Fast Piano Lessons Blog

This lesson is a quickie!!!

1. Play along with the video.
2. Then play through all 12 major chords in one hand. Time yourself!
3. Then work on all 12 minor chords in one hand. Time yourself again! Try to beat 30 seconds. I know you can do it! I’ve had a few 5 year old piano students of mine accomplish this!
   

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!

 

How long does this take to learn?

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!

 

What order should I play all the chords in?

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 Circle of Fifths:

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.

 
If you want to, you can follow me on twitter here: http://twitter.com/chrismarx85
I’ll use twitter to announce piano scholarships and other prizes

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!
 

Minor Chord to Major Chord:

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:

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].
 

Scales & Chords:

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.
 

PIANO LESSON REVIEW:

• If you’re playing in a major chord or key, slide off the flat 3rd of the chord or key.
• If its in a minor chord or key, slide of the #4/b5th of the chord or key.
• These notes are borrowed from the 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.
 

How to Play Chords with 2 Hands

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.
 

Simplify the Coordination Patterns

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.
 

 

3 Accompaniment Patterns for Singing & Playing Piano

• 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.
 

 

WHATS THE NEXT STEP?

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!

Where to play Chords on the Piano:

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.
 

How to play Power Chords

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.
 

Two different ways to play power chords in C:

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.)
 

Smoke On The Water with Octave Power Chords

 

 
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…
 

The Three Key Points from this Piano Lesson:

• KEEP all your thick chords in the middle and upper octaves of the piano.
• As you get lower, you have to space the notes out more.
• Power chords only use the root and 5th of the chord. No middle note, aka the third.

This is a quick demonstration of the most memorable theme from the Harry Potter movies. The entire song is longer and has more flourishes with strings and other instrumentation. I cut those out because they’re not memorable or easy to play. Whenever you reduce music, going from a full orchestra down to a piano arrangement, there are choices you have to make about what melodies to keep and which ones to let go. It’s pretty tough if not impossible to be 100% accurate.

The Magic Chords!

Harry Potter’s Theme chords are played in the following order:
Eminor, Gminor, Fminor,
Aminor/E (”Aminor over E” meaning an inversion with E in the bass.)
C#diminished7

Slow it Down:

There is a slow walk through of all the chords :33 seconds into the video…
And then I’ll explain all the chords in the song afterwards.

Chord Variations:

I’m playing the chords in my left hand as block chords; all at once. You could experiment with other styles of chords too! In the left hand, try rolling the chords into 3 separate notes or broken chords played as two separate chunks.

JOHN WILLIAMS ROCKS!

John Williams is the same composer who wrote the music for Star Wars, E.T. Jurassic Park, Superman, JAWS, Indiana Jones and many other famous movie themes… I love the way he puts together chords especially in the Darth Vader theme and Indiana Jones.

Choosing A Register:

The music sounds a lot spookier when you play the Hedwig’s Theme in a high register or up a few octaves on the piano. (To the right side of the piano.)

This was a paid request to help someone learn Ray Charles rendition of Everyday I have the blues. The song follows the 12 bar blues with a lot of really tasty ray charles fills and variations throughout the whole song. The first 30 seconds of the song just have Ray playing solo piano as an introduction. This video slows down the licks from the first 15 seconds of the video.

SKIP AHEAD TO 1:10 IN THE VIDEO TO SEE MY TRANSCRIPTION OF RAY’S LICKS SLOWED DOWN.

TRANSPOSING:

Pick one or two of these licks and learn them really well then transpose it to the key of C so you can get even more use out of them by using them in a blues in C! Transposing it from the key of Bb to the key of C requires you to move every note up one whole step. This is because the keys Bb and C are one whole step apart.

Stay tuned for more on this great song! We’ll be working on some good chord voicings for the 3 chords in a Bb blues: Bb7, Eb7 and F7.

This piano lesson is much easier to learn the song from.
I slowly walk through the whole song with a lot more clarity… The video also covers a different way to use your left hand on Great Balls of Fire. That left hand bass line is easier than in Great Balls of Fire: Part 1 and closer to what Jerry Lee Lewis actually does on his recordings.

Be sure and watch how my right hand embellishes the basic C, F and G chords in the bridge with a standard blues lick. (Although its very fast here, the lick is broken down on other videos on the blog).

Another key lesson is to thicken up any melody you play by doubling the notes in two hands, or even playing octaves in one or both hands.

*My health is doing much better, thank you all so much for all the great comments and get well soon messages! It really made my day! I have ulcerative colitis which can be very debilitating.

*This was made thanks to a a paid request!!! It received priority over the list of “suggested” requests for video lessons.

I’ve been in poor health for the past 2-3 weeks… I’ll need to hold off making any new lessons until I get better!

Feel free to keep asking questions though and I’ll try to share some insight