Q. I'm new to ukulele... and I'm wondering how you can make up your own chords for a song that you have a piano sheet to(without tabs or chords).
A. if it has the key signature you can work it out from there. look up chord formulas if you get stuck
I can't figure out how to recognise chords - how is it most easily accomplished?
Q. I'm attempting to teach myself music theory. Something I am having trouble with is identifying triads. Is there some kind of trick or formula? I understand that they are composed of the root, third and fifth, but I get confused as to how to identify them as being either major, minor, augmented or diminished. Can anybody help?
A. It takes time. The best way is to just sit down at a piano (or electronic keyboard, then you can practice hearing them with different sounds) and hashing your way through them. There's nothing better than doing these yourself.
If you've got yourself a book, it should explain the nuts and bolts of how to recognize a major from a minor and a diminished chord.
Basically, if you teach yourself to hear and recognize the 3rd of a chord in major chords first, you can teach yourself to find the root, and sing up a major third, and when this is a half step lower, you'll note that this is a minor chord. As for diminished or augmented, they'll become easily recognizable as it doesn't have a perfect 5th. (Really quite a different sound) It will be harder to find the root in these though, at least it was for me, because the chord can be played with any root, and can still have the "off" sound to it. (unlike if you hear a major chord with the 3rd or 5th in the root, they don't sound ready to end)
But, either way, my suggestion is to sit down at a keyboard and play these. You don't have to be able to play piano to do this, because you can take 10 minutes to set your fingers in place if you need to. (though eventually you will be able to do it quicker) The idea is just to hear them.
What's a good way to go about writing a song (guitar)?
Q. I don't know where to start, I'm thinking it would be easier to make the music first. Should I just experiment with different chords and see what works?
A. Well an introduction into Music Theory will always help you get started.
There are a lot of ways to write music. None of them are right or wrong, it's whatever works for the musician. Although it is true, that most experienced musicians eventually start composing music by writing out the melody first, then filling in words, then accompany with chords / notes and other instruments.
But you can write a good chord progression first. That usually helps the creative juices to start flowing.
So the foundation of music theory is pretty simple. Write out a Major Key to start out with. Pick any of the 12 notes of the Chromatic Scale. The Chromatic Scale is a scale that shows all the notes in Music, there are only 12 of them. The Chromatic Scale is: A, A#, B, C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#
So if you were on a piano, and you hit the A Key, then hit the Key to next to it, it'd be an A#. The key next to that is a B. This is the chromatic scale, every note in music. You'll eventually get back to A and it starts over.
Every song is written in a Key. What a Key does, is gives you a 7 note combination that sounds good together. So a Major Key has the following formula: whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. A whole step = 2 spots right on the Chromatic Scale, 2 frets on the guitar, or 2 piano Keys. A half step = 1 spot right on the Chromatic Scale, 1 fret on the guitar, or 1 piano key.
So create a Major Key, such as the Key of G Major: G whole step A whole step B half step C whole step D whole step E whole step F# half step G. So the Key of G Major is: G, A, B, C, D, E, and F#.
Now that you've established what Key you want to play in. Now break all the notes in the Key into possible chords. The 1st, 4th, and 5th note of a Major Key are Major Chords. The 2nd, 3rd, and 6th note of a Major Key are Minor Chords. The 7th note is a Diminished Chord. So the main triad chords for the Key of G Major are:
G Major - 1st note of Key
A Minor - 2nd note of Key
B Minor - 3rd note of Key
C Major - 4th note of Key
D Major - 5th note of Key
E Minor - 6th note of Key
F# Diminished = 7th note of Key
Now just pick any combination of chords to create a progression. Here are some common ones:
I - IV -V = G Major - C Major - D Major
I - V - vi - IV = G Major - D Major - E minor - C Major
vi - IV - I - V = E Minor - C Major - G Major - D Major
I -vi - IV - V = G Major - E Minor - C Major - D Major
All those will sound good, as they are common progressions. Just add some rhythm that you like for a strum pattern.
Now that you've established a Key, picked a progression, and put a strum pattern to it. You can some vocals / words to it. Just remeber that any note you sing, must fit in the Key, so it must be one of these 7 notes: G, A, B, C, D, E, and F#. So even though you only have 7 notes, there are a lot of options, because each note can be sung at a different ocatve. So realistically, you have around 21 notes that you could sing / play.
Now realize that you can change the Key of the song to fit your range of voice. That is, the Key of G might be too low for you to sing, what you are trying to sing. So you can change the Key of the song you created to fit your singing range. So say we want to change all this to the Key of E Major. It's easy, just apply the Major Formula to the E note and you get Key of E Major: E, F#, G#, A, B, C# ,and D#
So our progressions are the same, but they are now:
I - IV -V = E Major, A Major, B Major
I - V - vi - IV = E Major, B Major, C# Minor, A Major
vi - IV - I - V = C# Minor - A Major - E Major - B Major
I -vi - IV - V = E Major - C# Minor - A Major - B Major
So those progressions will sound the same as the ones for the Key of G Major, but a little different since we changed Keys.
That's a lot of information I just presented. So don't expect it to all make sense now. Just come back to this from time to time and eventually you'll begin to understand. Good luck.
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