Advanced Lessons

Since most cities have implemented a "stay home" policy to combat the spread of Covid-19, I am offering you piano lessons on line. When you sign up for online lessons, you will create a user name and password which will allow you to log in to the site, access all the required materials necessary to complete the course. All online courses are given using Zoom so it is recommended you have a webcam and microphone. The instructors screen is configured to allow you to see the instructor, the keyboard and the notes being played.

Welcome to the advanced piano section at Bick's Place to Play Piano. Now that you have worked through the beginner piano lessons and the intermediate piano lessons sections, it is time to take on the final section.

Modes for Piano
In music, modes are a "displaced scale played from root to root of a chord." What this means is that if you take the scale tone 7th chords of say C major and play the C major scale with each scale tone chord beginning with the root note of each scale tone chord, you will be playing the various modes of the scale of C major.

Using this information we construct the following table which shows the various modes in the scale of C Major.

Chord
Scale
Displacement
Mode
C Major 7th
C Major
C - C
Ionian
D Minor 7th
C Major
D - D
Dorian
E Minor 7th
C Major
E - E
Phrygian
F Major 7th
C Major
F - F
Lydian
G Dominant 7th
C Major
G - G
Mixolydian
A Minor 7th
C Major
A - A
Aeolian
B Half Diminished 7th
C Major
B - B
Locrian

Arpeggios for the Piano
An arpeggio is a group of notes which are played one after the other, added either going up or going down. Executing an arpeggio requires the player to play the sounds of a chord individually to differentiate the notes. The notes all belong to one chord. The chord may, for example, be a simple chord with the 1st, (major or minor) 3rd, and 5th notes of the scale in it (this is called a "tonic triad"). An arpeggio in the key of C major going up two octaves would be the notes (C, E, G, C, E, G, C)
An arpeggio is a type of broken chord. Other types of broken chords play chord notes out of sequence or more than one note but less than the full chord simultaneously. Arpeggios can rise or fall for more than one octave.

Piano Chord Inversions
Piano chord inversions are the "rearranging" of the intervals or tones (notes) of a chord into a different order. Throughout these lessons we have worked with chords in their root positions. This means we have formed the chord with the root in the bottom or lowest (starting) position. C major has been formed C,E,G..F minor is F,Ab,C..A major is A,C#,E...you get the idea.

Chords
A chord's inversion describes the relationship of its bass to the other tones in the chord. For instance, a C major triad contains the tones C, E and G; its inversion is determined by which of these tones is the bottom note in the chord. The term inversion is often used to categorically refer to the different possibilities, although it may also be restricted to only those chords where the bass note is not also the root of the chord root position.

Root position
Main article: Root (chord)
A root-position chord is sometimes known as the parent chord of its inversions. For example, C is the root of a C major triad and is in the bass when the triad is in root position; the 3rd and the 5th of the triad are sounded above the bass.


C major, root position