Ask HN: Teach me something new
I watched a piano&#x2F;music teaching video from the 60s yesterday that made it all &quot;click&quot; [1]<p>Most modern music chords patterns are easy to find out on piano.<p>Start on any of the white keys, and play 7 white keys left to right. That is called a mode: a series of notes separated by certain intervals to compose a song.<p>Different modes have different vibes. Atmosphere of the song ( sad or happy) is directly correlated by how &quot;willing&quot; the notes are to resolve to the mode root (the first key of 7 you hit).<p>Now, take a 1-3-5 grip on the white keys (press one key, skip one, press one, skip one, press one). That is called the first chord. Move one to the right, and do it again. That is the second chord. One more to the right is the third etc.<p>Most popular songs are composed by using mostly the same repeating chord patterns:<p>- 1-5-1-4 (first, fifth, first, fourth)<p>- 1-4-5<p>- 1-5-6-4<p>If you experiment a little bit with this, you will instantly recognize a lot of songs, although they might be pitched higher or lower.<p>One step further, is learning different chord fingerings: we started with 1-3-5 which mostly results in a major or minor chord in a mode.<p>- 5th chords are 1-5<p>- 7th chords are 1-3-5-7<p>- sus2 is 1-2-5<p>- sus4 is 1-4-5<p>- etc<p>Now, the next thing you need to learn is to transpose: move songs up or down one or more keys to the left or right, but also taking into account the black keys when moving up&#x2F;down. This will allow you to play along with a song in the perfect key (starting note of a scale)<p>There&#x27;s other things (like modulating modes in songs), but this should give you a headstart.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;g7oA1-y0EJE" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;g7oA1-y0EJE</a><p>Edit: layout and some extra clarification