Lesson 9 - Practice Strategies 1

Throughout this course you will learn how to create and develop your own practice strategies. The one presented in this lesson provides a model for you to use.

Step One

Decide in advance of your practice time which chords you're going to work with. Initially, limit yourself to just two chords either both major, both minor, or a combination of major and minor:

• D major and E major
• D minor and E minor
• D major and E minor
• D minor and E major

Step Two

Using your Chord Construction Formulas chart, find the notes for each of the two chords you've chosen to work with and play them in different positions on the piano.

Step Three

Once you're satisfied you can find the notes for each chord and change easily from one chord to the next, create yourself a short chart that uses your two chords. This requires you to think of a time signature and the form (how many bars long?) of your chord song. Then write the chords into the bars where you want them to change and play what you've written.

Step 4
Initially play through your two-chord song by simply playing and holding the chords for the duration of the changes. In the example above, all chords can be held for 4 beats, except the two in bar 7 (2 beats each). Once you're comfortable making the transition from one chord to the next, play the chords more frequently - i.e., play all the chords twice per bar and then, after that has become easy for you, play chords one every beat.

Step 5

Return to Step 1, choose another two chords, and repeat the process. Also try using more combinations of the same chords within one song:


Additional Tips

Chords commonly move in one of two ways:

• to a chord based on the note adjacent to it in the Major scale (such as in the examples above)
• to a chord based on the note that is (the interval of) a 4th away. These are easily found using your Major Scale & Chord Construction chart by reading down any of the columns - e.g., Column I is C, F, Bb, Eb, etc. (See below)