Guitar-riffs on piano truly can sound wonderful sometimes. This is yet another example of copying some phrases played on another instrument (yes, you guessed it: guitar), adding some 'piano flavored techniques' (and some of my own sweet and sour taste) to it and creating a unique but awesome piano part.
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I Want You Back - The Jackson 5
Ok guys, we've seen quite some nice songs pass the tutorial bridge, sure. We've also had our fair share of fine grooves that -when played IN the groove- made you wanna dance like there is no tomorrow. But this one...
Boogie, soul and funky old school swing at it's finest. It's truly one of those classics that have founded and inspired a whole generation of songs to follow in it's path and beyond. Awesome music.
Pompeii - Bastille
Old cities have always intrigued me. As have old songs. Don't you feel that music was just a tad better back in the day?
No?
Then I'm left with only these two suggestions:
Rather be - Clean Bandit ft Jess Glynne.
Where would you rather be? Jess Glynne, the super-talented guest vocalist for this mega-hit by Clean Bandit sings to us there’s no place she’d rather be and frankly so there is for me :). Perfectly happy actually. However, that question might get you (as it got me) thinking about setting some goals for yourself. Preferably piano oriented if I may hand you a suggestion ;). Where would you rather be in regard to your level of playing?
What an extensive, much-to-be-learnt from lesson this turned out to be. A super cool song to start with, of course. Killer track. When I flipped on the camera to film this one I knew it would become quite the tough lesson to learn, but that it would become such a gem of a tutorial … (which is not to brag btw. ‘cause that’s not completely my doing here, just a LOT of different Pop-Piano techniques, -tips, -tricks and -know-how’s come together in this song).
Team - Lorde
The mega-popular first single of this alternative teenage hit machine has truly left it’s mark in all of the western world’s musical memory, putting Lorde firmly on the charts.
Although Royals’ has also been requested quite a few times, since the song is mainly vocal-oriented -and y’all know it’s quite lame to copy vocal lines on a piano-, I decided to go for this super-nice example of using a few easy triads and inversions from the slightly more advanced key of F#, play ‘em on a cool synthesizer (piano works perfectly fine too, as you’ll hear) in super-easy pattern and shine-follow-up: her second hit ‘Team’.
Demons – Imagine Dragons
A simple pattern over our oh so beloved four-chord progression creates this atmospheric keyboard part.
Say Something - A Great Big World ft. Christina Aguilera.
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.
Sweater Weather - The Neighborhood.
Those of you that have been following me for a longer time know that I just love to play these guitar-riff based songs on the piano.
No piano in the original? Well let's just listen to what the other instruments do and use Chords and Patterns to translate those parts to our much beloved keyboard, creating a piano part ourselves!
Burn - Ellie Goulding.
An (overly?) produced super-hit that in fact turned out to hold a really (really!) nice piano-part.
When I started to listen what chords this song was built of and make my own piano version out of them by copying some of the synths from the original, I was happily surprised with the beauty of the actual song that came out. Of course, it had already occurred to me that this song had something special when I heard it one of the million-and-some times on the radio wherever I go lately, but translating such a heavily electronic song into an acoustic piano part always does something special to reveal the bare-naked niceness (when it's there) of a tune, doesn't it?
Have a little faith in me - John Hiatt.
Pop-Piano at it's finest.
Apart from the stunning and heartfelt vocal performance of mister Hiatt on this track, this is one of the greatest examples of just how simple a piano-riff can be to create an atmosphere to melt even the coldest of ices.
In this lesson of course I'll also explain it's 'origin' - the chords and pattern that the riff are built of - in detail so you'll both understand- and be able to reproduce it in many other ways, just like -as you'll also see later in the tutorial- John does himself later on in the song.
