Piano tip – Using the minor iv chord

In a recent post on “Silent Night”, I used a minor iv chord.  I have gotten some questions on it, so I want to discuss it a bit more.  This chord will give you a beautiful sound and is worth learning.

My guess is many of you have used the minor IV chord before, normally as a triad, and often at the end of a song.  It is quite common to hear a song end with a I – iv – I cadence.  It adds a bit of interest and is effective if it is not overused.

With time, you can learn to utilize this chord in other places in your music.  Here are some rules to help you.

1) Do not just play a minor triad.  Add notes to it.  The most common note that is added is the 6th.  In the “Silent Night” example, I use it where the melody note is the major 7th of the chord.  It sounds good with other notes as well.

However, do not use this chord with the minor 7th added.  That just does not work. 

Most of the time, you will see the chord written as iv6.  Get in the habit of almost always adding the 6th to the chord even if you are going to add other notes as well.

2) A minor iv6 wants to resolve to I.  Since I and iii are functionally equivalent, it also resolves nicely to iii.  I like to resolve to iii as much as I can because it just seems smoother somehow.

If you see a I chord, you can often insert a iv6 in front of it.  So you are in effect turning a I chord into two chords: iv6 – I.  Or, if you are hanging out on a I chord for a few beats, you can turn the I into I – iv6 – I.

Remember how I said that a I chord and a iii chord are equivalent?  This means that if you have a few beats of a I chord, you could play iii – iv6 – I or I – iv6 – iii

That is just the beginning of the things you can do.  Notice in the example from “Silent Night,” I changed 4 bars of a I chord to I – iv – iii – ii – V7 – I.  There are all kinds of combinations that will work there.  You simply have to come up with progressions that work with the melody notes.