As you’ve probably seen in one or more of my video’s -or any of the many other tutorials found on youtube- not all songs that are explained and played on the piano, are songs that are originally played on (just) a piano.

Now, how is it possible to play a song that has no piano in it, on a piano? How can one make a song that is filled with guitars, synthesizers and beats, sound so good on just a piano?

Read on, and that's exactly what you'll find out.

In this lesson I’ll begin teaching you the basics of how to translate different instrumental parts of a song, that –as you know- together form the total ‘harmony’-part of a song, to the piano. In other words: I’ll start learning you how make your own ‘piano-version’ of any song in the world. Nice? Nice.

 

Let’s start with a minor refreshment / summary of the theoretical basics needed to master this skill.

 

Harmony and melody; the ‘construction’ of music.

 

A song consists of a ‘melody’-part: in pop-music mostly the “melodic phrases that are sung by the vocalist" and a ‘harmony’-part: basically “that what is played by the instruments” (chords), supported by- or ‘played in-‘ a certain ‘rhythm’ (patterns).

Add –optional- lyrics and there you have it: all the ingredients to your song,

 

Harmony+melody+rhythm(+lyrics) = song.

 

Let’s brake this down a little further.

As I’ve indicated many times, ‘harmony’ is the ‘carpet’ that is being formed by playing / hearing more than one note at the same time. We as pianists can provide a full harmony to a song all by ourselves, because we can -obviously- play more then one note at a time, for instance by playing a chord.

 

Now, as all of you course-followers know, the very first step of actually ‘adding’ a harmony to a melody is by playing a bass note or bass line (the succession of bass notes) ‘supporting’ the melody.

By doing this, not just the single-note melody sounds, but together with these bass notes, more than one note at a time is being played and thus an actual harmony is being formed.

Bass + melody = 2 notes (i.e. more than 1 note) heard at the same time: harmony. Capish?

 

Now as a bass note is added to a melody note and hereby starts to form a harmony, also the other notes from that harmony (chord), that lie ‘in between’ the bass note and the melody note, but are not yet actually played, are ‘implied’.

In other words, once a bass note is added, this means an actual harmony (or 'chord') is added and thus all the other notes belonging to that chord (harmony) are implied in the sound, meaning our musical brain actually 'hears' them, even though they are not actually played (yet) and these notes actually become optional for you to use. Hold your horses, I know this still might sound a little vague.

An example. Let’s take a look at the next picture:

 

 

Let’s say that in a certain song, the above situation occurs, where at some point the melody note is ‘e’ (yellow) while the bass note ‘c’ (red) sounds at the same time.

 

Defining your options: Start with the bass.

 

The bass note ‘c’ tells us the root of the harmony (chord) is ‘c’. This actually tells us the harmony or chord at that moment is actually some form of C chord.

Since the melody note is an ‘e’, which happens to be the ‘3’ of the C chord, in this situation, the two ‘vital’ notes for defining a chord (the root and the third) are being played at the same time. (The root defines 'what chord' were dealing with; the 3rd defines whether the chord is Major or Minor).

These two notes are thus enough to state that the harmony at this point is in fact C (Major).

Knowing this, opens doors to many options for those who know their chords and inversions.

Take a look at the next picture.

 

 

This picture indicates the same situation as the previous one, but now all the notes (blue) that are not yet actually played at this time, but that arise as OPTIONAL extra notes from the fact of the harmony being 'C', are shown as well.

If you indeed know your chords and inversions, you can see that all the blue notes indicated on the picutre, are actually just a C chord, inverted all the way up to the melody note.

As you know, “the harmony being C” means the same thing as “a C chord is being played”.

As you also know, a C chord means the notes ‘c’, ‘e’ and ‘g’ together, but in undefined quantity and -order.

This means that when -like in this case- the harmony is C: all the ‘c’’s, ‘e’’s and ‘g’’s on the piano become optional extra notes for you (or any instrumentalist / songwriter) to choose from and add to your playing, to your own taste!

Want to know an interesting extra fact?
These are also the notes 'professional' players / songwriters chose from when building, or 'harmonizing' (adding harmony to) their song / instrumental part.

 

So by defining (or adding) the bass note, you define the harmony. All the ‘in-between-notes’ that are part of the chord, are notes that you can choose from and use to ‘fill in’ the harmony and create your own 'piano part'.

Since all (instrumental / melodic) parts of a song are derived from the harmony, knowing these options (that again: professionals have also used to form the original instrumental parts on a recording) greatly narrows down the notes to 'choose' from, when either building your own piano-part, or copying an instrumental part to translate to your piano.

Vague? But interesting, right? Read and learn on here, where I dive in even further. And please don't forget to leave a comment below!