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!!!
A lot of people have been asking for sheet music!
I don’t have sheet music because its much more expensive and takes longer to read than fakebooks.
There is another problem with just posting sheet music online… (I think its illegal!)
If you are interested in purchasing a good book of christmas songs check this book out:
This fake book is EASY to use, the symbols have been simplified.
You could play every chord in there after reading the CHORDS 101 course!
Thats why its a good book to get started learning how to read chord symbols. They’re all in the key of C which means most songs use the same few chords over and over again. Like C, Dm, F & G.
If you haven’t already checked out some of the lessons, be sure and go to ChristmasPianoLessons.com
Thats where I’m focusing most of my energy this month!
This is the second piano lesson in a 3 part series with examples for how to play a ballad similar to the style that Elton John uses on songs like “Tiny Dancer”. In fact, the first pattern I play in the video is very similar to the piano introduction to Tiny Dancer.
Use these patterns as guidelines though. To make them your own, you’ll have to add a few different notes and rhythms here and there. Not even Elton John plays his piano parts the same way twice.
The chords are C major and F major.
OUTLINE:
:03 - Tiny Dancer example
:09 - Variations on the first example slowed down
:50 - Country lick slowed down
Practice Tips: Please realize that I’ve only shown you two examples on the C and F chords. Transpose them to another key to get the most benefit from them. For example, try to play these patterns on D & G, or E & A.
This is the first piano lesson in a 3 part series with examples for how to play a ballad similar to the style that Elton John uses on songs like “Your Song” or “Tiny Dancer”. In this lesson we start of with some very simple patterns for the C major and F major chords. The biggest piece of advice I can give is to be comfortable with your inversions of chords and arpeggios. Don’t practice for perfection here.
Use these patterns as guidelines, making sure to change a few of the notes here and there each time you play them.
OUTLINE:
:10 - Example #1: The Easy Version: Rolling the chord Up
:25 - Example #2: Rolling the chord up & down.
:37 - Experiment with different rhythms and patterns for endless possibilities. Its up to you to be creative!
1:03 - Explanation of Chord Tones: Chord tones are the notes in the chord. Cmajor is made up of the chord tones “C E G”. Non-chord tones are all the other notes not in the chord (D, F, A, B,).
Practice Tip: Using Chord Tones and Non-Chord Tones
Use only the chord tones at first and then try to add non-chord tones as you get more comfortable with how they sound. Non-chord tones don’t always sound good with a chord so use caution. For example if you play the note F in your right hand, with the chord C major in your left hand, the E&F notes will clash. This clashing doesn’t sound good if you hold on the F for a long time. If you play the F note only for a short duration as just a passing note, then the clashing will not be that noticeable.
INSIGHT INTO THE LIFE OF BEETHOVEN:
I find that learning songs by famous composers helps me get a better picture of their life and personality. For example, after learning Fur Elise, I now know that Beethoven had a girlfriend named Elise and she was furry.
This lesson covers the famous classical song by Beethoven called Fur Elise, which you’ve all heard a million times, but this time there is a twist! It ROCKS! By using power chords in the left hand, not only can we simplify the song, we can give it more energy and a contemporary “facelift”.
First I show you an example of the final version of fur elise with power chords.
Then a slowed down left hand example covering the chords Am and E major and how to turn them into power chords.
Then we cover the right hand fingering and slowly put most of the song together.
Post a comment if you have any questions and…
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
In this piano lesson, we cover the Jazz standard: Summertime by George Gershwin. As usual I show you the final version first and then slowly break it down. STEP 1: DOWNLOAD the sheet music (fake book style) before watching the video. Then use it to follow along with the video lesson. Click here for the music chart: SUMMERTIME CHORD CHART
STRIDE PATTERNS:
Stride patterns are when your left hand plays just the root down and then jumps up an octave to play the missing notes from the chord. (2:19) The left hand is going to play the low single bass note on beats one and three. On beats two and four it will jump an octave up to play the chord. There are of course lots of different variations! In the video, I’ve slowed the left hand down half as fast. I’m only playing the root on beat one and the chord on beat 3.
GETTING STARTED WITH STRIDE: (Start Simple) 2:45
To get the hang of playing stride piano you want to first start out by practicing just with your left hand.
With your pinky, practice jumping from notes in different octaves. For example, play a low C (single note) then moving an octave up to play another C (single note). Keep working on this until you can do it in a steady rhythm without dropping a beat. Start off as slowly as you need to then gradually speed up!
The next step is to add the chords into the left hand on beats 2 and 4.
IMPROVISING:
To improvise on summertime, you want to use the Dmin blues scale. The notes for the D minor blues scale are [D F G G# A C D].
The Chords in Summertime:
Dmin7 can be played with the notes DFAC.
Gmin7 can be played with the notes G Bb D F. On Gmin7. In the video (:10 & :57), I’m playing an inversion of the chord (F Bb D) and leaving out the root because I played it earlier on beat 1.
Emin7(b5) can be played with the notes E G Bb D.
To add more walking bassline motion, I lead into A by playing Bb right before that. (:13)
A7 can be played with the notes A C# E G, however in the video I’m playing the root on beat one and then playing the chord without the root on beat 2
Fmaj7 can be played with the notes FACE. In the video (:24) I only play F & C to keep the chord from sounding muddy. Its a fast passage and a lot of notes are tricky!
Bb7 can be played with the notes [Bb D F Ab] but in the video (:25) I only play a shell voicing: Bb and Ab.
A7 can be played with the ntoes A C# E G and in the video I only play another shell voicing: A and G When you’re playing chords in a low range on the piano, use only the outside notes of the chords (shell voicings) to keep it from sounding muddy. It also makes it easier to play 2 notes from a chord rather than all 4.
