Chords for Piano Lessons for Beginners: Part 4 - What About the Left Hand?

Hey guys, welcome back to the fourth installment in the beginning piano series
In the Mangle Project YouTube channel.
So far we've looked at a few different chords
that you can play in the right hand and
I've shown you also a few ways to spice up your playing.
So we've seen [C] chords like C [Em] major
[Am] E minor
A [Fm] minor
F minor and so on.
I mean I think by now we have nine different chords under our belt and
The point of this entire series is to give you sort of practical tips not to
Maybe focus too much on the [C] theory or maybe to sort of alternate between them
The idea being that you don't really have to understand the theory to be able to play
nicely
_ Now today what we're going to do is we're going to focus on the left hand
The left hand is going to_
so far it's been playing the bass note for each chord and
For C major chord, this would be a C.
[Am] Then for an A minor chord
My cat wants to join in as well.
For an A minor chord, this would be an A
For [Fm] an F minor chord, this would be an F and so [C] on.
Really what I'm going to show you today is that you can tell a story not just with your right hand
But also with your left hand.
So we're going to start out by playing a chord progression and the chord progression will be
C major
[Em] E [Am] minor
A minor
[C] _
C major
[F] _ F major
[C] C [Dm] major
D minor
[G] G major.
For the second half of the progression [C] we'll play
C [Em] major
E [Am] minor
A minor
[A] _
A major
[Dm] D [Fm] minor
F minor
[C] _
C major.
Now we've encountered all of these chords [F#] and
If you don't remember how to play them go back to the first lesson and the third lesson and there it's really laid out
fairly simply.
Now in the right hand
what we're going to do is we're going to play a
Baseline, but this baseline isn't really going to be just the roots of the chords
we're going to play the following bass notes and the rule is that we can play any note and
Which makes up the chord.
That's that's an allowable bass note.
So [C] for example, if you're playing a C major
Chord, it's made out of the notes C E and G
So so far we've been playing the C as the bass, but you can also play an E or a G
_ All three are fine.
So here are the notes we're going to play
_ C
for the C major [Em] chord
B for the E minor chord
[Am] A for the A minor chord
[C] _
G for the C major chord.
Now for the first C major chord we played a C, but now we're playing a G
[F] then
F for the F major chord
[C] _ E for the C major chord
_ [Dm] D for the D minor [G] chord
G for the G major chord and then in [C] the second half
_ C for the [Em] C major chord
B for the E minor [Am] chord
A for the A minor [A] chord
C sharp for the A major chord [Dm] and then
We're going to start with a D for the D minor chord
[E] I'm going to play [Dm] so we're going to play a D and [E] then D E and then I'm going to climb up
[Fm] playing D
[G#] G [A#] A
flat B flat for the F minor [C] chord and
End up with the C for the C major chord, which ends this progression
Put together and playing a double bass in the left hand
Although you can play just the one note if you feel more comfortable with it
At least when you're starting out
Now _ _ [Bm] _ [Am] _ _ [C] _
[F] _ _ [C] _ _ [Dm] _ _ [G] _ _
[C] _ _ [Em] _ _ [Am] _ _ _ [Dm] _
_ _ [F] _ [C] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ the interesting thing about this
Bassline is that it tells a story the notes aren't just sort of following the names of the chords completely
But they have a very logical motion to them
You go if I'll just play the bass
[B] C B
[A] A
[G] G [F] F
[E] B [D] D
[G] and then G [C] and then C [B] B A
[A] _ [C#] C sharp D D [G] E F G A flat [C] B flat
C _ _ _
Now all of these bass notes are permissible in the sense that each and every one of them is
A note in the chords which it accompanies
_ but the idea is that
There was thought put into it
It was thought put into it in the sense [E] that we've chosen
The particular notes that tell a story that have a melody of their own
They don't just jump around from one root to the other root
So from you know from F for F major to C for C major to A for A minor
to F for F minor
To A for A major and so on they actually have motion and this really introduces
more interesting
Dynamics into your playing.
_ _ So that's it for now.
I hope you've learned an interesting new concept and
I challenge you to take any chord progression for a song you like and try to come up with these interesting bass
motions and lines for yourself
That's it.