Popular music chord symbols.

[jono1]

I suppose I now consider myself a reasonable pianist and can play quite a number of  classical pieces  quite well.  However sometimes people ask me to play some popular stuff and if I havn't learnt it in depth am absolutely hopeless.  With Christmas coming on it would be really nice to be able to sit down and play some some popular music.  People don't often want to listen to classical at a party!.  So much popular music and jazz is written with only a melody line and chord symbol.  Does anyone have any tips or know of a course/book where one can learn how to play from these 'fake books' purely for pleasure?

[freejazzlessonsdotcom]

Hi Jono,
    Have you learned all your major and minor triads yet in root position?  That would be an excellent place to start.
   There are countless ways of harmonizing and playing the tunes in fakebooks but one simple way is play chords in the left hand and single note melodies in the right hand.

Start with a book like this and go very slow. https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Christmas-Fake-Book-Instruments/dp/0793585414/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322028388&sr=8-1

Good luck and let us know how it works.

[49410enrique]

not  a complete tome on the matter but it's enough to get you started especially since you have the basic theory already under you. pm  me and email addy (i'll do my best but if i get super swamped with requests i may not be able to fulfill all right away) if you want me to email you a better one (i need to double check my roman numers on the copyright so i'm afraid to post until i'm super sure and my buddy didn't specify when he sent it to me).

this ones free for sure though

[quantum]

There are online tools that show you visual representations of what chords look like on the keyboard.

This is a start.  However it only shows root position and does not have options for slash bass.
https://keychord.com


You don't have to worry about the exotic chords such as 7flat9 while you are beginning to learn these chord symbols.  Start out with all major and minor keys.  Go on to major 7 from there.  A lot of the chords you will encounter in music use simple major, minor or 7 chords - this means you can get to playing real music without too much of a learning curve. 

You will soon discover there is a logical pattern to naming chords.  Once you are familiar with the patterns you will be able to deduce the notes of unfamiliar chords very easily. 

[ted]

When you are getting chords into your memory, play each chord new to you around the circle in the twelve positions in an imaginative way which pleases you. I think this way around is superior to doing all the chords related to one key because it establishes fluency in changing keys right away. You don't have to make exact transpositions all the time as long as the underlying subsets of the keyboard are working their way into memory. As quantum implies, trying to memorise ten thousand chords and precise voicings of them in twelve positions is not necessary, although reading discussions by jazz pianists you might tend to think it is.

Using melodies with chord symbols is a good way of starting but ultimately music is a long way from being a series of discrete chord blocks and the most interesting players continually defy and extend this structure, even in simple melodies.

On the other hand, just getting majors, minors, sevenths, diminisheds,  and augmenteds into memory in all keys will probably do the trick for you to read fake books easily near enough by Christmas, if that is what you want to do. Once everybody has a few drinks and starts singing you'll be fine.

[jono1]

Hi,
Many thanks, all you kind people for your comments which are very helpful.  I don't have a problem with major minor triads, or for that matter 7th, diminished augmented chords and so on. The circle of 5ths has become a bit of an obsession also.  The problem is instantly knowing all the inversions, so as not having to keep jumping around the bass. Also building different base lines around the chords.  However since my OP I have found a really useful book by Blake Nealy (Hal Leonard series) called  'How to play from a fake book'. This goes into a lot of depth and I think with a regular commitment  could prove very useful.
I'll update the forum on my progress!

[quantum]

In your search for materials I would also recommend reading up on chord voicing - basically applying inversions artfully in real music scenarios. 

[ajspiano]

Hi Jono,

When you play the chords its the 3rds and 7ths that set the tone so to speak.. rather than learning finite inversions of triads, I think it makes sense to learn how to build up the complex chords from the basic chord tones. Try these.

LH plays the base note, roughly between middle C and the C below. RH will play the 3rd and 7th roughly between middle C and the C above. You'll play a progression of chords in a given key, and the 3rd and 7th will invert with each chord change.. see the attached notation. (sorry I can't write detailed notes to explain directly on the notation, I'm not that great with the software unfortunately)

Notice how only one right hand note changes with each chord change, and the note that changes only has to move 1 semitone. This series of notes represents your underlying harmony for a very large proportion of jazz and popular music. Transpose it into other keys following the cycle of 4ths.. ie.

C major - Dm7, G7, CM7
F Major - Gm7, C7, FM7
Bb Major - Cm7, F7, BbM7
etc. etc.

I've added some more notation examples to expand on the idea..

[ajspiano]

In this example, I've used the concept to harmonise a tune..  I did this in a rush, away from the piano so I haven't heard it other than in my head.. I apologise if it could be done better (it could).

[1piano4joe]

Scott Houston's book "Play Piano In A Flash" is just what your looking for.