Dance-style tracks often revolve around a fairly simple repetition of a riff and / or the same synth-pumping chord progression over and over, but when the main part of a tune – like with this weeks tutorial featuring mega-hit – is derived from a chord-style driven, organic Pop-Piano part like this… wow. Chris Martin, you’re the man.

As stated above, this super song of our beloved Coldplay with their singer/songwriter and Pop-Piano guru Chris Martin is indeed a repetition of just five chords (with a clever variation here and there that actually changes not only the name but the whole atmospheric feel of the chord/harmony played). But Chris wrote and created such a nice piano part both to introduce (it being the actual intro) and let evolve the synthesizers from, later on in this track, that this song arguably almost embodies the very core of modern pop music at it’s finest.
To all Pop-Piano learners and lovers: see and behold how ‘ease’ of dance and ‘complication’ of truly mastering your chords and patterns mold into a tune that sets an example.

The production and the ‘transfer’ from that looping chord progression to the nifty synthesizers obviously lift the song to the next level, but if you’d want to keep it acoustic: watch, learn and just loop away on your piano. Oh, and don’t forget to practice the awesome (and VERY tricky) vocal melody too. Play AND sing this one and earn eternal glory.

Have fun and let me hear you play it if you dare!

Cheers, Coen.

All skills, tricks, tips, techniques and knowledge from this- and all other lessons @ this website are taken and can be learnt from my book / course ‘Hack the Piano‘ – The unconventional shortcut method to truly understand music and the piano.