked her to marry, she said 'twould be grand.

But to leave her dear Dublin, she'd not give her hand!

So they both wheel a barrow, through streets wide and narrow,

Crying cockles and mussels, alive, alive-o!

This is a story very old of a girl who was his all alone,

She was the one he would not forget and her name was sweet Molly, 

sweet Molly Malone... 

Maxine recorded Cockles and Mussels in 1937, but it was first published in 1884 as Molly Malone, and became the folksong of Dublin, Ireland.  Although we don't know if there really was a Molly Malone, there is a bronze statue of her and her wheelbarrow on Grafton Street!

Learning the Right Hand
The biggest challenge for the right hand is to recognize the dotted quarter note followed by an eighth note rhythm (Shoot-the-bug!).  In this video, I help a student correct her rhythm.

Near the end of the song, the word "crying" has eighth notes.  Many students miss this quicker rhythm.  Have your child play just that measure several times to master the rhythm of "crying".  Using our new counting, say "one, two, three-and" for that measure.

Learning the Left Hand
This song is a very important one to add to our repertoire, helping your child internalize how easy it is for ANY chord to be played in root position.   Do not try to put hands together until your child is confident with either hand alone.  In this video, I help a student learn the left hand by playing a duet with her (you could also sing while playing LH only.)

The last two measures are VERY tricky for the left hand.  Watch carefully to see if the correct notes are being played.  Help your child slowly discover which fingers to use (you can write a reminder in the book), and then practice playing JUST THOSE TWO MEASURES over and over until they are solid. Go slow and get the notes correct.  With practice, bring it up the speed of the rest of the song. In this video, I show how you might help a student learn the fingering for these two measures.

Focus on the Tricky Bits
By focusing on just the measure (or two) that is trickiest, you can help your child master the entire song.  Spend several minutes practicing just the hard bits, and ONLY THEN, go try the entire song from the beginning.  Soon your child will be able to cruise through the entire song without slowing down during the tricky spots.

This is true whenever working on a song: look for spots with tricky fingering or rhythm and give them extra, isolated attention until they are mastered.

For the Advanced Student
Perhaps one of every twenty students shows mastery of this song after one week.  Wowza!  To add some complexity while still practicing the root-position-chords,  I suggest that they play the LH with broken chords.  With the LH playing nice even quarter notes, the RH dotted rhythm will produce some lovely (and tricky) interplay.  Playing two hands with different rhythms is a challenging feat, so if your advanced student gives this a try, be sure to praise efforts!  I have had a few students master it.  Like I said, wowza!

Enjoy playing this song for all of your friends and family!

You may also enjoy:
Orange Roots and Bamboo Shoots

-Gina Weibel, MS
Let's Play Music Teacher