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Lesson 2

Musical

Example

Lesson 2

Secret

Score

Lesson 2

Score/

Music

Changing the Patterns and the Harmony

We started each new section with a C major chord. This time, let's use C Major's relative minor chord, the a minor chord. So, in bar 9, we will now build our previously established pattern around the a minor chord. If we listen from a few bars back, we can hear how the music progresses into this new section:

This sounds like we might be overdoing our pattern a bit. We just heard bars 5 through 8 precede this new bar. Keep in mind, bars 1 through 4 also play this same pattern. So it's probably time to vary it slightly. We can adjust both the left hand and right hand parts.

For starters, let's give the left hand all the notes for the a minor chord, instead of the descending bass line. And let's have it ascend for a change. Here's what that would sound like:

All we did was take the individual notes of the a minor chord and play them one at a time:

Anytime we play the notes of a chord separately instead of all at once, we are playing an arpeggio. In this next section, the left hand will play all our chords in this fashion.

Now we'll work on the right hand part. We can still keep our 16th note pattern, but let's change the rhythm after that:

That's not bad. But since the left hand part is playing higher notes than it used to, let's move the right hand part up one octave:

That sounds better. But the melody still sounds like our original theme. Let's vary it slightly:

Much better - but the music sounds empty on the last two beats. Let's fill up that hole:

That feels just right. And all we did was add the notes of the a minor chord to the right hand.