A beautiful piano-ballad which perfectly illustrates and exemplifies how the relationship to the harmony (and thereby sound and atmosphere) of playing the exact same note supported by different chords / bass notes completely changes. 

In short (more detailed explanation in the vid) : a 'd' note is the root (1) of a D chord, yet it's the '3' (third) of a Bm chord. Playing a 'd' supported by a D harmony therefore has a completely different sound than playing that same 'd' with a Bm harmony underneath, let alone with an A harmony (where the 'd' is the '4' or '11').

This 'playing the same note while changing underlaying harmonies' is a very smooth and often-used 'trick' in music, used in a wide variety of ways, to create nice sounding instrumental parts. An extension of it is 'playing the same lick, riff or phrase changing underlaying harmonies' (in stead of just the one note; although I must 'side note' that a riff can also easily exists of just the one note. Maybe we could even call that repeating 'd' in this song the 'riff', what do you think?).

Check out the vid to see and hear it in action!

Can you think of another song that puts this 'technique' to good use?

Enjoy this one guys, it's another nice lesson that shows some different options for playing the same chords.

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.