Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to talk about sound design. I know many of you are pianists, but this is definitely worth your while. I’m going to show you something you’re already familiar with, but you may not realize the depth with which this type of music or sound is so involved in your lives all the time.
Historical Background
Instruments have been around for hundreds of years, with the symphony orchestra culminating in the late 19th century. So, what else could be possible? In the 1940s, a French man named Pierre Schaeffer came up with musique concrète. He used turntables, which is interesting because disc jockeys use turntables to create whole new soundscapes today! Schaeffer took sounds, manipulated them, and used tape recorders to gather sounds and mold them into compositions.
This was the infancy of what we’re discussing today. Music synthesizers entered into the equation soon after. In the late 1950s, RCA had their music synthesizer. I remember growing up, my father had a record of the RCA music synthesizer. You can probably find it on YouTube with all kinds of squeaks and weird sounds. At the end of it, they attempted to create a little jazz combo, and I was very taken with it as a kid.
It was Robert Moog’s synthesizer in the 1960s that really caught attention. Wendy Carlos’s famous album, Switched on Bach, took the works of Bach and orchestrated them using the Moog synthesizer. The Moog synthesizer was monophonic, playing one only note at a time. Carlos painstakingly recorded at half speed to get everything perfect, overdubbing all the parts to create different timbres, and brought Bach’s works to life in a new way.
Sound Design in Film
Sound design is most prevalent as a backdrop for video and film. Going back to the infancy of music for film, silent films used ragtime-type music to follow the action. Improvised music for silent films is a lost art, but a few people like Michael Mortilla in Los Angeles has kept it alive. https://www.midilifecrisis.com/
As time went on, film music started to become almost like sound design, even with traditional instruments. For example, Bernard Herrmann, a fantastic film composer, created music for Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. There’s a particularly terrifying scene where the music doesn’t sound like music but is incredibly effective. High-piercing strings create tension in a way that symphonic scores hadn’t been used before.
The Impact of Sound Design
John Williams’s scores, like Jaws, use simple musical motifs to create tension. The two-note motif in Jaws is a perfect example of how minimalistic sound design can be highly effective.
Sound design can subtly shift moods, creating emotions without the audience even realizing it. It’s an art form that can stand alone as music because of the emotion it conveys.
Conclusion
Is sound design music? It can be, because there is emotion associated with it. If you want to delve deeper into this, check out some examples from my son David Estrin. He does all kinds of music, traditional and experimental. https://davidpaulyall.bandcamp.com/track/fond
What is your opinion of sound design? Electronic music, musique concrète, film music, and the different directions they take, whether symphonic or experimental? I’d love to hear from you!
Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.
For premium videos and exclusive content, you can join my Living Pianos Patreon channel! www.Patreon.com/RobertEstrin
Contact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com
Welcome to LivingPianos.com. Robert Estrin here with one of the most fundamental aspects of music and harmony: what is an inversion? In a recent video, I explained triads, the most fundamental chord. I have a future video about seventh chords and expanded chords. But first, let’s delve into inversions.
The Concept of Inversions
In 1722, John Philipp Rameau first articulated that chords can be inverted. But what does this mean? Sometimes you see chords with different intervals, but Rameau stated that all chords are built upon the interval of the third. If it’s not a third, it’s an inversion.
Let’s take a C major triad: C, E, G. What happens if you put the E on the bottom? Now you don’t have thirds. Instead, you have a third (E to G) and a fourth (G to C). This new arrangement is the first inversion.
Identifying Inversions in Music
These inversions are identified differently in harmonic analysis and sheet music. If you invert the chord again, with G on the bottom, you get a fourth (G to C) and a third (C to E), creating a second inversion of the C major triad.
In sheet music, these would be labeled simply:
C major: C
First inversion: C/E
Second inversion: C/G
In harmonic analysis, it’s more detailed:
Root position: C major
First inversion: C major 6 (or 6/3)
Second inversion: C major 6/4
Seventh Chords and Their Inversions
Seventh chords are a bit more complex due to having four notes. For example, a G7 chord (G, B, D, F) in C major:
Root position: G7 First inversion: G7/B Second inversion: G7/D Third inversion: G7/F
In harmonic analysis:
Root position: G7 (or 7) First inversion: G7 6/5 Second inversion: G7 4/3 Third inversion: G7 4/2
Remember, these notations reflect the intervals:
6/5: a sixth and a fifth above the bass note 4/3: a fourth and a third above the bass note 4/2: a fourth and a second above the bass note
Practical Application
Understanding inversions helps in harmonic analysis and playing from lead sheets. For example, a dominant seventh chord, the most popular type, is assumed when you see a notation like G7 without further specification.
Conclusion
Inversions are essential in understanding chord functions. All seventh chords can be inverted and named in the same way, whether they are major, minor, or diminished. You can identify the root of the chord by arranging notes in thirds, giving you insight into chord function and resolution.
I hope you enjoyed this music theory primer. Let us know in the comments if these videos are helpful. This is LivingPianos.com, your online piano store. Thanks for joining me!
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Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The question today is: Is playing practicing? Many of you who have watched my videos know that I have drawn a red line that should not be crossed. You have to know whether you are playing or practicing. And yet here I have this question: Is playing practicing? There’s actually a nuanced answer to this question. While it is absolutely essential that you know whether you’re playing through your music or practicing your music, there are times when you want to practice performing, whether it’s a public performance that you’re preparing for or you just want to run through things for friends to see how they go. But what we’re going to talk about today is something entirely different.
Playing can be practicing!
For example, when you play a performance, whether it’s a formal recital or just playing for friends, particularly if you record the event, going back and listening to what you did while taking note of what went well, what things maybe you need to work on, and insights you may have gained during the performance that you’d like to explore further, can be an invaluable experience. In that case, playing is practicing.
What is practicing?
Aside from the physiological aspect of strengthening your hands and learning how to negotiate passages, finger work, and chords, practicing is really a mental activity. Anything that involves a thought process about playing is practicing. So that’s an example where playing is practicing. How could you use this to your advantage? There are actually many ways. I talked about practicing performing. How do you do this? In your practice, there are two complete extremes. During a performance, no matter what, the show must go on. You have to keep going! Nobody wants to hear you stop and correct something when you’re playing for them. In a live performance, this could be a disaster. But even when you’re playing informally for family or friends, it ruins the whole experience for them. But in practice, you want to stop whenever there is an error to correct it and solidify it.
When is playing practicing? How do you achieve this?
It’s just as I described before. You do a practice run-through of a piece, and you don’t stop. Make it like a performance. You can even record it. It doesn’t need to be a great recording. You just want to have something you can listen back to with the score. Maybe circle trouble spots in the score. Take notes as you listen. This can be an incredible experience for strengthening your performance. And indeed, this is an aspect where playing can be practicing. But normally, remember that red line. Practicing is on one side, and playing is on the other. And they are diametrically opposed. In playing, you want to keep going no matter what to maintain the continuity of the performance. In practice, you generally want to stop to make corrections and solidify. Double check the score, work through the passage, connecting it with the previous passage, getting that secure, then going back to the beginning and seeing if you can pass all of the trouble spots. So that’s the lesson for today! Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.
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Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I have a really interesting story for you about how a Pinto blew up my teaching. This is not only an interesting story, but for any of you people out there who have ever thought about having a career or even a side hustle teaching the piano, there will be useful information for you. I’m going to give you a lot of pointers because I have a background in teaching going back literally generations.
My father, Morton Estrin, was a great concert pianist and teacher.
He taught my sister and me until we both went off to conservatory after high school. And in fact, both of us got our teaching career started by learning how to teach the piano from our father and assisting him in his teaching when we were still in high school. All throughout my college years in conservatory, my side hustle was teaching the piano as well as accompanying. So I was no stranger to teaching.
Have Pinto, will travel!
When I graduated from the Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana, I very quickly amassed many students. I did this by offering to travel to people’s homes for lessons and advertising wherever I could to get students. Back then, it was classified ads because it was before the internet offered that possibility. No matter where people were located, I would go there .I would figure out how much more I’d have to charge for the amount of time it would take me to drive there.
I went all over the county.
No place was off-limits. I would just charge accordingly. My schedule back then was crazy because I would figure out the exact amount of time it would take to go from one student to the next. So one student might have a lesson starting at 3:15, and the next one might start at 3:55. It was all these odd times. Now, if a student was not able to make the lesson, it would be a disaster because I’d be stuck in the middle of nowhere! Sometimes it was really cold, and that car didn’t have the best heat. The other thing was that back then there were no smartphones with GPS. In some areas, there were no street signs! When it was dark, it was almost impossible to figure out where you were going. Worse yet, if for some reason I had to call a student, I’d have to find a payphone!
My mission was to figure out how to get students to come to me.
I figured the best way to do that was to have a really good piano to entice them. It also added a lot of validity when people walked into my studio and saw a beautiful, brand new Baldwin baby grand piano. We also always looked for houses with a separate entrance to a room so that students didn’t have to march through the whole house and there’d be some privacy. My wife Florence is also a musician, a flutist, so we always looked for houses with two rooms with separate entrances to each one. This was always a huge challenge! But you would be surprised at how many places we found that had two separate entrances that didn’t go through the whole house where she could do her teaching and I could do my teaching without disturbing each other.
If you want to get into teaching, you might consider driving to people’s homes.
Why is this so advantageous? Can’t you just teach at a music store or studio? The problem with that is that many studios now, at least in Southern California, get 50% or more of the money in studio fees! So you go to teach lessons, and the people who own the business that you’re teaching at are making more than you are for the actual teaching! You can make far more money if you’re willing to travel. Plus, people really appreciate the convenience of having you come to their homes. Once you develop enough students and have a following, seek out a place where you can make your own teaching studio. If you have a good instrument, and perhaps recording capabilities, it could be a viable place for people to come to for the benefits they get from studying with you.
I hope this is helpful for any of you who are interested in teaching!
By the way, I teach piano pedagogy. I have a deep background in teaching teachers. I was so lucky to have been taught how to teach by my father from the time I was in high school, and I’m happy to help any of you out there who would like to teach piano. Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
For premium videos and exclusive content, you can join my Living Pianos Patreon channel! www.Patreon.com/RobertEstrin
Contact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today, I’m going to talk about Steinway. What happened to Steinway? I’m going to give you 20 true or false statements, so get your pencil and paper ready! But first, I’m going to give a brief history of this venerable piano company. Of course, you all know Steinway, but I’m going to tell you some things you maybe don’t know about the company.
In 1850, Henry Steinweg, a German immigrant, witnessed a show put on by P.T. Barnum, and it featured a Chickering piano.
Chickering was a piano company going back to the 1820s in the United States. The show inspired him so much that they could barely drag him off the stage. A few years later, in 1853, he founded Steinway & Sons in New York, and the company remained under family ownership for generations. In 1880, Steinway opened a second factory in Hamburg, Germany. In 1931, the accelerated action was introduced, a new technology that caught the attention of many pianists. In 1936, Steinway introduced their patented diaphragmatic soundboard, which was a way of tapering the soundboard to produce the distinctive Steinway sound. Finally, in 1972, corporate ownership happened with CBS purchasing Steinway & Sons.
In 1992, Steinway introduced the Boston Piano brand. This is an OEM piano, designed by Steinway and produced in Japan by Kawai, with many Steinway elements—not the Steinway piano design, but many elements that Steinway specified in the pianos produced by Kawai in Japan. In 1995, Steinway merged with Selmer Industries, the makers of woodwind and brass instruments. Then, in 2001, Steinway introduced their Essex piano, made by Young Chang. But a few years later, in 2004, Young Chang suffered a bankruptcy. So in 2006, they started having the Essex produced in China by the world’s largest piano manufacturer, Pearl River, which is where they’re still made today.
In 2015, Steinway introduced Spirio, a player system that is only available in pianos that are built by Steinway and only in new Steinway pianos. This system introduced many innovative technologies. They took old recordings and digitized them so you can have your piano play Rubinstein when he was young, or things of that nature. And then, in 2019, they added a record function to Spirio.
Now get ready for the true or false statements!
A lot of these may be difficult, particularly this first one. And this is a very provocative statement:
1. Steinway makes a Mickey Mouse piano.
That sounds like blasphemy, doesn’t it? And some of you may wonder what I’m talking about here. Is it possibly true that Steinway makes a Mickey Mouse piano? This is TRUE This is a specially designed Steinway, and it is hand painted.
If you’ve got $375,000, you can get one of these ultra-limited edition Steinways for yourself. This isn’t the only limited edition Steinway they have, but it’s one of the more amusing ones. They have all sorts of different designer pianos that have extraordinarily high price tags. When you consider that even an entry-level Steinway baby grand is over $80,000, you can see how these limited runs would be expensive.
2. Steinway has stopped producing their accelerated action.
This has been something many people look for in Steinways. Is it possible they stopped producing their accelerated action? This is TRUE! Why would they stop making the accelerated action, which so many people like? Well, a lot of it comes down to the fact that Steinway has made every effort to make the pianos that are made in Hamburg similar to the pianos that are made in New York. For example, for many decades, they had the 5′ 10 1/2″ grand piano Model L made in New York and the exact same size Model O made in Hamburg. Well, they discontinued the L, so the O is now made in both factories. Also, a few years ago, they reintroduced the Model A in New York. For decades, the A was only made in Hamburg. So they have made improvements in their action and felt the accelerated action is no longer necessary. Pianists and technicians, I’d love to hear from all of you in the comments. How do you feel about the discontinuation of the accelerated action?
3. Steinway stopped making the 1098 studio piano.
This is TRUE. You can no longer buy a Steinway studio piano. They do not make any studio pianos.
4. Steinway is discontinuing all uprights made in New York.
This is TRUE. The K-52, the full-size upright, will no longer be made in New York. The only upright piano available from Steinway will be the K-132, manufactured in Hamburg, Germany.
5. Steinway has stopped making the Model S baby grand.
At 5′ 1″, the Model S is almost as expensive as the 5′ 7″ Model M, which is one of their most popular models. People have been saying that Steinway is no longer making the Model S. Is this true? This one is FALSE. The S is still in production, just as before. My personal piano is a Model S that my grandfather got for my father in the 1930s. We rebuilt it a number of years ago, and it’s still going strong! It’s a wonderful little baby grand.
6. Steinway moved their rebuilding off-site to Iowa.
Is this possible? They’ve always done their rebuilding in their New York factory. Did they really move their rebuilding to Iowa? This is TRUE. They are doing all of their rebuilds in Iowa. They ship their pin blocks and sound boards. In fact, that’s the only place where sound boards and pin blocks made by Steinway are available other than on new Steinway pianos made in New York and Hamburg.
7. Steinway refinishes their pianos in New Jersey.
This is actually partially true, but I have to say this is FALSE. There is a facility in New Jersey where they ship very few pianos for refinishing if they have extremely intricate woodwork. Think about the nightmare of logistics involved if they had all their pianos refinished in New Jersey! At first, I thought maybe this was true because I had heard this rumor. I thought maybe environmental laws in New York prohibited the new polyester high-gloss finishes that Steinway is offering. But no, this is false. Only a select few pianos are actually refinished in New Jersey.
8. Steinway is going public.
This is actually FALSE. There were murmurs about this, but they withdrew their SEC filing recently. They may still go public in the future. It could happen. But as of right now, there are no immediate plans for going public. I know a lot of people would like to invest in Steinway. It’s one of the strongest brand names out there.
9. Half of Steinways made in New York have Spirio systems.
This is actually TRUE. Half of the New York pianos have Spirio systems in them, and they’re selling them like hotcakes! It’s actually helped them tremendously to increase their sales.
10. Spirio is available on all Steinway models.
When you hear that half of their pianos have these systems, this sounds very plausible. But this is FALSE. The spirio is only available on the Model M, Model B, and the Model D concert grands. And yet half the total number of pianos they sell have Spirio systems. So a lot of B’s, M’s, and D’s have Spirio systems in them.
11. Spirio adds $20,000 to the cost of a piano.
This is FALSE. It actually adds $29,000 to the cost of new Steinways! Can you imagine? So if you want it, the only way you can get it is on a new Steinway.
12. For $29,000, you get a piano that records and plays back.
This is FALSE. If you want to be able to record as well as playback, it adds $48,000 to the price of a Steinway! So the least expensive recording Spirio Steinway, the 5′ 7″ Model M, will set you back $124,800 now in 2024.
13. Spirio-Cast plays live on other Spirio pianos.
This is TRUE! Somebody can play a Spirio in one place, and other Spirios can play that performance at the same time. You can have Lang Lang or Yuja Wang play your piano! That’s what Spirio is all about. That’s why people pay the big bucks to get it. Since there are so many Steinway artists out there, being able to have a library of Steinway artists is a big selling point for the Spirio system.
14. Steinway owns Renner.
Renner is the company that makes the action that’s available on Bösendorfer, Fazioli, Petrof, and so many other pianos. This is actually TRUE. Steinway bought Renner a few years ago. They’ve been using Renner actions on their Hamburg Steinways for years.
15. Hamburg and New York Steinways have the same hammers.
This is actually FALSE. There are unique hammers that are only available on New York Steinways, giving them a different sound from the Hamburg Steinways.
16. Steinway no longer makes their keyframes the way they traditionally have made them.
This is TRUE. They’re using what they say is a sturdier construction. Some technicians might find it a little harder to work on because it’s a heavier build, but they say that these are going to be more robust. So indeed, the keyframes are not made the same way they have always made them.
17. Steinway has sped up its manufacturing to meet demand.
According to Steinway, this is FALSE. They have added more workers to try to keep up with demand, but it still takes just as long to produce their pianos. It can take up to a year to produce a Steinway piano! There’s a lot involved in building pianos.
18. It is illegal to buy a Steinway decal.
This is actually TRUE. Steinway has made it illegal to buy their decals. So if you have a Steinway piano that you’ve had rebuilt and refinished, you might not be able to get a decal if your piano has been refinished unless you use all Steinway parts. But the catch is, you can’t buy Steinway pin blocks or soundboards. So if you rebuild your Steinway, you can’t buy the decals like you can for virtually every other piano brand in the world. Why does Steinway do this? Well, Steinway says it’s because they want to assure that anything that says Steinway on the front has the high quality associated with their name, so it doesn’t tarnish their reputation. Some people say it’s because used Steinways are actually the biggest competition Steinway has, because if somebody wants a Steinway, they’re probably not going to buy a Yamaha, Kawai, or any other piano. They want a Steinway. So they’re probably going to seek out a used Steinway if they can’t afford a new one. Who knows what the truth is. It could be elements of both.
19. 90% of concert artists play Steinway pianos.
This is actually FALSE. Over 97% of concert artists play Steinways! Why is this? Is Steinway that much better than every other piano brand? There are so many great piano companies. But the fact of the matter is, one by one, all the piano companies supporting the concert market have dropped out. The last holdout up until near the end of the 20th century was Baldwin. Baldwin had a good share of the concert market. But think of the daunting task of having concert grands ready in virtually every major city in the world. Even Yamaha tried to do that in the late 90s but couldn’t swing it. It was just too much of a burden to have these pianos prepped and ready for the concert stage in every major city. So any touring concert pianist really has no choice. They have to go with Steinway if they want to have pianos to play on in concerts all around the world.
20. The most expensive Steinway costs a million dollars.
A Steinway concert grand costs over $200,000. Are there any models that cost $1 million? Well, this is a misleading question because the answer is FALSE. The most expensive Steinway costs $2.5 million! What piano could possibly command $2.5 million? Well, this is the rare hand-painted Pictures at an Exhibition piano, named after the famous piece by Mussorgsky.
All of the movements of this magnificent work are painted on this one-of-a-kind piano that is just unbelievably intricate in its painting.
How well did you do with these 20 true or false questions?
Let us know in the comments here at LivingPianos.com how well you did with these 20 true or false questions! How many did you get right? How many of them surprised you? Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
For premium videos and exclusive content, you can join my Living Pianos Patreon channel! www.Patreon.com/RobertEstrin
Contact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s topic is about the power of the perfect authentic cadence. Have you ever heard of this before? Well, I’m going to show you way more than that today! And what you’re going to learn here today is going to help you with your sight-reading, memorization of music, and improvisation. It’s that basic and important. It’s unbelievable. I’m surprised I have not done this video before because it’s so important.
What is a perfect authentic cadence?
In its simplest form, authentic cadence is basically just a five to one with some passing tones.
But what I want to show you today is even more valuable. It’s essentially how to establish a key with primary chords. What are your primary chords? Primary chords are your major chords. If you go up your scale and play chords on all 7 of the scale degrees, you have major chords on one, four, and five. The other chords are secondary chords. Your two chord, three chord, and six chord are minor chords. And your seventh chord is the one diminished chord, the outlier. So you have the one, four, five which are primary chords
Seventh chords are as follows. I7 and IV7 are major seventh chords. II7, III7 and VI7 are minor seventh chords. The VII7 is a half-diminished seventh chord. Why half-diminished? Because it is a diminished triad with a minor seventh.
And the V7 is the strongest chord of all – a major triad with a minor 7th which creates the dominant 7th chord. This chord is so powerful because it can establish the key with just this one chord. So here’s a great voicing for your basic four-part perfect voicing, resolutions, note leadings, and distance between all the notes. It follows all the classic rules of harmony.
Why do we have these rules?
We have these rules because they sound good! That’s why Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Schumann, Schubert, and all the great composers wrote utilizing this basic structure in their music. Musicians analyzed all their great music and realized the truths behind it—the gems of truth that date back to Bach chorales. This basic chord progression is I, IV, I6/4, V7 I. You have nice voice leading and good spacing between the bass and the tenor, because it sounds better that way. Notice with the V7, it has the root, the seventh, and the third, but there’s no fifth. (It’s missing D.) Why would that be? It achieves better resolution. Doubling the root and leaving out the fifth can help to avoid the four going up to five because it resolves better going down to three (F resolving downward to E).
Why is this chord progression so basic and intrinsic to music?
Knowing all your primary chords and how to establish a key is enlightening in your music because it intrinsically makes you understand the harmonic underpinnings of all the music you play, read, or improvise. You can do this same chord progression in all major and minor keys. Once you get comfortable with all your keys, you can start expanding your repertoire of chords. A substitution for a four chord is a two chord in the first inversion, a II6.
Or you can spice it up even further with what’s called a Neapolitan sixth. What’s that? A Neapolitan sixth is like the II6, except it’s a major triad built on the flatted second degree of the scale. It’s almost like your II6 chord, but with two flatted notes. So you get a different flavor.
You can get to the point where you can modulate using a V7 of another key.
For example, if you used a D7, D is the five seven of G.
And instantly, you can modulate to G major! Start in C major, go to the D7, the dominant seventh, (the major triad with a minor seventh), and there you are in G major! And if you want to go to F major, the C7 (dominant 7th chord) brings you to F major.
The dominant seventh, the V7, is the secret to modulation.
Any time the key changes, the dominant seventh chord is pivotal. The V7 chord is almost always responsible for changing keys in music. Sometimes a diminished seventh can accomplish it too, but there’s nothing stronger than a dominant seventh chord for bringing you to a new key in music.
What is a dominant seventh chord?
A dominant seventh chord is a seventh chord built on the fifth scale degree. Build a chord on the fifth scale degree, (which in C major would be G B D F) and you get a major triad and a minor seventh. It’s the only place that exists in a scale. You can build seventh chords starting on any other note of the scale, and only the V7 has this arrangement.
I7 is major, II7 is minor, II7 is minor, IV7 is major, and V7 is the major triad with a minor seventh, it is the powerful dominant seventh chord. VI7 is minor, and VII7 is half diminished. Why half? Because it has a diminished triad and a minor seventh.
So the power of the dominant seventh can’t be stressed enough. For example, when you’re playing a sonata movement, they almost always modulate to the dominant (the key five scale degrees above the key of the piece). How does it modulate to the dominant in the exposition? Typically, it uses a dominant seventh chord! There’s modulation in so much of your music and the pivotal chord that gets you there is the V7, the dominant seventh chord, a major triad with a minor seventh
What is modulation?
Modulation is changing keys. For example if you start with a piece that has no sharps or flats in the key signature, then suddenly you have F sharps all over the place; you’re probably in G major! That’s an example of modulation. What gets you there? The D dominant seventh chord, which is the dominant of G (the fifth note of the G major scale).
So try to play this chord progression in all keys! I promise that you’ll have tremendous benefits in your playing. You’ll understand your music on a deeper level. You’ll be able to learn music more quickly, read music more effectively, and improvise music with more fluidity. Try it out for yourself! Let me know how it works for you in the comments here at LivingPianos.com and on YouTube! Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
