What does it mean to move to a chord?
I don’t understand most of the interviews. People say things such as, “...When I’m moving to the 4th Chord...” Now I understand Scales, I play 5 Major Pentatonic, 6 Minor Pentatonic and 2 Blues Scales on the Harp. I understand there are 7 notes in a Major scale so I know when one says the “third”, they mean the third note in the major scale. But I have no idea what it means when someone says they move to the 4th chord. How do you move from notes to chords on the harmonca? What does 4th chord mean? I wish I could understand all the crazy vocabulary people use in your interviews but it seems extremely complex.
Dave, this answer was helpful to me as well - thank you.
Great, happy to help
Hey Dave, thanks for the excellent response. It was just a moment of frustration trying to understand some of the interviews. I’ve learned a lot about scales and the relationships between each of them, among other things, but even after a year and a half, music theory still spins my head. I’m still confused on why we need to know what chord we are in rather than just knowing what key the music is in and using the appropriate scale (in my case, blues or pentatonic scale). I would think I can just not think about / disect notes of each Chord because all the notes I memorized in the Scales should hit the right notes as long as I am in the right key. I suppose I’ll understand this better when I dive into your lesson material on the subject. Look forward to it!
Yeah, this is all covered in great detail in the lessons. And because you're going to learn it from three different angles (theory, improvising and accompaniment) it should sick.
Hello Rishió. When we play, we're choosing notes that match the chord we're playing over. So when someone says they're "playing over the I (one)," they're acknowledging the fact that they're playing over the I chord, and that they're playing the appropriate notes to match (the notes of the I Chord).
For example...
The C Harmonica played in 2nd Position places you and the band in the Key of G. The I chord in the key of G is G B D. This means that they are mostly hitting those notes. If the band is playing those notes, you too must play those notes if you want to match. For example, that would would be 2, 3 and 4 draw on your harmonica (and any other G, B and D's). We do play other notes than these, but we need the majority of them to be so, otherwise what we play will not sound good.
The IV Chord is C, E and G. Bar 5 of the 12 Bar Blues for example is where the band moves to the IV Chord, so you will be changing to playing the C, E and G notes. So, to move to a chord change, is to start making a transition (some cool pickup lick) when on the I, to lead to the IV, and then changing the notes of emphasis to match the IV.
The reason you haven't had to think much about this yet is that I, and the other artists that you're copying, already chose the notes for you. As you start to improvise on the harmonica you'll need to be aware of these chords in order to sound good. You can do well copying others and stringing licks together for a while, but within time your next growth area is to know what notes/licks match over which chords... this will make your playing sound much better.
Undestanding chords is covered in great detail in the Accompaniment Lessons (specifically Lessons 3 and 5), Music Theory and Improvising. Once you complete those lessons you'll have a strong understanding of how chords work. Even if your skill level is not high enough to do all of the lessons, you can go through the lessons (watching and reading) to help answer these questions you have.