From the live class
Expanded chords: putting more singers in the choir
A chord is just more than one note played together. Stephen’s way of hearing that turns a piece of theory into something you can feel.
Stephen looks at every note on the piano as a singer in a choir. Play one, then another, and the two of them sing together — that togetherness is the whole of harmony, and you already have it with two fingers.
So what happens if you put more people in the choir?
That is all an expanded chord is. A chord is more than one note at the same time; two notes already qualify. Expanding it simply means making it bigger — three notes, four, five, six, seven. You do not need the name to use it.
Every note as a singer in a choir — and what happens when you add more of them.
It sounds harder than it is
The name is the intimidating part. The doing is not: Stephen puts it at roughly two weeks of ten minutes a day, when it is the only thing you are focusing on. The constraint is attention, not talent — one idea at a time, practised briefly, rather than everything at once.
Listen to the plain version and the expanded version back to back and you will not need anyone to explain the difference. That reaction is the point.
Want this taught to you directly?
Book a free 30-minute consultation. We will talk through where you are now and what would move you fastest.