Understanding Chords: Thinking in Scale Degrees

If you're not thinking in terms of scale degrees when analyzing harmony and harmonic progressions, stop and watch this video right now! I'm going to show you how to unify your understanding of harmony and uncover similarities between different progressions in different songs. The idea is very simple: stop asking yourself "what chord is this?" and start asking yourself "what degree is this?"

[atalkurup]

Dear Good Sir,
I have always wanted to learn the piano but been too intimidated by the instrument and by my teacher. You have brought in me such confidence -I follow your channel - practice everyday without fail. if only you knew how thankful I am. Please continue making these videos.
Thank you for everything

[thomasunuane]

Your grasp on the piano keyboard never ceased to amaze me. You have really kept me "going" on my piano lesson.
Thanks alot.

[samuelclark]

I've been watching and listening to many hours of tutorials on theory and practice. This 11 minutes has increased my understanding by two or three octaves. Thank you, so very much.

[scottmckenna]

You are one of my favorite people to learn from because you are so knowledgeable about music and humble about your approach. The vocal accent is a bonus! :-)

[ArtbyAtlas]

I loved that Fmaj on the A sequence. I dig those kind of "tension" chords.

[lindamcdermott]

Mangold I learned piano by site reading everything, but a couple years ago, a teacher showed me the scale degrees and they are liberating! This is why a pianist can go on stage (at least w pop tune) and an index card that says the key the song is in and then all Roman numerals! It's cool! Also effective tool for composition.

[RishPhotography]

Really need to understand how to recognise the "key" of the chord progression. An A for example, can occur in many scales and not always as the root node. Please do a video on that!
Love your content!

[zanzibar]

MangoldProject

Thank you for this informative lesson on understanding harmony I found myself caught up in the trap of asking myself "what chord is this?"

[richardb]

Thank you as ever. Your videos have helped me understand so much better how music works and how the building blocks fit together.

[nikhilkash]

This is quality stuff. I had the same concept in my mind and I have been practising this way for a while now. I was so surprised after watching this video.

[freshlybakeddnb]

This is exactly wat I needed to hear. Learning without proper guidance is hard lol

[karenbruce]

Thank you 😊 I love this video! Makes so much sense...helps to see the bigger picture when playing songs that helps so much. Great video!!

[timsmith]

It is worth listening to the video just to hear you play!

[acheron]

Love your video lessons. My english is not good, but i can understand your contents 90%. Besides your musical knowledge you have a nice and easy accent. Thank you so much!

[MadRezStudios]

Love this info man. Thanks for getting me to look at music through degree relationships as apposed to scales/chord relationships. You are a piano genius, I love how fluently you understand the keyboard. Great inspiration 🤙🏽

[wayneyeargain]

Thank you for this lesson. Beautiful music and wellexplained theory.

[allanjeong]

Thank you for this useful video on the importance of learning chord progressions in terms of scale degrees or note intervals between the root notes! Have you written any videos to show common scale degrees between root notes and melodic notes played on the main down beats? This would really help me learn how to identify what chords to play with any chosen song in the process learning how to play piano by ear.

[frostburnspirit]

Finally I found what this is called this is the music theory I need to learn

[ariskej]

Love this movement make the melody, tnks a lot

[anhthiensaigon]

holy cow it takes youtube 2 freaking years to finally recommend me this!!