In the previous lesson I started telling you a bit about harmonizing a melody. A skill you can either use to build your very own, unique piano part for a song, or to easily find out what specific instruments are playing on an original recording, for you to copy those parts to the piano.

This lesson I’ll dive a little further into this subject by ‘undressing’ the song ‘Billy Jean’ by Michael Jackson and building it back up step by step to create our very own, full piano version!

 

Need a quick summary / refresh from the last lesson? I’ll try and keep it as short as possible (don’t get it? read the previous lesson here. Don’t think you need it? Skip this part.).

 

A song consists of a melody, a harmony, a rhythm and (optional) a lyric.

 

We as pop-pianists are mainly responsible for providing the harmony and the rhythm, for in most pop music the melody (and lyric) is usually sung, but we are of course also capable of playing melodies (often melodic phrases, or riffs, that are used to ‘color’, ‘flavor’ or ‘spice up’ our piano parts), and even of playing a melody and harmony at the same time.

A harmony, or chord is formed when more then one note at a time is played (heard).

Even only two notes can thus be enough to define a harmony or chord. In last weeks example, we saw that the melody (highest) note ‘e’, played together with a bass (lowest) note ‘c’ is enough to state that at that point the harmony (chord) is C.

 

The bass defines the chord.

 

All the notes that lay ‘in between’ the bass note and the melody / top note and that are part of the harmony, can be used to ‘fill in’ the harmony. In other words, can be chosen from to create an instrumental / harmony part.

In last week’s example this meant that all ‘c’, ‘e’ and ‘g’-notes on the keyboard, i.e. all the notes that are part of the chord C, that were in between the bass note ‘c’ and the top note ‘e’ could at that point be used to create an instrumental / harmony part.

The above can be used to create your own piano part, BUT this is also the ‘way of thinking’ of all professional musicians.

This actually means that thinking like this, puts you in the mind of the instrumentalist you are trying to copy, when trying to play a certain original song (say… Billy Jean?).

Thinking like this, and knowing the options that the original instrumentalist chose from, greatly decreases the number of ‘optional notes’ when figuring out what he or she played. Right? Great!

 

In the next 'Billy Jean' lesson, we’ll see that next to these ‘notes that belong to the chord’ also ‘notes of the key of the song’ or ‘chord extensions (actually almost the same thing and often found inside this key)’ can be added to our ‘arsenal of options’.

 

Billy’s Jeans, let’s take ‘em off.

 

You all know this song. If not, shame on you. Look it up on youtube; or even better: BUY the album it’s on, ‘Thriller’, one of the best albums in pop-music history.

Let’s dive in!

First let’s look at the most basic form of the song: just the single note melody part.

 

[KGVID width="640" height="360"]http://www.piano-couture.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Billy-alleen-mel.mov[/KGVID]
To clarify what part of the song I’m referring to, you first see hear me play Michael’s vocal melody, which (as we are playing an instrument, and not a voice) we’ll disregard later on. Next to that you see and hear me play the first phrase of instrumental melody (riff) also referred to as ‘top notes’ of that phrase: ‘f#’, ‘g#’ and ‘a’.

 

Ok, so as I told you the stage of harmonizing (i.e. creating a piano part): add a bass note to this melody. Before watching the next video, first try to find one yourself if you dare. As you play the above melody, try to find a bass note that you think sounds nice with it.

Finding a bass note you like by yourself could very well be the best exercise for learning how to make piano parts and figuring out songs yourself, so at least give it a shot!

 

[FMP width="640" height="360"]http://www.piano-couture.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Billy-plus-bass.mov[/FMP]

 

In this case, as it is with many pop-songs, that bass note -the root note of the first harmony- is also the root of the key of the song F#m.

Now, I’m not saying this always is the case, but it happens a lot.

Figuring out the harmony of a song can be done in many different ways but getting more into detail about this subject or explaining even a little more would become an entire lesson in itself, so I’ll owe you that one for the near future. (any questions regarding this matter are more than welcome in the comments below!). You could of course also try our course. It’s all in there.

For now, be happy with me telling you that the key of this song is F#m.

 

 

The instrumental melody of the top note, walking from ‘f#’ to ‘g#’ and then to ‘a’ tells us that with a ‘f#’ as root note, the harmony could very well be some kind of ‘F#’ chord. But, minor or major? Well, staying within the key of the song, the ‘a’ tells us that it is in fact F#m, which is the minor third of the F#m chord. (F# would have had an ‘a#’ as the third).

 

Take a look at the next video.

 

[FMP width="640" height="360"]http://www.piano-couture.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Billy-harmony.mov[/FMP]

 

The first bit of ‘adding harmony’, as I show you how to build a simple chord underneath every one of the three top notes. As you see the first chord that arises from both the bass note (root) being ‘f#’ and the top note being ‘f#’ is the chord F#m.

A very simple way of harmonizing the next two top notes (but the exact way they are harmonized in the original recording), is to look at what those top notes do and do the same thing with their underlying harmony.

Now we could just keep playing the chord F#m, as is shown, with the melody going from ‘f#’ to ‘a’ and back, but in the actual song, although the bass stays on ‘f#’ (keeping the harmony on some kind of ‘f#’ chord), something a bit more interesting happens as the right hand provides a smooth change in harmony by harmonizing the top notes by itself.

As you can see in the last video, although the left hand keeps playing a ‘f#’, the right hand changes to the chords G# and A, while the left hand stays on the ‘f#’ creating some fine slash chords: G#/F# and A#/F.

As you look at the harmonization played by the right hand, you can see that all the notes in the chord actually just follow the top note: all notes ‘hopping up’ one note over the notes of the key of the song F#m, when the top note also does this.

 

[FMP width="640" height="360"]http://www.piano-couture.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/BILLY-harmony-added.mov[/FMP]

 

Note this very important remark: Doing this requires you to pick an inversion / voicing, that has the melody note / top note ON TOP, which is exactly what happens here.

The first real change in harmony (as the bass note actually changes for the first time) is Bm, played in a voicing where with top note ‘f#’. Root position. Easy.

 

Then it’s time to add the juice into this song: the bass line. Take a look at it and try to learn it, so that next lesson we can dive even further as I'll treat you with the rest of the whole, full tutorial!

 

[FMP width="640" height="360"]http://www.piano-couture.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Billy-Jean-bass-line.mov[/FMP]

 

For now: take care and happy playing!

 

Questions? Remarks? Please leave a comment below!

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