Fast Piano Lessons Blog

In this lesson we’ll continue covering patterns for swinging rock piano! These are bass line patterns for your left hand. They really help push the song along and give it energy. These are meant to be played fairly quickly. They can also be fairly redundant because most of the attention is going to be on your right hand. Your left hand just plays a supporting role to drive the music, while your right hand gets the spotlight.

I came up with these notes because they’re notes from the chord. If the chord was C, we could play each of the notes in the C chord, one at a time: C E G. If we do all three at the same time too low on the piano it sounds muddy and has no energy.

Even though some of these are simpler, when I’m trying play and sing at the same time, I’ll use these simple patterns the most! There is just TOO MUCH to focus on in piano to do it all well!

Click on any of the examples to make them bigger!

Example 1: The first bass line you should start with. It outlines the same notes that are in a C chord: C, E, G.

Example 2: has a new note at the end: “A” (C, E, G, A). Fingering: Place your left hand pinky on the C and the thumb on the A

Example 3: is a little different than ex. 2. The notes are C, E, G and A, G. The last two are 8th notes, going twice as fast!

This follows up the last lesson, “Blues Piano Lesson #1A: 12 bar Blues In C (reading notes)” That post also has sheet music for the first clip in the video, which you can download.

There are a few variations thrown in as well that will all work in a C blues. It sounds the best if you use lots of different variations for variety rather than playing the song the same way through the entire time.

It should take you 10-15 minutes if you are a beginner to learn the patterns in the video really well. The chords shapes and patterns are all the same for C, F and G. They are all white notes.
REALLY focus on making the transition to each chord smooth and be able to switch between the variations with ease! If you can do that at a fairly steady fast pace, then you know you’re ready to move on.

Try to use your pinky, middle and thumbs only on this song to play the chords and the bassline.

The notes in alphabetical order:

HERE IS THE SHORTCUT!!!

If you use these mnemonic devices or memorization tricks, your reading will become much quicker. You won’t have to be counting up all the time! This is also a good tool for helping kids remember the lines and spaces on the grand staff of the sheet music.

In the treble cleff (the top staff) use this (PDF - JPG Print Out):

“FACE is for the Space” (This one rhymes)

“Every Good Boy Does Fine is for the lines” (This one is rhyming as well)

or “Elephants Go Bouncing Down Freeways”

Rhyming will help you with the memorizing.

In the bass cleff (the bottom staff) use:

Spaces: “All Cows Eat Grass” or “All Cars Eat Gas”

Lines: “Good Burritos Don’t Fall Apart” or “Good Butterflies Don’t Fly Away”

These are the 12 most common chords use on piano. You’ll find them used over and over again in many published song books… so it makes sense to practice them! (I’ll post a better image as soon as I make one!) Piano and Guitar each have keys that are easier to play in than others because of the shapes of the chords and how they lay out over the keyboard or fretboard. Sharp keys like E, A and D are very popular on guitar, and keys with lots of white notes or low numbers of sharps and flats are easier on the piano.

There are 24 triads total to learn. 12 major triads and 12 minor triads.
Each one has a different look and shape (black white black etc) But they all are the same distance apart:
So to find each chord, just count up half steps:
Major Chords = 4half steps + 3half steps
Minor Chords = 3half steps + 4half steps

The 12 chords that have white keys as the roots are the ones you should learn first. This is because they happen more frequently than other chords in fake books.

The dots show you where to put your fingers.

I give my private students timed tests to see how quickly they can play these. The goal is all the major chords in 30 seconds.