The Cellist’s Journey #7 Life with the Music You Like

When you're learning to read sheet music, you're preparing for being able to play classical music.

But what if you're interested in playing your cello in a different setting? Pop, rock, jazz, -many of these other music genres use chords more than the written out music we find in sheet music.

If you want to play along to your favourite pop song, it'll be a lot easier for you if you have knowledge about the chords. That way, you can in most cases look up the song online, find the chords straight away and start playing.

As cellists we often have a bass function, which is fortunate since the bass notes are the only notes written explicitly in the chords.

When you see a Gsus7 chord, for instance, you can ignore everything that is not the root note which is G. The letter of the chord is the root note (the bass note) so if you know where the Gs are on the cello, you can pick your preferred octave and join in on that G.

You'll get far by knowing the placements of the tones in 2 octaves on your cello, and you can play along to any chord while remaining in the 1st position.

When you can comfortably play along to the song with the root notes, you can start to get familiar also with the 5ths of the chords.

A 5th is the interval that the strings of the cello have in relation to each other. When you play 2 open strings at the same time, you hear the interval called a 5th. It comprises 5 tones, for instance C and G.

And chords are built up of the root note, a 3rd above that, and a 5th above the root note.

An easy way to play the 5th of a chord on the cello, is to first place the root note, then place your finger on the exact same place on the string above, meaning the string to your left of the string you're playing the root note on. You can now practice each of the chords only with the bass and the 5th.

In rock music, you can often play the root and the 5th at the same time. Electric guitarists call it a power chord, although it's not strictly speaking a chord, it's just a 5th.

When you play a root and a 5th, you can't hear if the chord is in minor or major. That's because it's the 3rd of the chord that determines that. A 3rd is an interval that comprises 3 tones, for instance C and E.

C and E played together is a major 3rd, and it's a building block in the C major chord.

All I have to do to make it a C minor chord is to lower the 3rd from E to E-flat.

So the next step in getting familiar with the chords is to play the root, the 3rd and the 5th of each chord in the song you want to play along to.

How do you know if the chord is a major or a minor chord?

If there's only a capital letter, such as G or D or E, or if the letter has a b after it, such as Eb or Ab, the chords are in major.

The b means that the root note is E-flat rather than E.

And when there's a small m after the name of the root note of the chord, it's in minor.

I have found it extremely useful to be able to play from chords, as a cellist.

The composers of classical music also used chords, but instead of letting each musician improvise on them, the composer decided which note should be played and when.

When playing together with others, it's a lot more fun when you have an idea of how chords are put together, since you're always playing together in chords and intervals when playing with others.

When a particular beat in the bar sounds terrible, it's helpful to know if it's due to intonation or if it's actually supposed to sound disturbing because it's made up of tritones, which is another interval.

Anyway,

there's a lot more to say here, and I do so in my online course.

Ragnhild’s Online Cello Course -get 20% off with the code HELLOCELLO at checkout.

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