Piano for Vocalists - Harmony

This series of posts is intended for the vocalist who wants to acquire more skills at the piano, but may not currently have the means or access to piano lessons. The tips and techniques discussed in these posts should not be taken as a piano curriculum. They are specifically focused on giving the vocalist the skills they need to use the piano most effectively as a singer. While the best attempt at providing good piano technique will and should always be made, these posts are no substitute for actual lessons with a good piano teacher.

The previous post dealt with melodies, which I always call the horizontal aspect of pitch because melody is concerned with getting from one note to the next. This post will focus on harmony, which I describe as the vertical aspect of pitch, most often presenting as chords. We did spend some time talking about harmony when we discussed playing multiple melodic parts, but chords will be our main focus here. The study of chords will allow that multipart playing of the melodic process to be much easier. To facilitate that, these chord techniques should be started soon after the five finger scales are comfortable. By playing the arpeggio notes at the same time we play a major chord in whatever position we are in. This pattern using the first, third, and fifth fingers in both hands is the most common and basic chord shape.

A good exercise is to take that shape and move it up and down by steps, eventually cycling through all twelve keys covered with the Five Finger Patterns. This is necessary for playing most standard warmups and will allow for quick navigation of the keyboard. It is important to think of moving the hand and fingers as a unit, rather than one finger at a time. This movement should have been explained a bit with the five finger patterns, but being able to move the whole hand through the keys as a unit should be solidified here with the chords. It’s easy to set a finger at a time with the five finger scales. To do so with the chords requires more coordination. When I start this with students I typically have them play one of their five finger scales, but have them play each note with the lowest finger on their hand (LH 5, RH 1). Then I’ll have them add their third finger to that, playing a third away for each note, moving as a unit. Use this to work the basic method for a while, sticking to the white key patterns of C and G, eventually adding the top finger as well to play the full chord (LH 1, RH 5). It can be helpful to play the notes one at a time as an arpeggio first, and then play them at the same time as the chord.

The same techniques should be applied chromatically, as that is the typical way to play warmups. Once comfort is established with the C and G patterns you should work moving in half steps. Adding the black keys can be tricky at first. Just be sure to move each finger a half step at a time. Start by switching between two or three keys, before moving on to longer strings of chromatic chords.

Once the basic root position chord fingering is established you should move on to learning the two basic inversions. An inversion simply means playing the notes of a given chord in a different order. The root position C Major chord is CEG. A first inversion would place E on the bottom for EGC. Second would make the G the bass note, GCE. Figure 3 shows the root position, first, and second inversion chords for C, D, and E.

Figure 3 - C, D, and E Chords – Root, 1st, and 2nd Inversion

Figure 4 shows first and second inversions involving C in two different ways. The first measure contains first inversion chords. The first chord is a C Major chord in first inversion. The second chord is a first inversion where C is the bass note. In this case that is a first inversion A Minor chord. The second measure is second inversion chords. Again, the first chord is the C Major inversion, and the second chord is the inversion with C in the bass. In this case now it is an F Major second inversion.

There are standard fingerings for each of the inversions with the hands mirroring each other on each one. For a first inversion chord the left hand plays 1-3-5 while the right hand plays 1-2-5, keeping the third of the chord on the bottom. For second inversion the fingerings flip, with left hand playing 1-2-5, and right hand 1-3-5, keeping the fifth of the chord in the bass. It is good to do the same thing that was done with the root position arpeggios, moving stepwise up and down the keyboard as a unit.

Using these inversions allows us to easily improvise accompaniments using basic chord progressions. We’ll use a I-IV-I-V-I progression as our first example (Figure 5). We could play all of these chords in root position, but that means a lot of jumping around the keyboard (measure 1). If we use the inversions we can stay on the same set of keys, varying only by one key in either direction (measure 2).

We can combine these positions with basic accompaniment patterns to improve accompaniments like the one shown in Figure 6.

Once the inversions and that first chord progression are comfortable it can be helpful to move on to different chord progressions. The ones below are from a list I have compiled of common chord progressions used in both classical and popular music. Familiarizing yourself with common patterns like this will make it easier to spot them in literature, allowing you to give yourself the harmonic structure of the accompaniments, even if you can’t play the full accompaniment. Practicing this will also allow you to more easily play progressions that are different than those in this list..

Being able to use harmonic structure to your advantage allows you to have a much better understanding of the pieces you perform. After mastering the skills described in all the previous posts you are ready to move on to more advanced techniques.