I just finished working on this commercial where i wrote and recorded and performed all the music for a salon in seattle called habitude. Composing and recording is a lot of fun!
Technology is getting so good that one person (a piano player) can record all the instruments and have it come out sounding like a live band played together!
I’ve been experimenting lately with doing live interactive piano lessons on ustream.tv. You’ll frequently find me streaming a live show on this page: www.ustream.tv/channel/fast-piano-lessons-com—songs-questions
Its taken a while to work out most of the technical bugs and things like distortion or video not syncing to audio… but after much trial and error, things are starting to get interesting! You can use ustream.tv’s chat window to ask me questions or use twitter and just type @chrismarx85 before your tweet so that I’ll see your questions right away and then through the video I can respond by playing some of that good piano music.
Most of the lessons will either be in the late evening or 1pm pst.
This is a wonderful work of animation and poetry! I love all the internal rhyme and wordplay. Plus its about cats and pianos!!! What better subject matter? Its about 7minutes long.
Enjoy!!! But don’t get any ideas about making a cat piano at home…
I’ll begin posting more lessons soon! I’ve been really focused lately on practicing and recovering from fun ulcerative colitis/crohn’s issues.
Stay tuned!!!
Mercy Mercy Mercy was written by Joe Zawinul… also Berklee College of Music grad!
Mercy Mercy Mercy Music Handout
There are two arrangements of Mercy Mercy Mercy in this video.
The first half is the easier one, its all written down in the handout.
The second half of the video is trickier. I’m using a bass line in the left hand and chords and melody combined in the right hand.
In the example below, there are a few different voicings, play through them to hear how they sound!
Example 1 is the basic root position voicing for Eb and Bb.
Example 2 has the root of the chord in the left hand, and the 7th, 3rd & 5th of the Bb7 chord. It then moves to the 3rd, 7th & 9th of the Eb9 chord. Each finger moves only a half step which creates a very smooth sound!
Example 3 is the same as example 2 but reversed.
The trick to combining the chords and melody in the right hand is to always make the melody note the highest note. Keeping the melody on top helps it ring out. If its in the middle of the chord, it gets hidden and masked.
Don’t forget the flats by the way!
Because of the key signature at the beginning,
All the B’s and E’s are flatted in the music below.
This is taken from the middle section of the handout. Play through it to get a feel for how it sounds. You can print it off by clicking on it.
In the example above, the left hand is acting like a bass player playing the roots of the chord in 8th notes.
The right hand is playing the famous blues lick. Its all based around a Bb7 chord. Start off with the Bb major triad then move your top two fingers up the Bb7 scale.
Below is the Bb dominant scale. This is the scale to play on Bb7 chords. Its exactly like the Bb major scale, but "A" the 7th note has been lowered to "Ab". (Notice it says "Flat 7th Note").
Also try using the Bb Blues scale. Bb Blues scale would sound good over the entire song!
This lesson is a quickie!!!
This will help you become one of the fastest piano players in the west!!! …or the east if thats where you live. If you live in the south, sorry you’re out of luck. 
You don’t have to be able to play all those chords in 30 seconds, but it does help when you try an learn a new song. When learning a new song, you don’t get stuck on how to play the chord among the 50 million other things you have to learn, your only worry is what chord comes next. So just time yourself and make sure that you can find each chord in both hands fairly quickly!
I remember that it took me quite a few weeks to practice this and see a lot of improvement. Some of my piano students who practiced a little bit everyday have accomplished this goal to be able to play all their major triads in under 30 seconds in one week though!
They usually play them in this order because its fast: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, Ab, Bb, Db, Eb, F#. That’s useful, but eventually you’ll want to challenge yourself so you keep improving your reaction time and you’re not just practicing a routine. The circle of 5ths shown below is another pattern that you can play your chords in!
The image below is the famous circle of fifths. It is a great way to make sure you get through all 12 keys when you’re practicing. Its called the circle of fifths because each chord is a 5th apart. Its a good challenge to find chords that leap so far apart.
I just wanted to get a feel for how many people online read music! Of course there are different kinds of reading music.
Some people can only read chords symbols or just a few of the notes on treble clef. I tried to accommodate all the possible answers, but if you don’t fit in anywhere, just write something in the "other" field or the comments! After answering, the poll shows all the information it has collected and will tell you how many can read music!
Twitter is a great way to stay connected with people online, plus its pretty addicting!
I’m going to use twitter to point to good piano lessons and mention other things I’m doing.
There is a great technique that will add some cool new sounds to your playing and improvising. It plays with adding tension and then resolving it, taking a note that sounds really bad at first and then switching to a new note. Your ear forgets about how bad that first note sounded because the new is so refreshing!
We’ll get started by sliding from minor chords into major chords. The only note that changes is the 3rd, the middle one, so slide off with your middle finger. That might take some coordination practice so you can also use index finger at first if you need to…
The C blues scale has the notes C Eb F F# G Bb C. The Cminor chord fits perfectly over that scale. All of the notes in the blues scale sound great over the C minor chord.
To transpose this scale to another key, you should think of the scales structure rather than the note names. Rather than thinking C Eb F etc. try and remember [Root, b3rd, 4th, #4th, 5th, b7th, Octave].
What scale to use on which chord is pretty easy to figure out for minor chords. On a C minor chord, use the Cminor scale. Lesson: Use the scale with the same name as the chord.
On major chords its a little different. On a C major chord, if I wanted to use a blues scale, my first choice would be A minor blues scale.
It has the notes A C D Eb E G A. You’ll notice that all the notes of a C chord are in the A blues scale and also that one black note we are sliding off of in the video, the Eb.
So the lesson for major chords is to remember, “If I play C minor, I want to go down the interval of a minor 3rd to find the correct scale, the A minor blues scale for improvising.” The structure is the same for all chords and scales, so think down a minor 3rd from the chord you’re in to find the appropriate blues scale.
After you can get to your chords fairly quickly in both hands, the next step is to add some rhythm and the other hand! These patterns are for accompaniment, meaning they won’t have any melody. It’s perfect for accompanying your self to play and sing at the same time.
Right hand plays the chord, left hand plays the root of the chord down lower on the piano. The root of the chord is going to be the name of the chord. If you used the right fingering, its the note you’re playing with your thumb in the right hand.
When trying these for the first time, I like to break these patterns down to simple instructions and even say them outloud: left right left right. Both left left left. You can also practice them on your lap before even trying to worry about what notes to play.
• Left Right Left Right for 4/4 songs or Left Right Right for 3/4 time songs where you count 123 123. This is good when you want the music to be uplifting or create some rhythms to dance to.
• Both Left Left Left good for rock stuff or something with energy. You can add your right hand in as much as you want for more punch.
• HOLD each chord for 4 beats - Good for jazz and ballads. or if you are just learning a song and trying to get the hang of playing and singing it.
If you get these basic patterns down, its really easy to add a little variation in the rhythms to create a lot of new vocabulary for your playing. When you start to try and sing along with these patterns, go slowly at first.
These are perfect for playing and singing at the same time because they are simpler than a piano arrangement. The patterns are repetitive allowing you to focus on hitting the right pitches with your voice and remembering the lyrics. GOSH!!! There is so much multi-tasking going on!
Chords sounds great in the middle of the piano, they don’t sound as good on the low end… they’re too thick and muddy. The low end of the piano is really for single notes and bass lines. If you do play any chords, you want the notes to be spaced out quite a bit.
Power chords are chords that only have the root and the 5th of a chord. Another way to build these chords is to take a major or minor triad and remove the middle note. Guitar players usually call these kind of chords power chords. These chords are great for rock and blues sounds. A C power chord will only have C’s and G’s in the chord.
Playing chords in the lower octaves on the piano is a great idea because it lets your right hand play melodies around middle C. Overall both hands are playing in the “richer” registers of the piano rather than the thin hollow sounding high notes.
The first measure is the easiest power chord to play. Just take the middle note out of the triad. The second measure requires a little stretching to reach the octave.
Notice that the chord symbol reads C5 when they want you to use a power chord. You can use power chords when the chord symbol only says “C” as well or “Cmajor” but when you see C5, the song writer is specifically requesting a power chord.
(Most of the time you see it when you’re trying to read something written for guitar.)
This music below shows the notes for the rock song Smoke On The Water by Deep Purple. The root is doubled and there is only one 5th. This could be played just by your left hand, freeing up your right hand to play more power chords or even make cool rock hand signals at the audience…
