Some credit to the “founders” of our style (Pop-Piano), I thought, would for a change be in order again. There’s something about classic tunes.. I mean, who makes songs like these anymore nowadays? Right? A guy, a piano, a strong melody, solid harmonies played in an organic way on our beloved beast of an instrument. Pop-Music in one of it’s purest forms.

Even though (Elton/Rocket fans: sorry for the honesty here) this is far from my favorite tune (it’s a very good one though. Sure.) it’s a very good candidate to exemplify a fairly simple, yet highly effective use of Chord/Pattern based piano and to put your Pop-Piano skills to good use with.

A few nice extensions in there, some nice addition pattern tricks too, not too heavy on the voicings, not too many different chords, just perfect I think both as an example and as a practice tune.

The verse starts off nicely with what will actually turn out to be the heaviest extension chords of the whole song (Gm7 and a C9 -which in the second round is even extended to a Csus). Then that nice part where he’s getting high, but actually lets the bass walk down to go low(er), and my personal highlight of the song -not the actual chorus itself- but merely the C7 on the actual “I’m Rocket Man“, which with its major third outside of the key, gives that nice euphoric sound.

It’s been a while since I’ve handled a true classic (been a while since I did any tutorial actually, but hey, we’ve been busy doin’ other stuff as ya know! 😉 ), so finally here’s one for you again: enjoy Elton John and his classic Pop-Piano style. A founder. (Did you know that this song was released all the way back in 1972?! -oh those golden ’70s-. So even back then Pop-Piano was already so popular, yet still for the majority, the approach to learn it hasn’t changed one bit since then.. )

Have Fun!

Cheers, Coen.