Piano Cheats

In fact, by combining the 3 basic chords on the right hand with different bass notes on the left hand, you can pretty much get all the chords you need for most songs (not all, of course).

Here is a very common ‘chord progression’ (or a pattern of a series of chords) used in many songs with what-is-commonly-known-as “walking bass notes”. The progression goes like this…

The “Chord” part is what you play with you right hand. And the “Bass” part is the bass note you play with your left hand to accompany the right-hand chord. The I, IV and V chords are the 3 basic chords (click on the link to go to the post about the 3 basic chords). The ‘numbers’ for the bass notes are the “doe”, “re”, “me”, etc. on the scale.

Another way to present this is:

I –> V/7 –> VI m –> I/5 –> IV –> I/3 –> II m –> V

The way to read a notation like “V/7” above is “Chord V on 7^th bass”, i.e., the 5^th chord in the key (on the right hand) accompanied by the 7^th note (the “ti” note) in the scale (on the left hand).

You would notice from the above that I/6 is in fact VI m (6^th minor) chord. Similarly, IV/2 is actually II m (2^nd minor) chord. Yes, we have covered that in “The 3 Minor Chords” post previously. You can go back there for revision if necessary.

Let’s tweak the above chord progression slightly to produce a better sound. Remember that F chord and G bass note combination on part 1? This is where it becomes useful. Let’s do that for Chord V (the last chord) in this progression, i.e., let’s substitute V/5 with IV/5. This is what the resulting progression looks like:

I –> V/7 –> VI m –> I/5 –> IV –> I/3 –> II m –> IV/5

Or

The part marked red is the only difference (the ‘tweaking’ we are doing).

Below is my illustration on video…

You probably notice that in the video I play Chord I in its 1^st inversion, i.e., in the me-so-doe (3-5-1) position, and Chord V in its 2^nd inversion, i.e,. the so-doe-me (5-1-3) position. As I’ve talked about in the “Inversion” post, this is entirely a personal preference. My reason for using those inversions is purely to minimize my hand movement.

Here is a song in which you can make use of this progression. It is a portion of “There Is None Like You” by Don Moen:

Try that out! Have fun!

Tags: bass notes, chords, piano, tweak, walk-down