Fast Piano Lessons Blog

This is the song Christmas Time is Here by Vince Guaraldi from A Charlie Brown Christmas. In the cartoon there are a bunch of voices singing it. It can have a very nice christmas jazz feel too it.

This sounds like a difficult song, only because I’ve added a lot of fills and embellishments. I recommend getting the music from “The Easy christmas Fakebook” it will give you the melody and the chords to play the song. (its a big red book).

I’ll be walking through how to play this on my blog as we get closer to christmas! I’m thinking about creating a bunch of christmas lessons, but I’m not sure which songs to do yet. Please post your ideas!

Here are the lyrics:
Christmas time is here
Happiness and cheer
Fun for all that children call
Their favorite time of the year

Snowflakes in the air
Carols everywhere
Olden times and ancient rhymes
Of love and dreams to share

Sleigh bells in the air
Beauty everywhere
Yuletide by the fireside
And joyful memories there

Christmas time is here
We’ll be drawing near
Oh, that we could always see
Such spirit through the year
Oh, that we could always see
Such spirit through the year…

This intermediate piano lesson takes you through the introduction used by billy joel and the chords to accompany yourself singing piano man. I also show you how to play harmonica without using your hands or a harmonica holder wrapped around your neck!

I dont show you the chords for the “la da da diddy…” I’ll save the video lesson on that section for another blog post, but here are the chords:
Am, Am/G, D/F#, F G,
Am, Am/G, D/F# D,
G, G/F, C/E, D, C

HARMONICA TABS:
I’ll have a video tutorial for this in a bit

Blow = B
Suck = S

BSB…SB..SBSB…
BBS..BS…
BSB…SB..SBSB…
BSBSB…

Let me know if there are any questions by posting comments and I’ll do my best to answer them!

Who Is Jerry Lee Lewis?

Jerry Lee Lewis started his career out on Sam Phillips famous record label, Sun Records in 1956. He began as a solo artist and playing sessions with other artists on his label like Johnny Cash and Elvis. He had many successful songs, but “Great Balls of Fire” and “A Whole Lotta Shakin Goin On” were his two biggest hits.

How to Play Piano with Style:

The reason I’m sharing this video with you is not because of the specific chords or notes he was playing, but because Jerry Lee Lewis was a wild performer! While most traditional piano players sit down and are calm and worried about having proper posture while performing, Jerry had a lot of showy moves on the piano that made it really exciting to watch.

He would kick the piano bench over to stand up and at times he would even stand on the piano! While he was sitting down, he would shake his legs as if he were dancing. He also played A TON of big glissandos (slides) up and down the piano.

Lighting the Piano on Fire!

One of my favorites is that he would light the piano on fire, pouring kerosene on the top of the piano and creating fireballs during the song Great Balls of Fire.

These are all tricks that are pretty common now among contemporary piano rock artists like Billy Joel and Elton John thanks to Jerry Lee Lewis.

Guitar Vs Piano Rock Stars:

Until I watched videos of him, I had always considered piano to be less exciting than guitar and not a good lead instrument for a rock band. Guitarists are always entertaining to watch because its so easy for them to play standing up. This is a lot more visually entertaining than watching a classical pianist who except for his hands, sits still most of the time. (I’ve fallen asleep through more than one piano concert). Jerry Lee Lewis however made the piano really fun to watch and helped make it a lead instrument as exciting as guitar.

Here is a country piano lick that would work for any part of werewolves of london or sweet home alabama. I like to use it in Jazz songs as well. For now, try and use it on ANY SONG that you’re playing with a major triad! In the video, In the video I show you how to play it on D major, C major and G major, but it will work on any major triad! Challenge yourself by trying to figure out the same notes on an F and A chord!

The pattern for this lick is: FLAT3, 3 8. These numbers are relative to any major scale. For example, lets use the C major scale (C D E F G A B).
The 8 means you count up 8 notes in the C major scale. The 3 means go up three notes (to E), and the Flat3 means count up three notes in the C major scale (to E) but then lower or flat whatever that note is a half step (Eflat).

To take this to other keys, you really should know the major scale for the key you want to play it in so that you can use FLAT3, 3, 8 to find the notes.

IF you don’t know the major scale, the trick is to find the third of the chord or triad. Lets start off with a triad like C which has the notes C, E, G. The E is the major third because its three notes up the C major scale from C (3). Count down one half step from E the major third and that is your minor third (Flat3). And then to find 8 is easy, its just the root of the chord (C) but 8 notes up.

Werewolves of London has a really catchy set of chords. The basic set of chords are D, C and G, but Warren Zevon plays them with cool sounding embellishments that we can borrow! This embellishment actually gets used OVER AND OVER again in rock, blues and country piano. So make sure to learn them to some degree!

Ignore all the fancy stuff I’m adding in the beginning and just focus on the lick shown at :44 seconds into the video. There is a slow walk right afterwards as well! Then go back for the fancy piano fills.

The lick uses inversions and should be written out with slash chords like this:

CHORD #1: (Gmaj/D to Dmaj)

CHORD #2: (Fmaj/C to Cmaj)

CHORD #3: (Cmaj/G to Gmaj)

*If you’ve learned how to read slash chords, you have all the information you need! Otherwise you can watch the video to learn it. If you want to brush up on your slash chords, then go to my blog post on them here: SLASH CHORDS LESSON