Right Hand Techniques in Chord Progressions

I'll now take that to bits and tell you what's happening in the right hand.

Triads and Chord Changes

We've gone back to using a triad on the first chord rather than the sixth chord. You probably recognize that as a second inversion triad with the fifth on the bottom.

C Major to C Minor

Now, here's a little trick:

• If you're going to start with a C major triad, when you get to the F chord in bar five, you can change that to a C minor triad.
• That's the only change you need to make.

This is a pretty cool way of playing the F chord without moving anything except the E becomes E flat.

D Minor and G7

Then, over the D minor, G7, I've stayed basically on this shape, which is a D minor triad in second inversion as well.

Chords Insight

What's happening with those chords is, although you don't have to know this:

• When you play the C minor triad in the F bars, the G in that chord is really the ninth. So, you're really implying an F9 chord.
• When you play the D minor triad with the G in the bass, that's the same shape with the ninth included.
• For the G chord, the ninth is the A at the bottom of the D minor triad.

So, we're using three shapes. That's all you need to do.

Riff and Classic Blues Ending

When I played the riff, I'm putting the sixth in again, second inversion, C6.

• Again, all you need to do for the F chord is flatten the E, making it E flat back to C.
• For the D shape, I actually stayed on C.

Ending

Here's a classic blues ending:

• The last chord is also a ninth chord, C9.
• You could think of that as a third inversion chord. Instead of which is an ordinary C7 with the B flat on the bottom, I've moved the root up to the 9th , the C becomes a D.

So, that's now a rootless C9 chord.

Left Hand Accompaniment

The left hand plays root in fifth.

Now you're all set to play an accompaniment, like a shuffle accompaniment, but also to play some more melodic stuff in the right hand.