In this blog, I”d just like to show 3 ways of ‘strumming’ or playing your left-hand chords in accompaniment to your right-hand melody, when you play a slower-type song that has the very common ‘Rock Beat ‘ tempo. This is the tempo you hear often, when a vocalist (especially one also playing the piano together ) sings a slower contemporary song.

As the above video show, the purpose here is to show a few the ways you can strum* your left –hand fingers, and when youre familiar with each of them, you can then flexibly, and as appropriately, blend them in your peft-hand playing throughout a given song.

* Sorry, I’m fond of using the term ‘strum’ - for want of a better word - as this is what I used to do when I first learned the guitar… strumming the strings, and humming the melody along. I couldn’t sing of course.

Thank you.

This blog builds on my previous one about the simple C-Am-F/Dm-G progression.

In addition to playing and moving around the chords, we are going to be adding ‘transiting’ or ‘filler’ bass notes with our extreme left hand fingers.

Your little left small finger (pinky) is always holding one bass while you play the chord with the other left-hand fingers, so it’s time to make it even busier by moving it around a bit more, with the purpose of ‘connecting’ the cords with acceptable sounds within the scale you are playing.

As you watch the above video, you will observe that you can hop over from one chord to another using a few extra bass notes, as long as they sound right.

If you are playing the chords in the key of C, then these notes fall within the scale of C. Of course if your are playing the chords in a different key, then these bass notes will correspondingly change (Eg., by transposing them to find out what these are, if necessary).

Done properly and keeping in timing, this makes the change of chords sound more interesting , rather than just switching from one chord to the other.

But you should try to add these basses only intermittently and ‘in good taste’ in the duration of the song (you learn this through hearing how they are applied in songs or by other musicians, or through practice and self-observation).

You shouldn’t apply these basses liberally right throughout the song, just for the sake of doing it… (oh well, maybe initially, if you’ve just discovered this technique and are quite excited about using it!)

Thank you.

Victoria,

Here is your song request:

Two Words

The Prayer

Alan

When you play a chord, say C (holding down the notes of C, E and G). you would typically hold the major position, so the bass that sounds is your left-most and smallest finger of your left hand. That’s playing the root bass of C on the C chord.

In a song arrangement that requires you to hold the chord longer, you don’t have to just keep pressing the C bass for your C chord; as doing so would sound boring and monotonous.

Instead, you should try alternating C bass with a second bass of G. This sounds right, and is allowed because G is one of the notes making up the cord of C.

So, just keep in mind that every chord has at least a second bass you can play on (if the time allows), and that 2^nd bass is always 5 semitones to the left (lower) , or 7 semitones to the right (higher), of the root bass.

You can figure out the 2^nd bass of any chord by counting either of the above ways. Hence, the 2^nd bass of F chord is C; for Ab it’s Eb; for G, it’s D etc.

To illustrate further in the diagram below - after your left hand holds the the notes in the first diagram, your little left finger then plays on the lower G bass note, and then goes back to the C normal position. You can also play the higher bass (ie., the G to the right of C) in the second picture to add variation, but it usually sounds better playing the lower G bass (to the left).

Now, it would also be ok if you make E (being one of the 3 notes making up the C chord) the second bass after playing C, but it just doesn’t – generally speaking - sound as nice as the ‘further-away G. Playing E would be more approriate right if the song arrangement requires you to play the chord of C in the 2^nd inversion position… ie. a chord made of E, G and C).

Playing C and its second bass of G applies to pretty well all the old-style tempos like swing, march, rock, tango, waltz, and also the latin beats. You can turn on an auto chord accompaniment on an electronic piano, and hear exactly what I mean; because these pairs of basses will sound for most of the rhythm variations, when you press any chord.

Thank you.

The left hand is the all-important contributor to how your song sounds when you play it on the piano, because it does the following things to help to enrich and support the main melody that you play with your right hand:

- holding down a chord
- playing a series of notes (ie. an arpeggio manner)
- providing the ‘beat’ or tempo of the song in a strumming manner.
- playing ‘filler or countering’ notes that support the main melody
- providing bass when using the lower note

If one arrangement of a song sounds better than another, it often has to do with how the the left hand has been played. If you just hold down the chords and play the melody on the right hand, don’t expect your song to sound that great.

You should also not be just repeating the bass+strum pattern from start to end, as that would be boring. Instead, you would intersperse the pattern with short arpeggios on the chord, occasionally counter and also accenting the bass now and then to add variety.

The video in this blog illustrates the above points.

Thank you.