FourthsThe Importance of Fourths
Thursday, 21 August 2008 14:11
Western harmony is built on fourths and fifths. If you study the overtone series you'll see how these most harmonious of intervals are the foundation of chords and chord theory. Finding fourths on the keyboard is not too difficult. Just skip four keys (The fourth -- isn't is ironic -- is the fifth key away from the root. )
You'll see fourths from the root of the chord down to the fifth of the chord. and you'll also see them between the 3rd and 6th of a chord, such as in 13th chords or 6/9 chords. Also you'll see fourths between the 7th and 3rd of both Major and Minor seventh chords. Because of the prominance of fourths in chords, I use them as a starting position to find chords, such as in my book, "How to Speed Read Piano Chord Symbols". -- Nathan Andersen
- Here is a demonstation of how to find fourths.
- Once you have seen how to find fourths, check out this demo on how to use fourths to find major chords.
- Now you can use a little expanded logic to find all different types of piano chords.