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How To Accompany On Piano?

I have to memorize a guitar piece to accompany a piano, can I just play Maj/Minor chords instead of 7th etc?

  • I have to memorize a guitar piece within a few days, it is fairly complicated, the piano will most likely play the piece verbatim but I'm given some more creative freedom. The chord charts say to Play all sorts of chords I don't have time to memorize like Gsus2/F and Cmaj9. Can I get away with just playing chords like this in their 1-3-5 form (Maj/Minor)? Will it still sound tonally correct?

  • Answer:

    Playing dominant seventh chords are just as easy to play as majors and minors. The sustained chords you mentioned may not be necessary unless they are key to the melody transition, in which case you should learn them. Learning and playing Gsus2/F and Cmaj9 will be to your advantage because of their unique voice. If you aren't serious about accompanying an instrument then don't bother with them. You can ask the pianist to emphasize those chords for you. But what does that tell the pianist?

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The short answer is, yes you can with some exceptions for the sus chords. With sus chords you will need to play that chord exactly, with the others like Cmaj9 you can just play a C major chord. The reason for that is a sus (suspended) chord omits the "3" of a 1-3-5 (G-B-D) chord and substitutes the "2", so it would be 1-2-5 (G-A-D). If you play a regular G chord the "B" will clash with the "A". You can leave out the bass notes in a Gsus2/F (F is the bass note), in fact it's common to do that because the piano would likely be playing it, and you don't want the sound to get muddy. A Cmaj 9 chord would be C-E-G-B-D, you can play a Cmaj (C-E-G) and it would fit, same with the C7 or Cmaj7 or C11 or whatever.

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