Michael buble is the perfect thing play on valentines day. but wait, valentines day was yesterday! thats ok. presidents day can be just as romantic… besides, you shouldn’t need an excuse to play a song for that special someone of yours and this song will make anyone feel loved. Bonus points if you play and sing it! Have a great presidents day!
Version #1 of Everything - For Solo Piano. (Bass line and melody)
Version #2 of Everything - Fancy Introduction & Play / Sing
Let me know if you want to see the chords for this!
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!
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.
Now that you’ve learned all about half steps and whole steps, you are ready to learn the formula for building the 2 most common chords, Major triads and Minor triads. All triad means is a group of 3 notes… As far as what major means, think of it as a chord quality. Major means happy. A minor should be thought of as a sad sound.
Here are the key points in this video:
There are 12 major chords and 12 minor chords, 24 total.
They all look different, white keys, black keys, etc. so don’t learn them based on the color patterns.
SHORTCUT: To find each chord, count up the half steps: Major Chords = 4half steps + 3half steps
Minor Chords = 3half steps + 4half steps
It’s easier to remember all the major chords by counting up 4 half steps for the distance between the first 2 notes. Then three half steps for the distance between the second two notes. This works for every major chord. Minor chords are the same way, but you have to think 3 half steps and then 4 half steps.
Hooray! Lets learn the intro to “Your Song” by Elton John. When I started making this video, it was the most requested song in the valentine poll. Make sure to download the chart!!!*
I recommend watching the performance example and then skipping ahead through the commentary to the slow performances and copying it step by step.
Table of contents:
:10 - Performance example of the 4 measure introduction
:21 - SLOW walkthrough
3:27 - SLOW performance, chord by chord. I’m saying each chord.
4:05 - Holding down all the notes in the chord at once
Its just the first four measures, but this is the epitome of elton john’s style: Rolling arpeggios and chords in inversions.
#3 LEAD SHEET - HOW TO READ THE MUSIC - VIDEO
Practice Goal:
Learn all of your major and minor triads, AND their inversions. Then practice rolling them.
Please post a comment and let me know what you think!!!
