Lavender's Blue: Adding Chords

Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph
Hoffman.
Today let's learn how to add chords to
the melody of "Lavender's Blue".
Join me at the piano to get started.
Okay, how we're
going to do chords in "Lavender's Blue" is
we're going to play a chord on the first
beat of every measure.
So let's see where that falls.
We know this note is the
first beat of a measure,
so I'll go ahead and circle that note
with the corresponding syllable from our lyrics: 'Lavender's', so we'll play on 'La-'.
And we'll look up here to know what chord. We see that we're going to be playing a I chord.
Right as we play this first note of the right hand.
So 'Lavender's', that's beat 2 and 3,
and then there's our bar line. So here's another beat 1.
So we'll
play another chord on the word 'blue'
since that's beat 1 of our new measure.
Now, there's no chord symbol up here so what do we play?
Well, in chord symbols usually you just keep playing the same chord until you get to a new chord symbol.
So we will do another I chord right there.
Then we'll carry on.
Here's beats 2-& 3-&.
A bar line tells us here's another beat 1, so
we'll play another chord on 'La-'
of 'Lavender's' and this time it's a IV
chord.
'Lavender's', bar line, here's another beat 1.
So on the word
'green' we'll play another IV chord.
And then we'll keep holding the chord with this dotted half note together for the rest of that measure.
Let's try that on the piano.
Since "Lavender's Blue" is in the key of C major,
I've got this set up as my I chord.
Our I chord in C major is simply C E G.
Now, in "Lavender's Blue" we
also need a IV chord.
You might remember
from "Silver Birchtree" that
which is in D minor, if this is our I chord for the IV chord we move these two notes up a step.
And a D minor we actually need a B-flat.
However, in C major how it works to go to
the IV chord
is MI moves up to FA, SO moves up to LA,
and in a
major key SO to LA is a whole step.
In minor it'd be a half step. Like if we
were in C minor, we'd use A-flat,
but since we're major we're going use A-natural and this would be our IV chord with C F and A.
It's called the IV
chord, if in case you're interested,
because it's built on the fourth note of
the pentascale. We start on C, one, two, three, four.
See how it's kind of this F major chord, but we just took the C and put it on the bottom.
Don't worry about
that. That's just kind of music theory information
information for why this is called the
IV chord.
So again we've got our I chord here built on DO MI and SO, and then the IV chord
built like this.
Now let's talk about fingering for the IV chord.
Take your left hand and go ahead and place it in the C major pentascale
and
let's try the I chord with C E G
Now, for the IV chord, do not move
fingers 2 3 4 5 you're only going to move your thumb, finger 1,
and that leaves finger 2 still on F,
and finger 5 still on C.
So the only finger you're
moving is your thumb. Here's the I chord:
For the IV chord just shift up
that thumb and use finger 2 on F,
finger 1 on A.
Now, try this with me a few times the I chord, then shift to the IV chord.
Just go back and forth a few times. I chord,
Then IV chord.
In fact, press pause and try that like five to ten times on your own
till you feel like you can go from the I chord to the IV chord in your sleep,
and then press play to go on.
Okay, let's talk about how to play the
IV chord with your right hand.
Place your right hand in the C major
pentascale.
Try a I chord.
Now for the IV chord
what you're going to do is
shift all of your fingers except your thumb.
Kind of the opposite from what the left hand had to do. Remember the left hand moved only your thumb.
The right hand you're going to move all your fingers except the thumb, so it's kind of this position now,
where you're leaving this D blank, your thumb
is on C,
and then you can use finger 3 and 5 to play F and A.
Okay, so watch that again.
We're in our regular C major pentascale, then shift all your fingers over except your thumb
to play the IV chord with fingers 1 3 and 5.
Now, press pause and try that a few times on your own, then press play to go on.
Now let's review how to find the V7 chord.
Remember for a V7 chord, starting with this as our I
chord, we move DO down a half step to TI,
MI up a half step to FA
So DO and MI move out from each other, but SO stays put. So this:
These three notes,
TI FA SO, or in letter names, B F G, makes our V7 chord.
For fingering use finger 1 2 and 5.
So from the I chord to the V7 chord goes ...