Piano Lessons for Beginners: Part 2 - Interesting chord accompaniment patterns

hi

if you just bought your first keyboard

or piano and you don't know where to get

started you've come to the right place

i've made this little mini series just

for you

so you can jump start your piano playing

career it's going to have a couple of

parts and we're going to gradually build

up your skills and vocabulary and i plan

to release a video approximately

maybe once or twice a month

let's get started and we'll need a

little bit of terminology if you look

look at the piano keyboard you see it's

made out of repeating units

you have two black keys three black keys

two

three

two

three and so forth

the white key to the left of any two

black keys

is called a c

so this is a c

this is a c

[Music]

this is a c and so forth

the notes are named

following the c

as you would perhaps expect them to be

this is a c

d

e

f

g

and then it wraps around and

a goes back to a

b

and c

and it keeps going

c

d

e

f

g

a b

c

okay so we got the naming under our belt

the first thing i want to teach you in

terms of playing is how to play a couple

of simple chords and i'm going to assume

that you want to accompany yourself

singing on the piano that's kind of the

popular approach to playing the piano so

maybe you want to sound like this

i'm going to teach you four chords which

will be c major f major g major and a

minor

or i just play them out c major f major

g major

and a minor

if i don't say major after chord name

it's assumed so i'll just maybe call

them

c

f

g

and a minor

let me start by showing you how to play

them

again you can play them either in the

left or the right hand we're going to

focus on the right hand for starters

[Music]

here's a c major chord

and i'm playing three notes all of the

chords have three notes in this video

and i'm playing a g a c and an e

with my right hand

now notice the fingering the fingering

means which fingers i use to play this

chord i'm using my thumb

my first finger and my fourth finger

now this is largely a matter of taste

you could use

this fingering as well

thumb third finger and fifth finger

it's kind of up to you to experiment and

see what feels

natural for you

[Music]

the next chord is f major

so i'm playing an a c and f

and i'm using my thumb first finger and

fifth finger on the right hand

and the fingers are just numbered the

way you'd expect them one two three four

five

for the g major chord

i'm playing a g b and d

with my thumb first finger and fourth

finger

and finally for a minor

i'm playing an a c and e with thumb

first finger and fourth finger

again experiment you might find it more

convenient to use your thumb third

finger and fifth finger

to play some of these voicings

[Music]

now what about your left hand so the

left hand is going to play the bass note

and the bass note is simply going to be

the name of the chord the note that

corresponds to the name of the chord so

for c major chord in the right hand

you're going to play a c

note

in the left hand

for an f

you'd play an f

note in the left hand

for an a minor

and play an a in the left hand

and for g g major you play at g the note

g in your left hand it doesn't really

matter how you finger these you can just

even use one finger if it's more

convenient for you so you can

just jump around

but it's more convenient a little bit to

put all of your five fingers like this

such that your thumb rests on the c

and then you can

press the c with your thumb

the f with your pinky with your fifth

finger

the a with your third and g with your

fourth finger so you don't have to jump

around your hand hand just rests evenly

on one spot

so now you have four chords under your

belt and you can expand first of all

start by experimenting with different

combinations

[Music]

so let's see you can start with a c

going to an f

going to an a minor

going to a g

how about a different combination let's

go for something that starts with an a

minor

goes to c major then goes to a let's say

f major and g major

[Music]

a minor

c major

f major

g major

let's go for a third combination just to

see how it sounds let's do an f major to

a c major

to a g major to an a minor

f major

c major

g major

a minor

[Music]

now a great

number of popular songs have been

written using just these four chords

and just go online and look for some of

your favorite songs and see

uh which ones were written using c f g

and a minor

now one more thing before we conclude

for today and that is

basically what you can do to add some

motion and interest to your playing is

once you've hit the chord just

repeat it at constant intervals

so

i'm going to play it and then hopefully

that will give you an idea of what i

mean and i'll play a let's say a c major

to an f major to a c major to an f major

and

so forth

[Music]

while i'm playing by the way i'm holding

down my piano pedal so you can't see it

with the camera

but

all of keyboards today come with pedals

and pianos come with pedals and the nice

thing about the pedal is that if i don't

press the pedal and i

press a note and let go

the note stops but if i hold down the

pedal

and i press the note

and i leave it

it keeps on ringing

and the same goes with the chord without

a pedal

and with a pedal

[Music]

so the idea is to hold down the pedal

for as long as you're on a particular

court when you switch between chords be

sure to depress the pedal

so the previous chord doesn't keep on

ringing when you switch to the new chord

so i'm keeping my pedal pressed here

depressing it and

when i move to the f major you can

depress it and press it again

depress and press

and so forth so this will give you a

nice full sound when playing

and

of course the sort of quintessential

song that you probably want to check out

for these four chords is imagined by

john lennon

uh do go ahead and have a look and in

the next lesson i'm going to show you

four different ways interesting ways in

which you can make your playing sound

more interesting so not just

push down the chords

but make it sound more mature complex

and sophisticated

that's it i hope you've learned

something interesting

welcome to your first lesson for playing

the piano i hope you'll have many more

and enjoy your path and i'll see you

next time