I Have a Dog: Adding Chords

Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph
Hoffman
and in this lesson we're going to
continue our notation project by working on
adding chords to "I Have a Dog". Let's
come to the piano to get started.
For "I Have a Dog" we're going to use our two
best friend chords: the I and the V7 chord.
So let's review how to play those
in C major. Remember that in any key
a I chord is built on DO MI and SO.
So find the C major pentascale.
Let's play our I chord, and then for the V7
chord remember DO moves down to TI
just a half step down, which in this case
is a white key.
Sometimes the V7 chord TI moves to a black key, but here
there is no black key so we just move down to B and MI moves up to FA.
So we get these notes which you'll play with 1 2 and 5
or for smaller hands
maybe you'll just play these two notes
Okay? But if your hand can reach that B
on the bottom that will sound nice.
Try your I chord, try your five seven chord.
Good, if you feel like any more practice with these two chords, pause the video.
Otherwise, let's keep going and talk about
why do we even use these two
chords?
Why do we want a I chord and a V7 chord?
Well, in music one of
the things our ears like
is variety, right? How boring would it be if you ate
bread every day for breakfast lunch and dinner?
Bread, bread, bread. You know,
bread can be wonderful,
but only if it's with some other things to give variety.
Maybe you also want a salad, maybe you want some fruit,
maybe you want some
potatoes. You know,
food is more delicous when there's a variety. Same is true with music.
The I chord and V7 chord. That V7 chord adds a little bit of flavor.
To make music more interesting.
Now I also want you to learn how to hear
the difference between these two chords
even when you're not looking at them.
So let's try a little game. Close your eyes
and I want you to say out loud I chord
if you hear this,
or V7 chord if hear this:
Or you can just say I
V7, okay, close your eyes,
and say out loud what you hear.
The answer is
V7 chord. Now say what you hear again.
V7 chord again.
What do you hear?
I chord. What do you hear?
V7 chord.
What do you hear?
That's a I chord.
Good now you can open
your eyes again.
When we're adding chords to music,
we want to use our ear as a
guide,
but it also helps to notice that which notes sound good with which chord.
For example, as we've talked about before,
a I chord will sound really good with
DO,
but it doesn't sound as good with RE. For RE we may want the V7
chord, and MI
will sound good with the I chord because there's a MI in the I chord.
if we try to play MI with a V7 chord it doesn't sound as
good, okay?
Now let's look at step eight.
Add a I or V7 chord to each
measure using your left hand.
Use your ear to decide which sounds best.
Write I or V7 above the first note of each measure based on the chord you choose.
So, like we've done in other songs,
we're going to add a chord for the first
note of each measure.
So remember we're in the C major pentascale.
So our I chord will look like this:
With your left hand can you try playing
a I chord?
Now try a V7 chord.
Then back to a I chord.
Now,
let's try the
first two measures together.
Here's how it sounds with the I chord.
Now let's try a V7 chord.
Hmm, which sounded best to you? Here's
the I chord again.
Yeah, in both of those measures I liked the I chord best.
So we're going to show that just by writing a Roman numeral I over this
measure.
Now in this measure we could have switched to a V7 chord.
Let's try that.
Now DO actually doesn't sound that great
with the V7 chord.
So we're going to stay on the I chord.
We've got the I
chord for MI and I chords generally sound great with a MI.
MI MI RE DO
You
notice it passes through a RE here
and often we like to use a V7 chord
on a RE, but this RE you know,
kind of isn't that important because you're
passing between a MI and a DO,
so it still sounds nice.
Now, in this measure what do you think we should have?
That's the I chord.
That's the V7 chord.
I'm going let you choose from here on out.
So pause the video and
on your own try out I chords or V7 chords
to see which sounds best, and then press play and I'll show you what I came up with.
Here's what I came up with: I had a I chord.
I chord.
V7
I
I
I
V7
I
Now you might have noticed that this is
the same pattern of I I V7 I, I I V7 I
that we saw