Piano Cheats

In “The 3 Basic Chords” post, we learned the following 3 chords:
Chord I – i.e., the I major chord
Chord IV – i.e., the IV major chord
Chord V – i.e., the V major chord
Then, in “The 3 Minor Chords”, we learned the following 3 chords:
Chord IIm – i.e., the II minor chord
Chord IIIm – i.e., the [...]

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Very often, a certain chord would naturally lead to another chord. You can find this in many songs. I call this ‘Chord Association’, i.e., associating one chord with another. The following are some examples:
· Chord IIIm usually leads to Chord VIm
· Chord VIm usually leads to Chord IIm
· Chord IIm usually leads to Chord V
· [...]

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This song by Chris Tomlin is a good example to illustrate our Chord Mixing trick (See “Chord Mixing (part 1)” and “Chord Mixing (part 2)” posts).
The whole song can be simplified to the following chord pattern:
I –> VIm –> IV –> V
That is, Chord I followed by Chord VIm, followed by Chord IV, and then [...]

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If you remember “the 3 minor chords”, and how we play them by substituting them with the 3 basic chords, and simply combining each of these 3 basic chords with a different bass note, then the summary is as below:
Chord VI m = Chord I (right hand) + Bass 6 (left hand), i.e., the “la” [...]

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This is about playing 2 different chords alternately while playing the same bass note(s). And the technique comes in very handy quite often.
In general, this is how I mix chords…
When the chord you are supposed to play is Chord I, you may mix Chord V to it, i.e.,
Chord I ( + Chord V )
Similarly, you [...]

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