Hi Folks,

Here is something I found most singers on e-Snips seem less familiar with and don’t know what I mean
when I give some description about the Root Chord of a particular song and Transposing a Karaoke
track. Most of us here are not professional singers but are actually enthusiasts about singing songs we
like or share some sort of memories with them. I remember most Karaoke tracks from the past (10-20
years back) were all created in the Root Chord at least one or two steps higher than the original song
which made it even more difficult for singers like us to give it a try. I believe this was done in order to
avoid copy right laws governing back then. The same is still true but one thing I notice is that now
Karaoke tracks are made one or two steps lower than the original song. This makes easier for the singers
to sing the same song as compared to the past Karaoke tracks. Some tracks are made exactly in the
same scale and Root Chord. I am not sure if this can be done without copy right infringements or if they
have necessary permission to do that. But whatever the case the most important thing still remains the
same. What is the Root Chord or the scale of the song? Without even knowing the scale or the chord
we sing it naturally along the track and try to keep our vocals in conjunction with the music played in the
track. Listeners who have heard the song several times can feel the difference if vocals do not match the
track or gets out of sync with the Taal etc. This article is not about how you sing, record, mix or master
the song, it is about what scale a song is played in and I believe as a singer one must try to find out the
hidden information contained inside the song. This is so vital because this is the center point of the song
and everything revolves around it. This is the main reason that you can quickly find out if vocals get stray
from the track and you write a comment on singers profile that “Try to be in Sur”. What makes you write
this is something that you unknowingly know about and that is called the basics of a song, meaning the
Scale of the song. If you ask a singer himself about his rendition, he can tell you where he was out of
Sur. This is something which a singer acquires over time and tries to keep practicing. To tell you
honestly, this comes naturally. Practice can only make you closer to perfect.

Let us come to our main topic and that is “What is the Root Chord and what is meant by Scale?” Most of
us have seen the Black and White keys of a Harmonium and Keyboards. Here is one picture that shows
just that.

This is a Diatonic Scale and is defined by the sequence of Whole Steps and Half steps intervals. Without
going into the technicalities of Notes and Tones and how they are scientifically originated is a different
topic. Music as we hear it is the Art part whereas its composition is actually a science in itself where
notes and tones are defined by their frequencies. The present day terminology is the American standard
assigned in terms of frequencies to each note. Frequency is the number of times a wave oscillates per
second and is described as Cycles per second or simply Hertz. Each note has its own frequency and I will
explain a little bit about frequencies related to notes as and when required.
If you notice the keyboard pattern you will observe that it starts with the White key called C and
progresses thereafter to D, E,F and so forth. In-between you will also find some Black keys with either #
or a “b” suffix. The # is termed as Sharp whereas “b” is termed as a Flat. Don’t worry it’s not that
complicated. People who like to learn to play keyboards are required to learn and remember these
notes by heart and believe me the more they practice the more they become familiar with the notes. As
a singer you don’t need to learn them but you must know what they mean when it comes to the Scale
and the Root Chord of the song. If you look at only White keys, they start with C and go all the way until
B where it ends and the next C starts. Count them and you will find they are 7 in number. C, D, E, F, G, A,
B. What a surprise, they are seven like the 7 Surs and that is exactly what it is. They are our Saath Surs.

Also notice that there are 5 Black keys. Each key can be described as a Sharp key or a Flat key. I will
explain what is meant when we say sharp or a Flat. The first Black key is called C# or Db (C Sharp or D
Flat. It’s the same thing), then we have the Black key of D# or Eb (D Sharp or E Flat. Again the same key
has two names). Then you will see 3 more black keys, they are also denoted with a # or b sign but it
means the same thing.

As we progress from Left to Right the sharpness of tones increases, meaning the frequency increases
and therefore we can refer to the black keys as the sharp keys. But if we progress from Right to Left the
sharpness of the tone reduces, meaning the frequency reduces and therefore we can refer to them as
Flat keys. So now if you go Right from the first White Key of C, you have the black key and it is sharper
than the key of C. We call it a C# (C-Sharp). Similarly if you go right from the white key of F, the next key
is Black and is sharper than F. We call it F #. But if you travel from Right to Left then the same Black key
is referred to as Gb (G Flat), because now the same black key is less sharper than the white key of G and
therefore we call it Gb (G Flat).

It is not necessary to remember both names for the same Black key and you can choose whatever you
want to call it. It is the same as when a person is called with a nickname at home and his real name at
office. He is still the same person. I have found that black keys are generally called C#, Eb, F#, Ab and Bb
and I have placed a square box on these names in the keyboard pattern.

If you add all the 7 white keys and the 5 black keys, they total 12. It is called an Octave. An Indian
Harmonium has 3 Octaves plus some more keys, and is called 3-1/2 Octaves or 3-1/4 Octaves depending
upon number of extra keys. Electronic keyboards and Synthesizers have in general 5 Octaves to cater for
a wider frequency range of instruments. Pianos and Grand Pianos have 7 Octaves making them a large
instrument. The standard frequency of the note A in the 4th Octave (key A4) is 440 Hertz. Keys to the left
of it have reduced frequencies and keys to the right of it have higher frequencies. It is also point worthy
to explain what frequencies are audible to human ear and what are not. Based on an statistical data a
human ear can respond to a range of frequencies. The lowest being 20Hz and highest being 22KHz. This
is a wide range and not all ears can hear the lowest and the highest frequency in this range. But it is
assumed safely that 50Hz to 20 KHz is mostly audible to normal ears. Harmonium is the most essential
part of the North-Indian music and that is why almost all songs are first composed on it and most singers
use it to play along while singing so as to stay in a particular scale and enhance the overall impact of the
rendition. It was described above that the key A4 produces a sound of a 440Hz wave but in reality it is
not true. It generates all kinds of frequencies like the higher and lower harmonic frequencies but the
most powerful frequency is the 440Hz. It is the harmonic frequency which makes it even more
pleasurable sound. Not all harmonics are pleasurable. Some are and some are not. The manufacturers of
the Reeds for Harmonium make it a point so as to make the sound more pleasurable by designing the
REEDS that way. Some Harmonium sound sweeter than the others. The same is true for a human throat.
Throats that generate good harmonics along with the basic tone sound sweeter than others. People
blessed with good harmonics along with necessary vocal training become good singers.

Now let’s see what is a CHORD? Individual keys when played alone constitute a note sound based on its
frequency. If more than one key are played at the same time, it is referred to as a Chord. To play the
most common Chord of C you need to Press C + E + G at the same time. The sound you will hear is called
a C-Chord. To play an F-Chord you need to press the keys F + A + C all at the same time. The sound you
will hear is termed as an F-Chord. Similarly to play a G-Chord you will have to press G + B + D all at the
same time. It’s about time you ask me “How the hell you remember all this?” Not difficult at all. Just
notice what is happening secretly.

- C-Chord has the base key of C plus two more keys, E and G. The key E is 4th key after C and key G
is 7th key after the key C (or 3rd after E).
- F-Chord has the base key of F plus two more keys, A and C. Notice again the key A is 4th key after
F and key C is the 7th key after F (or 3rd after A).
- G-Chord has the base key of G plus two more keys, B and D. Again the same secret, the key B is
4th key after G and the key D is 7th key after G (or 3rd after B).

What we notice here is that to build a chord we need three keys to be played at the same time. Let’s call
the first key as K, then press the 4th key from it and then press the 7th key after it. (Or 3rd key after the
second key). In general you can write an expression for a Chord K as following:

Chord K = K + 4 +3; (where K is the first key for which you want to create a chord. 4 is the 4th key
after the first key K and 3 is the 3rd key after key 4).

Chord created like this is called a Major chord and usually the word major is not used. It is automatically
assumed that it is a major chord.

To create a major chord for a black key is also done in the same way. To create the chord C# you will
have to press C# + E (the 4th key after C#) + Ab (the 3rd key after E). To create a Eb (E-Flat) chord, you
have to press Eb +G + Bb.

This is the most common way to create a major chord. There is another way to create chords also called
the Inversion chords. If you press the 3rd key from the lower adjacent octave instead of the one you
press from the progression, it is called the first inversion. If you use the second key from the lower
adjacent octave instead of the one from the progression, it is termed as 2nd Inversion. The effect of
sound remains the same whether it is the Root chord or the 1st or 2nd Inversion. Only the tone varies.
This is a very useful feature and many singers use it to harmonize the chord with their vocals.
We have heard the term Minor chords along with the Major chords. Now we shall try to create a minor
chord. Most composers use minor chords to create a sense of sadness in a song. This is not always true.
There are composers who have made some remarkably happy songs with minor chords and sad songs
using major chords. If you remember the trick K + 4 +3 for a major chord, all you have to do is to swap 4
with 3. Hence, K minor = K + 3 + 4, that’s it and you have a minor chord. There are other chords like
augmented, sustained and several more but they are usually used in conjunction with the Root Chord
(Major or Minor) to accompany a regular chord progression in a song.

My observation with the Hindi/Urdu songs is that the song is played at the root chord and as the song
progresses two more chords are played and they are the 5th and 7th chord from the first chord. For
example if a song has a root chord of C#, then the other two chords that might be used in conjunction
are F# and Ab. Notice that chord F# is the 5th chord from C# and chord Ab is the 7th chord from C#.

For a chord-C, the scale for playing is the octave that consists of keys C, D, E, F, G, A and C from the next
octave. Same as Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni and Sa from the next octave. If the root chord changes, the
scale will also change. You still have the same Sa, Re Ga, Ma, Pa but they are all a note higher or lower
depending on the new chord.

This change of scale is termed as Transposition. As mentioned earlier most Karaoke tracks are created in
the original chord and make it difficult for singers to achieve what the professional singer did in his
rendition. Not all voices are same, some can go higher, and some cannot. Some can go very low and
others cannot. The problem arises when you like a song and sing very well in the shower but when you
try to sing along with the track you find it hard. So what is the solution? Either you have to be a musician
and create your own track in the scale you are comfortable with or transpose the entire track to a scale
lower. For your information there are suitable solutions to this problem. If you can record your audio
and post it on e-Snips then I am sure you can handle the transposition of the track to a certain degree. I
use Sonar 8 to transpose the track with minimum artifacts introduced. There are other software that can
just do that but you need to practice different software’s and see which suits you most and whose
outcome has the minimum distortion. Transposition via software’s is a complicated procedure in terms
of algorithms deployed inside the software but for the end user it is not a very difficult task.

I believe this was the most simplified explanation of what chords are and how they are created. The rest
is up to you, the enthusiast. You must learn from the vast information that is available on the web. Let
me assure you that the more you learn the more you enjoy at what you are doing and become more
confident. Wouldn’t you feel pity on someone who can speak a language but cannot read or write it?

Music is not just an art. It’s a science too. Blend them well and you will have a better presentation. I
recall some words from a popular song…

Shokhiyon mein ghola jaye thoda sa shabab

Uss mein phir millaee jaye thodi si sharaab
Hoga yun nashaa jo tayyar
Who pyar hai…
Muzaffar Naqvi, Montreal (August 17th, 2009)