Your left hand is the bass player.
When you play alone, your right hand has the chords. Your left hand plays the lowest note, the way the bass does in a band.
So if you want to know what your left hand should be doing, steal from bass players. They do this all the time. Playing bass, that is.
What they play most is two notes.
Grab four chords in your right hand, somewhere around the middle of the keyboard:
- C (c, e, g)
- G (g, b, d)
- Am (a, c, e)
- F (f, a, c)
1. The root
Give your left hand one note per chord: the note the chord is named after. A c under the C chord, a g under the G, an a under the A minor, an f under the F. For now, let’s play it two octaves below your chords.
Play the four chords like that. Much fuller already.
You can get awfully far with just the root. But let’s see how we can take this to the next level.
2. The fifth
The other note bass players play most is the fifth. Count up five note names from the root: c, d, e, f, g. For C the fifth is g. For G it’s d, for A minor it’s e, for F it’s c.
On the piano it’s one grip: pinky on the root, thumb on the fifth. It’s your right-hand chord mirrored, with the middle note left out. And it’s the same distance everywhere, which settles the black keys: a white root gets a white fifth, a black root gets a black fifth, so F-sharp’s fifth is c-sharp. (Two exceptions: B, whose fifth is f-sharp, and B-flat, whose fifth is f.)
It’s also the same for major and minor. C and C minor, F-sharp and F-sharp minor: identical. With these two notes, your left hand doesn’t have to know which one it is.
Play the four chords with the root and the fifth under them. Then split the two notes up. Count four, one bar per chord. Right hand: the chord on one, and let it ring. Left hand: root on one, fifth on two, root on three, fifth on four. You don’t have to play the two notes together just because they belong together.
3. Octaves
Now add the root again, an octave up. Pinky on the low root, thumb on the high one, and see how the fifth now sits right under your index finger. Every octave is the same distance apart, so once that shape sits in your hand, you have it everywhere on the keyboard.
Your left hand now holds three notes: low root, fifth, high root. With just those three you can do tons of things. Play them up: low root on one, fifth on two, high root on three, fifth on four. Play them down: start on the high root. Or bounce between the two roots: low on one and three, high on two and four.
But not all of it all the time. Build the left hand with the song. A verse can take one bass note per chord, the root. Add the fifth once the chords have come around a couple of times. When the chorus comes, go to octaves. That’s where you want the body. More bass notes mean more heaviness, so keep your ears open.
4. The half step below
A good trick for the left hand, and a simple one. At a chord change, right before you land on the next bass note, play the note a half step below it: the very next key down. In the root-fifth-root-fifth pattern, that’s beat four of the bar before the change, instead of the fifth.
On your four chords: from C to G, play f-sharp, then g. From G to A minor, g-sharp, then a. From A minor to F, e, then f (the e right under that f). From F back to C, b, then c.
Two of those, f-sharp and g-sharp, aren’t in the key of C, the seven white notes your four chords are made of. You’re stepping a little outside the key for one note, which is cool. It can work for any chord, in any rhythm. If you want more, walk to the next bass note through every key in between, black keys included, from two or three keys below or above (to g from below: e, f, f-sharp, g). But beware, stretch it too long and it starts sounding off.
That’s the beginning of a walking left hand.
One more thing, and it isn’t about the notes
The bass isn’t only there for the deep tones and the body. In pop music the bass belongs to the rhythm section, together with the drums. So the moment your left hand takes over the bass, it also takes on a rhythm job: which beats you put those notes on is a big part of the groove.
You’ve played one rhythm already: root on one, fifth on two, root on three, fifth on four. Now play only the root on one and the fifth on four, and let the root ring through two and three. Same two notes, different beats, and it’s a totally different groove.
Take that into a song you know the chords of. Roots in the verse, octaves in the chorus, the half step at the changes. The more you have under your belt, the more you can choose to leave out.
Talk soon,
— Coen
