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I was taught a long time ago about chord formulas. The basic thing of it is that no matter what note you play on your piano you can count the half steps in the formula to make your chord.
For example, if you play a C, that becomes 0. To make a major chord the formula is 0-2-1-1 1/2, so with C being 0, you count up 2 half steps (0, half, one, one and a half, two) and land on the E. Then the E becomes 0 and you count 1 1/2 (0, half, one , one and a half) and land on G. Add another 1 1/2 for a dominant 7th. Minor is 0-1 1/2-2. Again add another 1 1/2 for a minor 7.
And so forth. Did anybody else have a teacher who taught that method? Most teachers seem to teach "Major = 1,3,5, 1, b3, 5" and so forth. My guy actually taught me the half step method.
Last edited by eddie1261; 10/25/15 07:35 AM. Reason: typos
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Well, not me Eddie. I learned all the chords and their inversions in more-or-less the 1-3-5 method. I hadn't heard of this method until now.
I didn't really understand the statement: "so with C being 0, you count up 2 half steps (0, half, one, one and a half, two) and land on the E. "
If C is 0 and you count up 2 half steps you wind up on D, surely? (C=0, first 1/2 step up is C#, 2nd half step up is D)
I think I like my method better...
Trev
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The formula of counting half-steps is used in defining scales, but I never heard it used for chords.
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That is really old school teaching and remember I was short of 5 years old when I started. My teacher thought it would be easier on all of us young students to just count half steps. I mean, to a kid not yet 5, to look at the keyboard, and center my view on C, E is not the 3rd key up from the C. There are 2 black keys in there so E is the 5th key up from the C. This was his way of teaching half steps from whole steps. It wasn't "the third in the scale" because at that age, just sitting at a piano on day 1, I didn't know what a C scale was.
So, ANY key you start on, C, F, Ab.... that key is "zero" and you count your half steps from there to figure out that in Ab, C is the third in that scale.
It worked out well for me. Just like "5 lines and 4 spaces". My first question, and I remember this almost 60 years later, was "But what about the big space under and over those lines? Those are spaces too, aren't they? Really big spaces." And he did not let me touch a piano until I knew that stuff. I sat at a plastic molded keyboard and he would point to a dot drawn on staff paper on a blackboard and I had to show him where on that little keyboard the note was that he was pointing to. 6 weeks of that. Then we moved to "If you are playing in D, point to D, and I say move to the 4th, what is the next chord?" He completely BEAT theory into my head for almost about 10 weeks before I could move to an instrument that made sound. And then the ear training started where for the last 15 minutes of my hour he would play a note , with my back turned, and say "Okay. Can you tell me what that note is?" And if I got it right (40% of the time back then) he would play another note and make me identify it. Early lessons were always perfect intervals. Root, 5th, back to root, 6th, dominant 7th, back to root, then 4th.... He had a unique way of teaching and it varied from student to student. I still have at least close to perfect pitch, for sure I have relative pitch. I took lessons from him for 5 years and we often didn't play. We just talked and looked at sheet music and identified more and more complex notation. Tied notes, what the Italian stuff meant.... 7 years old then and learning terms like forte, pianissimo, fermata, grave.... he was intense. Old gruff German guy who I learned later in life was a marshmallow filled teddy bear.
But I digress, as I often will..... That's where I learned chord formulas.
Last edited by eddie1261; 10/25/15 07:23 PM. Reason: typos
I am using the new 1040XTRAEZ form this year. It has just 2 lines.
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Eddie, I just recently learned this type of thing for scales in the Jazz Improvisation course at Berklee. Someone here pointed me to the Jamey Aebersold freebie .pdf, and the scales thing starts at page 13 or so. There's a direct connection, of course, between the scales and the chords. One of my piano teachers taught it similarly to what you describe particularly for chord theory. But she related it to intervals and how many half steps were in the intervals. -Scott Jamey Aebersold reference here btw: http://www.jazzbooks.com/mm5/download/FQBK-handbook.pdf
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I've never heard of this before.
I was taught intervals for scales, and learned them first - major and the family of minor scales.
Then 135 + extensions.
But I can see where the formula is a good tool.
There is more than one right way to do most things.
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The half step method is used in pitch-class set theory in atonal music but unless you're into that in a big way most people get by with 1, b3, 5 rather than 0,3,7.
I guess the emphasis in modernist music is on the chromatic scale rather than diatonic reference points and the method allows you to see the relative size of intervals measured by a common unit from a given tonic note.
In Schenker's view this allows you to make a connection between C, Eb G and C E G since the distance in half steps between E and G is equal to that of C and Eb, while both chords end in 7 half steps (G).
That comes more into it's own when you consider sets like C Db F# and C F F# which are linked in the same way. Its like saying a b2nd followed by a p4th is in the same family as a P4th followed by a b2nd; it's just in the reverse order.
Alan
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I have never heard of this method before however I can see value in it.
I was also taught intervals, scales (major and minor) then how to form chords from a major scale, i.e. a minor scale consists of 1, b3, 5 of a major scale, etc.
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Eddie, I just recently learned this type of thing for scales in the Jazz Improvisation course at Berklee. Someone here pointed me to the Jamey Aebersold freebie .pdf, and the scales thing starts at page 13 or so. There's a direct connection, of course, between the scales and the chords. One of my piano teachers taught it similarly to what you describe particularly for chord theory. But she related it to intervals and how many half steps were in the intervals. -Scott Jamey Aebersold reference here btw: http://www.jazzbooks.com/mm5/download/FQBK-handbook.pdf Scott, thank you so much for sharing this. I DLed it so that I could not only read it but also to send to a couple of musician friends.
I want my last spoken words to be "I hid a million dollars under the........................"
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
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nope.
I understand theory,,, the steps and halfs and such but don't use it in any meaningful way to construct chords.
Last edited by Guitarhacker; 10/26/15 07:30 AM.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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Wait a minute: Nobody else learned that a diminished chord was two minor intervals put side by side and what not? And that a minor interval was 3 half steps etc.?
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Wait a minute: Nobody else learned that a diminished chord was two minor intervals put side by side and what not? And that a minor interval was 3 half steps etc.? You mean minor 3rd intervals. That was one of the ways I learned. Mostly by memorizing and transposing though.
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Yes Ray, that is what I meant. Augmented is two major third intervals, etc.
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Scott, your mailbox is full. Please PM me.
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I was also taught intervals, scales (major and minor) then how to form chords from a major scale, i.e. a minor scale consists of 1, b3, 5 of a major scale, etc. The point is that I was not even 5 years old yet and had never sat at a piano to KNOW scales and intervals. As I learned "whole whole half, whole whole whole half" made a scale, then I could start. To tell a kid 2 months short that "Oh a major chord is just 1-3-5", what does that mean? So for me, once I knew half steps, those formulas, all based on half steps, allowed me to learn chords quicker. Same church, different hymnal. 1-3-5 mean nothing to me at that age, but I could count 0, 1/2, 1, 1&1/2, etc. That meant that no matter what key I started at, I could make a major chord with no regard to white and black keys, by knowing 0-2-1&1/2. I didn't have to know that G has 1 sharp and Ab has 4 flats, because remember, I had no idea what a sharp and a flat was yet. Again, same church, different hymnal.
I am using the new 1040XTRAEZ form this year. It has just 2 lines.
1. How much did you make in 2023?
2. Send it to us.
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Hi Eddie. I don't think anyone is arguing with you. It seems a reasonable way to introduce theory to a child. You had asked if anyone else learned that way and apparently none of us did, but that doesn't mean there is no merit in the method you describe. I found it intriguing.
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If the topic is just chords I figured out early on as a young player (sax) that 3 chromatic steps (or 1/2 steps) is minor and 4 is major and that by combining them you can create maj. minor, aug. dim. chords. Then by adding a 7th 1 half step or 2 half steps below the octave gave me a pretty basic way to understand chords as a 10 yr. old.
Although I am a very good sight reader, I can play an entire gig playing by ear most likely from learning to improvise by intervals.
I guess there is no one "best" way to learn.
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As I said before, there is more than one right way to do almost anything.
Different minds retain things if shown in different ways. Perhaps both ways should be taught, and that way the student will retain either the way he/she assimilates it the best or perhaps both to use whichever tool is appropriate for any particular situation.
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