The most beautiful piano chord, the heavenly chord - Piano With Jonny (2023)

What do you think is the most beautiful piano chord of all time? Some pianists would argue that the most beautiful piano chord is a crazy jazz chord with lots of weird notes in it. But for me the most beautiful piano chord is one that can be used for the simplest of chord progressions. In fact, this chord can be used in place of a regular C major chord. So my absolute favorite piano chord is extremeusefulbecause you can always play a simple major chord. In today's piano lesson you will learn:

• The Heavenly Chord (The Most Beautiful Chord Ever)
• A trick to quickly memorize the chord
• The Heaven Chord Construction
• Using Heaven Chord for multiple chords
• Heaven chord in piano progressions
• Accompaniment with the Heaven Chord
• Using the celestial chord as an intro

Whether you are just starting out as a pianist or have previous experience playing the piano, you will find the techniques in this lesson very useful. Are you ready to transform your piano accompaniment skills? Let's dive in!

The heavenly chord, the most beautiful piano chord

When it comes to the most beautiful piano chord, there is no more appropriate name than the word "Heaven". To me, the word "heaven" encapsulates a beauty that I often try to create when I play the piano. So I gave this chord the name Heaven because I think it's the most beautiful piano chord.

What is the heavenly chord

The Heaven Chord is a chord that you can use as aErsatzfor a major chord. For example, instead of playing a C major with the notes C, E, and G, you can use the celestial chord.

Doesn't that piano chord sound beautiful?!? Later in this lesson, I'll explain exactly what you're playing. Before we do that, however, I want to explain a quick trick to memorize this chord.

Heaven Chord Fast Trick

How Can You Memorize the Notes of a C Heaven Chord? Well, you can think of this chord as a 2nd inversion G major triad in your right hand played over a 1st inversion C major in your left hand. In other words, your left hand plays E G C, which is a first inversion triad, and your right hand plays D G B, which is a second inversion G major triad. Now when I play this chord, I like to take the G out of my left hand so that that note isn't doubled in the right hand.

If you don't know your major chords like G major, you will find it difficult to play these chords in other keys. In this case, I recommend learning all 12 major and minor chords in ourLevel 1 Foundations-Lernpfad.

Next you will learn how the Heaven Chord is constructed.

Beautiful heaven chord construction

The celestial chord is constructed by playing a C major triad and stacking 2 more third intervals. For example, if you play a C major triad, you have the notes C, E, and G. If you stack a 3rd, you have a Bb, and if you stack another 3rd, you have a D. Hence, if you Combining all 5 of these notes you have what is called a C major 9th chord:

What we did above is "colorize" our C major chord with 2 extra notes. First we added the B flat to the chord, which is called the 7th of the chord. Next, we added a D to the chord, which we call the 9th of the chord, or a "chord extension." If you don't know your seventh chords, you can learn them in our. If you don't know your chord extensions, you can learn them in ourPiano Chord Extension Course.

A C major 9 is the "technical" name for what I call the celestial chord. However, for the chord to sound “heavenly”, 2 essential criteria must be met:

2 essential criteria for Heaven Chords

1. You want to play some of the notes close together to create themCluster. For example, notice that the C Heaven chord you learned at the beginning of this lesson has a C and a D very close together. This is a "cluster" that gives the chord a warm, rich sound.
2. You want to reverse the chord so that the 3rd of the chord is on the bottom. For example, notice that the E instead of the C is the bottom note of the chord. As a result, this gives the chord a wistful, unresolved sound that is essential to heaven chords.

Next, we'll practice a heaven chord on an F major chord.

Celestial chord on an F

If you want to play an F Heaven chord, it's as simple as following the Heaven Chord Quick trick I mentioned earlier. First, play a 1st inversion F major chord in your left hand with notes A, F, and C. Second, play a 2nd inversion C major chord in your right hand with notes G, C, and E.

Remember you canleave outthe C from the left hand so you don't double that note in the right hand. Doesn't it sound amazing? I encourage you to practice Heaven Chords in other keys. If you don't know how, you can change the key of this lesson with a click of a button with ourSmart notes.

Now that you've learned your heaven chords in C and F, next you'll learn how to use these chords in a chord progression.

Using celestial chords in a chord progression

How do you use Heaven Chords in a chord progression? The simple answer is to use these chords whenever you would see a major chord. For example, if you had a progression that went from C major to F major, you could play it normally:

Or you could play it with beautiful Heaven Chords that would sound like this:

To me the Heaven Chords sound much more interesting than the usual major chords. Next, let's look at 3 examples of how to use Heaven Chords with a melody.

Celestial chords example 1

It's nice to put some notes in between your chords so you have a melody in addition to the harmony. Here's an example of a melody you can use between chords:

The music above can be used as an accompaniment with a singer or as an intro to a song in C. Next, let's look at another way you can use Heaven Chords in a progression.

Celestial chords example 2

In example 2 we use Heaven Chords in a descending motion. Listen:

This particular example works very well as an intro for a song in the key of C. Try making your own intro using this descending idea.

Now you might be thinking, “Jonny, that sounds great. But can I use these Heaven Chords for other chords besides C and F?”. The answer is yes, and in the next section I'll show you how.

Celestial chords example 3

In our final example, we will examine Heaven Chords on chords other than C and F. It's very nice to play melodies on a C major scale and harmonize the top note with Heaven Chords. How you do that? Well, you take the note you're landing on and determine the celestial chord using the quick trick formula I described earlier. However, this time we need to think backwards, starting with the top note and working our way down. For example, here's a tune that uses Heaven Chords while working the notes down mostly from the C scale:

Doesn't that sound great? As the example above shows, you can use Heaven Chords to harmonize any melody note into a major 9th chord.

final steps

Now that you can play Heaven Chords, what's next? I recommend practicing these chords over other contemporary chord progressions. For example, you can apply these chords to the progressions in ourContemporary progression and improvisation courses(Beginner Advanced,advanced beginner).

You can use these chords about love progression which you can learn in ourlove progression course.

You can also use these progressions via the One Chord Wonder progressions that you can learn in theOne Chord Wonder Course.

Finally, to see how I use these chords in an arrangement, watch my rendition ofAnd so it goes from Billy Joel.

That's it for this week's piano lesson. See you in the next quick tip!

Your teacher,

Jonny May

share this