Fast Piano Lessons Blog

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.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO: 

PART 2 of EVERYDAY I HAVE THE BLUES - RAY CHARlES - VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION

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

Here is an arrangement of thriller by michael jackson for solo piano. It sounds even cooler if you can stomp your foot for a beat or have a drum machine in your keyboard to play along with. Its in a different key than the original for two reasons. Its lower so people with regular non-michael voices can sing it. And this key has many less black notes, therefore it is easier to play.

Putting your hands together:

Learn the bassline hands separate first. Then learn how to go between an A minor and D major chord in your right hand. Slowly put the two together… Playing both hands together took me a couple hours of slow practice with a metronome.

When you’re first learning the song, simplify the bassline only playing the roots. That lets you focus on the learning the chords and the major parts of the song. Then refine and polish later. Scan to 2:00 in the video to see an example of this.

1:25 - Just hold down the chords in the right hand for long periods. After you play it and hold it down, you can forget about that hand and focus on the rhythms that your left hand is playing.

Building basslines:

Thriller is a really great example of how to make a bass line groove. Normally we would just play a single A note in the bass on an Aminor chord. In thriller, the bassline uses these tones: the flat 7th, root and flat 3rd. On A minor that means its going to be the G, A and C notes.

Thriller Video Lesson Outline:

1:05 - slow walkthrough of thriller / learn the verse piano parts
2:01 - simple bassline version of the verses
4:00 - recommend playing the melody with the simple bassline show here
4:25 - showing how chord shakes look and sound

Chorus Chords:
Amin C, C D Am, D9 Fmaj7 G6
Amin C, C D Am, F D G… Back to the verse chords

Verse Chords:

Amin -> D