“Still Dre” is just a true classic. One of those very well known, can’t get-out-of-your-head hip-hop beats that is as easy to play as it is catchy.

As I say in the video, I put three chord pictures up to make it as clarifying as possible, but actually it’s just Am and Em(sus4) where the sus4 (the top note ‘a’) in the Em chord, resolves to the ‘3rd’ of the Em chord.

Pattern used:

The right hand plays all eighth-beats. Just pay close attention to where you change the notes! -> change to Emsus4 on the first eighth beat of the second measure (the 9th accent with your right hand) and resolve to Em on the fourth eighth beat of the second measure (the 12th accent with your right hand).

Left hand uses a 5 -> 1 (from the fifth of the chord to the root of the chord) pattern, where the ‘5’ is played on the last quarter beat of every measure and the ‘1’ on the first beat of every measure.
Meaning you play the ‘e’ (the ‘5’ of the Am chord) on the fourth count of the measure where Em is played, ‘landing’ on the root (‘1’) ‘a’ on the first beat of the next measure. The ‘b’ (the ‘5’ of the Em chord) on the the fourth count of the measure where Am is played, landing on the ‘e’ (root of Em) on the first beat of the next measure again.
For the very first Am, this results in the ‘e’ being played on a ‘upbeat’: a count before the actual ‘1’ of the song (the ‘1’ is the root note ‘a’).

See what fun you can have with simple chords and simple patterns?

Happy playing!

Cheers, Coen.

P.s. Have you read the interesting post about reaching goals that came with this tutorial this week?

Questions? Remarks? Show me how you play this song? Please leave a comment below!
I’m also very curious which tutorial you’d like to see next!

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.