Chords Have Families

Day 1 | 20 to 30 minutes

The bass may be carrying more emotion than the famous melody.

Focus: melody upstairs, bass downstairs.

• Whole: listen normally and take in the movement.
• Top: follow the long upper melody and notice how calmly it floats.
• Bottom: ignore the melody as best you can and track only the lowest voice.
• Make a listening map. As the bass moves, mark each event with one word: settle, lean, lift, return. Do not identify every chord. Track motion first. Harmony becomes easier to understand when your ear notices direction before labels.

• Settle. Lean. Lift. Return.

Question: how much of the feeling is coming from underneath the melody?

• Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068Yehudi Menuhin, Bath Festival Orchestra, 1961, string orchestraFree to hear, in the recordings list on the page that holds the score. Issued by Seraphim. The Air is movement 2 and has its own file in that entry. It is on strings, where the bass is a real instrument you can follow.Listenhttps://imslp.org/wiki/Orchestral_Suite_No.3_in_D_major,_BWV_1068_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian)
• Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068Papalin Recorder Ensemble, recordersOn the same page, under a Creative Commons license: a second telling of the Air, where the bass line sits in a different color.Listenhttps://imslp.org/wiki/Orchestral_Suite_No.3_in_D_major,_BWV_1068_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian)

Day 2 | 30 to 35 minutes

One major scale contains seven related triads.

Focus: build the chord family.

• Play the G major scale, then stack every other scale note above each degree. Use only notes from G major.
• Build, say, hear: for each triad, say the scale degree, play the notes one at a time, then play the chord shape you know.

• I: G, B, D. G major.
• ii: A, C, E. Am, minor.
• iii: B, D, F sharp. Bm, minor.
• IV: C, E, G. C major.
• V: D, F sharp, A. D major.
• vi: E, G, B. Em, minor.
• vii diminished: F sharp, A, C. F sharp diminished.

Seven members of one family: the point is hearing seven members of one family, rather than learning seven new grips.

The chord chartEvery shape on one page, with the notes in each shape named beside it, for checking each triad you built against the grip you know.mandolintrainer.com/chords/

G, the I chordG, B, D.mandolintrainer.com/chords/g/

Am, the ii chordA, C, E.mandolintrainer.com/chords/am/

Bm, the iii chordB, D, F sharp.mandolintrainer.com/chords/bm/

C, the IV chordC, E, G.mandolintrainer.com/chords/c/

D, the V chordD, F sharp, A.mandolintrainer.com/chords/d/

Em, the vi chordE, G, B.mandolintrainer.com/chords/em/

Day 3 | 30 minutes

Minor chords can deepen the color without leaving the major key.

Focus: hear major versus minor function.

• Alternate G and Em slowly.
• Spell G: G, B, D. Spell Em: E, G, B.
• Hold or repeat the shared tones G and B while you imagine the chord changing around them.
• Describe Em as a relationship to G, not as an isolated shape.

• Familiar frame: G, then C, then D, then G. I, IV, V, I. Departure, tension, and a clear return home.
• Same key, wider feeling: G, then Em, then C, then D. I, vi, IV, V. The vi minor changes the emotional color without changing the tonal center.

Why they feel related: G major and E minor share two of their three chord tones. A chord family is audible because its members are connected internally.

Day 4 | 30 to 35 minutes

An inversion lets the bass sing while the harmony stays recognizable.

Focus: bass movement.

• A chord does not require its root to be the lowest note. G over B, written G/B, means a G major chord with B in the bass. The chord identity remains G. What changes is its footing and direction.
• Hear the slash: play G, then G/B, then C. Emphasize the lowest note. Listen to the bass line G, B, C while the upper harmony moves smoothly.
• The principle behind slash chords such as D/C sharp is the same: the note after the slash names the bass.
• Follow the lowest string voice in the Air as if it were its own melody. The bass has direction and phrasing of its own.

• Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068Yehudi Menuhin, Bath Festival Orchestra, 1961, string orchestraMonday's recording, movement 2. The lowest strings are the voice to follow today.Listenhttps://imslp.org/wiki/Orchestral_Suite_No.3_in_D_major,_BWV_1068_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian)

Day 5 | 30 to 40 minutes

Do not jump between chord blocks. Follow each note's path.

Focus: voice leading.

• Choose two simple three-note chords from G major.
• Name all three notes in the first chord.
• Move to the second chord one voice at a time.
• Keep any common tone fixed.
• For the other voices, choose the smallest available move.
• Play the result slowly enough to hear each line.

• Instead of hearing "stop chord A, grab chord B," ask where every voice wants to move. A strong progression may contain three small melodies happening at once.
• Upper voice stays. Middle voice steps down. Lower voice steps up.

The test: can you sing one inner line while playing the full progression? If you can, the harmony is starting to separate into voices.

Day 6 | 25 to 35 minutes

One held note can turn a chord change into an ache.

Focus: suspensions return.

• A suspension preserves a note from the previous harmony while the harmony changes beneath it. For a moment the note rubs against the new chord. Then it resolves by step.
• Hold: let one note remain while the other voices change. Resist the urge to fix the tension immediately.
• Release: move the suspended note one step into the new harmony. Hear the emotional event as well as the correction.
• Return to the Air and listen for notes that seem to ache before settling. Each time you hear one, pause and sing the two-note motion: tension note, then resolution note. Tiny motion can carry enormous feeling.

• Hold: rub. Release: resolve.

One voice, one step: Sometimes the emotional event is only one voice moving one step.

• Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068Yehudi Menuhin, Bath Festival Orchestra, 1961, string orchestraThe recording from Monday and Thursday, movement 2, for today's listening assignment.Listenhttps://imslp.org/wiki/Orchestral_Suite_No.3_in_D_major,_BWV_1068_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian)

Day 7 | 30 to 40 minutes

The Bach "whoa"

Focus: harmony is multiple melodies moving at the same time.

• Follow the bass for one passage.
• Replay it and follow an inner voice or suspension.
• Replay it and hear the full texture.
• Point to one moment where emotion comes from a note moving by step.
• Explain the moment as voice leading, rather than as "the chord changed."

• Listen to the Air one final time. Instead of reducing it to a string of chord labels, hold three layers in your attention.
• Top: the long upper melody. Middle: inner voices that hold, rub, and resolve. Bottom: the bass singing its own path.

The transformation: Counterpoint and harmony meet when every chord is heard as voices with somewhere to go.

Bluegrass, week 9: Chords Have FamiliesThe bluegrass track for this week, on The Old Home Place, where the B major to E minor pull in the bridge below is heard as chord function.mandolintrainer.com/workbooks/bluegrass/week-9/

• Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068Yehudi Menuhin, Bath Festival Orchestra, 1961, string orchestraThe recording from the rest of the week, movement 2, one final time.Listenhttps://imslp.org/wiki/Orchestral_Suite_No.3_in_D_major,_BWV_1068_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian)