Piano Cheats

I don’t know how many of you know about him.

The first time I saw Jamie Cullum was on TV a few years ago when he was playing before the Queen.

Have taken note of his albums since.
Here are a couple of videos of Jamie Cullum that are really awesome from YouTube. If you appreciate talents, you would definitely enjoy his performances.

I can’t embed this second one, so please visit: http://youtube.com/watch?v=TWTEfhhZXK4.

Enjoy!

Tags: awesome, jamie cullum, piano

Note: I have cut-and-pasted the following text from my earlier version of “Suspension (part 1)” post, so that each of my postings will not appear under more than 1 category (Now, “Suspension (part 1)” is under the “Cheat Theories” category, and “Improvising Sus4” is under the “Cheat Tricks” category). At the same time, I have added illustration photos on the “Suspension (part 1)” post (if you haven’t seen them), and do likewise on this post.

If you find learning a Sus4 chord a challenge, don’t worry. This is where another Cheat Trick comes in.

To improvise Chord I4, try this: Play the “doe” note with your left hand. And with your right hand, instead of playing Chord I, play Chord IV. That sounds pretty much like Chord I4 to me. (In the C key, that means playing the C note with your left hand, and the F chord with your right hand. The resulting sound is very much like C4)

Figure 1: C4 (by combining F chord with C bass)

As for Chord V4, try this: Play the “so” note with your left hand. And with your right hand, instead of playing Chord V, play Chord I. Again that sounds pretty close to Chord V4 to me. (In the C key, that means playing the G note with your left hand, and the C chord with your right hand. The combination sounds very close to G4).

Figure 2: G4 (by combining C chord with G bass)

Tags: C4, cheat, chord, Csus, G4, Gsus, improvise, piano, sus, Sus4, suspended, suspension, trick

There are 2 types of suspended chords I know. There may actually be more but I only know 2 types. Anyway, you won’t want to learn too many chords playing the cheat way.

These 2 types of suspension I know are Sus2 and Sus4. I will come to Sus2 another day, and only explain Sus4 in this post.

When we play a C chord, for example, up till now, we’ve been playing it the “doe-me-so” way. That is, our C chord is made up of the notes C, E and G. They are the 1^st, 3^rd and 5^th notes in the C major scale.

This is how we play a G chord too, just to use another example. Our G chord is made up of G (the “doe” note), B (the “me” note), and D (the “so” note), i.e., the 1^st, 3^rd and 5^th notes of the G major scale. No matter what inversion we may be playing, be it the root position (i.e., 1-3-5), the 1^st inversion (i.e., 3-5-1), or the 2^nd inversion (i.e., 5-1-3), these three notes (1, 3 and 5) are always there.

Simply put, a C4 (read “C suspended”, or “C sus-four”, or simply “C-four”) is when you play the 4^th note instead of the 3^rd note in your chord (together with the other 2 notes: 1^st and 5^th). That means, a C4 chord would have these notes, 1 (“doe”), 4 (“fa”), and 5 (“so). That is, C4 is when you play C, F and G notes together (compare this with a C chord, when you play C, E and G).

Figure 1: C4

Similarly, a G4 chord is made up of these 3 notes: G (i.e., the “doe” note), C (ie., the “fa” note), and D (i.e., the “so” note). These are the 1^st, 4^th and 5^th notes of the G major scale.

Figure 2: G4

In any key, I know of 2 chords when Sus4 is usually applied. These are the 1^st major chord (i.e., Chord I) and the 5^th major chord (i.e., Chord V). That means, in the key of C, the only Sus4 chords you need to know are C4 and G4. If you were playing in the key of A, then the only Sus4 chords you would need to know would be A4 and E4 (“A” being the Chord I, and “E” being the Chord V in the A key).

More importantly, when are Sus4 chords used in a song? A suspended chord lives up to its name, i.e., it ‘suspends’ or ‘hangs’ sort-of up there somewhere before coming down to where the song should lead. Take the song “Amazing Grace”, for example. If we were to play this song in the C key, then at the end of the line “… that saves a wretch like me”. The chord on the word “me” may be a G chord (Chord V) straightaway. Another way to play this is to first play G4 (Chord V4), and then play G (Chord V). That means, instead of playing only one G chord at that place, you may choose to play a G4 first, then a G (i.e., 2 chords instead of 1), as a way to enhance the sound.

Another place in the song is “…was blind but now I see”. In the C key, you may just play one chord, i.e., C (Chord I) on the word “see”, or play C4 (Chord I4) first then C (Chord I). You would notice that the music kind-of ‘hangs in the air’ when you are playing C4, and then ‘settles down’ when you ‘resolve’ it with C.

I hope the above is clear. But didn’t we say that most songs can be played with just 3 chords on the right hand? Please check out “Improvising Sus4” under the “Cheat Tricks” category for the answer.

Tags: "amazing grace", C4, cheat, chord, G4, improvise, piano, Sus4, suspended, suspension

When you can see a pattern in the bass notes, you can then recognize a chord progression (or a pattern of chords) a whole lot easier.

For example, the chords on the right hand in the sample progression in my previous post (“Changing The Bass Notes (part 2)”) may seem rather random, but the bass notes reveal a pattern of walking down the scale, i.e., 1 (doe), 7 (ti), 6 (la), 5 (so), 4 (fa), 3 (me), 2 (re).

In fact, the easier way to recognize a chord pattern is by recognizing the bass note pattern.

To play freely by focussing on bass notes, however, you have to know which chords to accompany each bass note, and be familiar with their association.

Rule number 1: In general, use Chord I to accompany bass note 1 (do), Chord IV to accompany bass note 4 (fa), and Chord V to accompany bass note 5 (so). That’s easy enough.

Rule number 2: For the 2 (re), 3 (me), and 6 (la) bass notes, try accompanying them with Chord IV, V, and I respectively. That gives you the 3 minor chords.

Rule #2 applies only when the sound you are to produce is a minor chord, i.e., if you see on your music sheet that the chords are 2^nd, 3^rd or 6^th minor chords. In the key of C, that means, Dm, Em and Am chords.

Rule number 3: If Rule #2 doesn’t apply, then try Chord I for bass note 3 (me), Chord IV for bass note 6 (la), and Chord V for bass note 7 (ti),

Usually such chords are indicated on the music sheet, e.g., in the C key, they would look like C/E, F/A and G/B respectively.

Rule number 4: If applying Rule #3 still does not get you the sound you want, then you are very likely looking for the Major chords of II, III and VI. In the C key, that means D major chord, E major chord, and A major chord, for the 2 (re), 3 (me) and 6 (la) bass notes respectively. Now, that is a bit of a leap for those of us who want to learn piano the cheat way. So, I will cover that much later. Anyway, not to worry, because… (please allow me to repeat)… a lot of songs can be played with just the 3 basic chords.

As for now, there are still some tweaking we can do with the 3 basic chords that I should cover first. These include suspension and superimposition, just to sound sophisticated with the names. Anyway, to conclude the 3-part series on “Changing The Bass Notes”, let me show you something interesting…

Let’s bring back the progression earlier… (from part 2):

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

… and tweak it slightly to become this…

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

We have tweaked the 4^th chord (marked red) in the series above to become Chord –I over the 5^th bass note (so). Try playing it. How do you like the sound?

Now try the following shortened version of the above progression with the song “As The Deer”…

I –> V/7 –> VI m –> -I/5 –> IV –> IV/5 –> I

In the key of C, it would look like this:

C –> G/B –> Am –> Bb/G –> F –> F/G –> C

And not to forget the ‘Am’ may be substituted by ‘C/A’ (refer to the theory in ‘The 3 Minor Chords’ post).

Here is the video illustration…

Note: In the video, my left hand started from a C note that is very near to my right hand. This is solely for the purpose of the video shooting. If I were to play my bass notes one octave lower, then I would have to move the camera further in order to capture both of my hands on the screen. For your own practice, please do play the bass notes one octave lower.

Tags: as the deer, bass notes, cheat, chord, notation, pattern, piano, play, progression, shortcut

Now, a lot of you have probably heard and seen on TV this 7-year-old last year during her competition on Britains Got Talent (she was only 6 at that time).

I am a little bit slow, I admit, and I only got to know about her from a friend today. And my, oh my, her voice can really touch your heart! Anyway, I’m sure you can find out more about her on a lot of sites. Here are a couple of videos of hers to share with you… Don’t miss out!

Tags: connie talbot