Silver Birch Tree: The IV Chord

Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman. Today we're learning how to play chords in the left hand with "Silver Birch Tree." Let's come to the piano to get started. Okay, so we're figuring out these chords for the left hand for "Silver Birch Tree." Here's my middle C, so I'm coming down to the left of that, and let's review the I chord. the I chord is always built on DO MI SO or since we're minor DO ME SO. There's our I chord. Now can you play that on your piano? Now our V7 chord, let me put the I chord back up here, remember DO always goes down a half step to TI. Show me a half step below this D. If you're pointing right here, you're correct. Half-step is always the nearest possible note, which if you're on a white key is usually going to go to a black key. Now ME will go up to FA, which is right here, so our V7 chord looks like this. SO stays the same. We got C-sharp, G, and A, builds the V7 chord. Can you try that on your piano? Sounds like that. Let's come back to the I chord. Go back to the V7 chord, and then back to the I chord. Good, now in "Silver Birch Tree" we get to learn a new chord and it's called the IV chord. Now as I mentioned before, later on we're going to learn why the chords are called what they're called, but I'll give you a little sneak peek. The reason this is called the IV chord that we're about to see is basically, the reason this is called the I chord, actually let me back up, is it's built on the first note of the scale. Now if you go up four notes, one, two, three, four, there's another chord we could build on that G using a G, a B-flat, and a D, which is the IV chord, but because that's so far away, we actually take this D from here, put it down here, and that gives us the IV chord. If that was a little confusing, don't worry about why it's called the IV chord. Just trust me. This is the IV chord. Here's our I chord. Basically to get a IV chord all you have to do is take MI and SO, or ME and SO, move ME up to FA and SO up to, in minor we call this LE. Typically this would be LA but since we're in minor we're going to use the B flat. That gives us the IV chord. To play that what you're going to do is use finger 5 for the D, finger 2 for the G, and you want to use your finger one for the B-flat. You can see that's a little bit awkward so what you're going to do is slide fingers 2 and 5 forward, so I'm in between these black keys, and now my finger 1 can reach pretty comfortably. If that is too big of a stretch for your hands, let's say you have small hands, for younger students it's okay to just play the G and the B with fingers 2 and 1. Don't worry about getting your pinky down as well. But if your finger 5 can reach this D that is the full IV chord. D, G, B-flat. Now practice playing the IV chord on your piano. Let's go ahead and press pause and practice going from the I chord, which is fingers 5, 3, 1, to the IV chord which again is right here, D, G, and B-flat with fingers 5 2 1. Practice going back and forth between I and IV, then press play when you're ready to go on. Okay, now let's actually apply these chords to "Silver Birch Tree." If you look at the music you'll see that we start with 4 beats on a I chord, so let's play I, the I chord, and we'll count four beats. Go, Two, three, four, then we go to a IV chord for 2 beats, again sliding towards your piano so finger 1 can reach the B-flat, 2 beats on the IV chord, 1, 2, then back to a I chord for two beats, then 2 beats on the V7, 1, 2, then 2 beats on the I chord, one, two. Now let's put all of that together. We get 1 2 3 4, 1 2, 1 2, 1 2. Now press pause and practice that sequence of chords while counting the beat until you feel confident, then press play when you're ready to go on. Okay let's try this. You play the chords and I'll play the chords with you, but I will also add the melody. Your job is just the left hand chords and counting how many beats for each chord. Ready, go. 1 2 3 4, 1 2, 1 2, V7, 1 2, 1 2. Good and then line two is the same thing, so let's try it again. Go. 1 2 3 4, 1 2, 1 2, 1 2, 1 2. Very nice. If you need more practice with that just pause, practice some more, and then you can rewind and try it again. Okay, for lines three and four the music tells us that there are no chords and that both hands play the melody. So it will be like this 1 2 3 4 So now with your left hand practice the melody. Don't worry about playing hands together unless you want an extra challenge. Practice lines three and four, then press play when you're ready to try it with me. Okay, we're going to try lines three and four. You have a choice. You can do just left hand alone, if you want the extra challenge you can try both hands. Remember, 3 beats on the first note. Ready, go. Great, now let's try playing the whole thing together. I'm going to show you both hands, and again you can just do the left hand, or if you've been practicing and you want to try hands together you can, but probably on your first try let's just do left hand and let's go through the whole song together now. Remember to count the beat as you play each chord. Ready, go. 1 2 3 4, 1 2, 1 2, 1 2, 1 2. 1 2 3 4, 1 2, 1 2, 1 2, 1 2. 1 2 3... 1 2, 1 2 ... 2 3... 1 2, 1 2. Nice job learning the left hand to ...