Free music lessons

247 free video lessons by Jason Zac, each with a written lesson, key points and answers to common questions. Piano, music theory, rhythm and more, from Nathaniel School of Music in Bangalore.

Piano

• 10 Instant Melody-Writing Strategies for Pianists and ProducersTo write a melody quickly, Jason Zac suggests starting from at least two chords, using chord tones and landing notes on strong beats, building rhythm first, displacing beats, using the pentatonic or a smaller subset scale, singing and transcribing, turning practice patterns into tunes, and borrowing ideas from favourite songs.
• 10 Rhythm Patterns That Make Chord Inversions EasyTo make chord inversions musical, play the root position, first inversion and second inversion of a triad such as Bb major or C major through real rhythm patterns like block chords, oom-pah, waltz, broken chords, arpeggios, the tresillo, the Charleston, dual-speed arpeggios and floating inversions.
• 10 Types of Cadences Explained: Theory, Ear Training and PianoA cadence is a short chord progression of two to four chords, such as V–I (authentic), IV–I (plagal), V–vi (deceptive) or i–bVII–bVI–V (Andalusian), used to end, extend or redirect a musical phrase.
• 12 Bar Blues Piano for Beginners (Sing and Play Along)The 12 bar blues uses only the I, IV and V major chords (C, F and G in the key of C), arranged in three four-bar lines: I-I-I-I, IV-IV-I-I and V-IV-I-I, with optional IV in bar 2 and a V turnaround in the final bar.
• 15 of the Most Popular Chord Progressions on Piano (Major, Minor and Modal)Popular piano chord progressions in the key of F include I–vi–IV–V (F Dm Bb C), I–V–vi–IV and its rotations, ii–V–I, the minor i–bVII–v–bVI, the Andalusian i–bVII–bVI–V, the Dorian i–bIII–bVII–IV, the Mixolydian bVII–IV–I, the 12-bar blues, the Canon progression and the line cliché.
• 2 Flamenco Piano Patterns Using the Spanish CadenceYou can play flamenco on the piano over the Andalusian cadence (Dm, C, Bb, A) using two patterns: a syncopated rhythm with a legato root-and-fifth left hand under right-hand chord hits, and a guitar-style pattern where the right hand cycles through flam, block, single and broken-chord articulations.
• 3 Beautiful Piano Arpeggio Patterns (for Any Genre)Three go-to piano arpeggio patterns are low-middle-high-middle (LMHM), high-middle-low-middle (HMLM) and high-low-middle-low (HLML), played as eighth notes in the right hand over close chord inversions while the left hand plays the root of each chord.
• 3 Easy Ways to Make Your Piano Arpeggios Sound ProTo make piano arpeggios sound professional, shape the volume with dynamics guided by your breathing and the singer, use the sustain pedal while lifting it just before each chord change, and accent the notes that fall on the snare drum beats, usually beats 2 and 4.
• 3 Go-To Left-Hand Piano Patterns Every Player NeedsThree dependable left-hand piano patterns cover most genres: the umpah (root-fifth bass with a staccato chord), the four-note arpeggio (low, high, middle, high), and the power chord (root, fifth and octave) played in different rock rhythms.
• 3 Indian Folk Rhythm Patterns Every Pianist Should KnowTo play Indian folk rhythms on piano, treat it like a drum: keep root notes in the left hand and chords in the right, then build grooves with percussive chords, spread arpeggios and a 3 against 2 polyrhythm, all while following the chord changes.
• 3 Old-School Country Piano Rhythms for Easy AccompanimentOld-school country piano accompaniment uses I, IV and V chords, with the left hand alternating root and fifth while the right hand plays the chords in a waltz, two-beat or swung Western swing pattern.
• 3 Piano Rhythm Techniques That Make Your Chords GrooveThe 3-3-2 piano rhythm groups eight eighth notes in a bar as 3+3+2, placing the hits on beat 1, the 'and' of beat 2 and beat 4, and you can play it as single chord hits, as accents within continuous eighth notes, or as arpeggios.
• 4 Left-Hand Piano Chord Patterns for Beginners (Accompany Any Melody)To accompany a melody on piano, learn the tonic, subdominant and dominant chords of a major scale (in G major: G B D, G C E and F# C D) and play them in the left hand using four patterns: arpeggio, oompa, waltz and salsa.
• 4 Modern Pop Piano Arpeggio Patterns From Just One Chord (Both Hands)Jason Zac's method uses one two-hand Eb arpeggio shape (Eb, Eb, G, Eb) played over the 3-3-2 tresillo rhythm, then varies it by floating a middle note through the scale, using close thirds, using spread thirds and moving the bass, so a pop ballad sounds harmonically rich without a written chord progression.
• 5 Beautiful Piano Chord Fills to End Any Rhythm PatternFive simple piano chord fills you can play at the end of a bar or cycle are inversion switching, chord-tone arpeggios on the same hand shape, added notes such as add 2, add 4 and add 6, diatonic neighbouring thirds around the chord's third, and octave melodies that land on a chord tone of the next chord.
• 5 Comping Piano Rhythm Patterns for Any SituationFive versatile piano comping patterns are oompa, waltz, swung reggae, tresillo and an Indian triplet groove: in each, the left hand toggles between chord root and fifth while the right hand places the chord on specific rhythmic hit points.
• 5 Fancy Piano Chord Hacks to Transform a Simple TriadYou can make a plain major or minor triad sound far richer on piano by rolling it like a guitar strum, hammering on from the 2nd to the 3rd, adding double grace notes, using spread, fifth or cluster pop voicings, and slipping in a plagal IV chord over the same bass note.
• 5 Finger Piano Exercises for Beginners That Sound BeautifulPlace your right thumb on C and your pinky on G. Then play four drills: up and down, in thirds, in triplet groups and in two-note pairs, all over a steady left-hand pulse. Next, change the second, third and fourth notes to turn the same drills into minor, dreamy or flamenco-like music.
• 5 Left-Hand Ballad Arpeggio Patterns for Beautiful Solo PianoFive left-hand ballad arpeggio patterns are low-high-middle-high (LHMH), LHMH with octave displacement, a fifth-plus-off-beat combo, a spread (open) voicing and an extended octave arpeggio, all practised over a chromatic E major progression beneath a fixed right-hand melody.
• 5 of the Best Left-Hand Piano Accompaniment PatternsFive left-hand piano accompaniment patterns that make simple chords sound professional are spread voicings with the third added, a root-and-fifth toggle, the LHMH magic arpeggio, a tresillo dance groove, and a pedalled deep bass with the chord played higher.
• 5 Piano Accompaniment Styles for Christmas Songs and CarolsTo accompany most Christmas songs on piano, learn five chord-pattern styles: a 4/4 ballad pattern with an eighth-note ghost in the left hand, 3/4 waltz patterns, a swaying 6/8 feel, oom-pah and tresillo grooves, and a swung blues and rock 'n' roll style with blues-scale licks.
• 5 Piano Accompaniment Techniques for Beginners (Singers and Producers)Five easy ways to accompany a voice on the piano are fifth chords over a moving bass, simple broken-chord arpeggios, ballad ratios between the hands, syncopated left-right patterns that copy the drums, and harmonising the melody's landing notes with chords that contain them.
• 5 Piano Chord Voicings That Instantly Sound Richer: Spread, Slash, Add9, 7ths and QuartalTo make simple piano chords sound richer, take a progression like G–Em–Am–D and replay it with spread (open) voicings, slash chords, stacked-fifth add9 shapes, 1-5 plus 3-7 seventh voicings, or quartal chords built in fourths.
• 5 Pieces of Piano Advice to Level Up Your PlayingTo level up on piano, automate your left-hand patterns, study dance rhythms and subdivisions, learn the 12-bar blues, balance theory, ear training and technique, and practise with purpose by tackling new material and playing with others.
• 5 Rock and Pop Piano Melodies to Train Both HandsTo build hand independence on piano, drill a rock arpeggio pattern in the left hand over Em, Bm, C and D (first as power chords, then as spread 1-5-10 voicings) until it runs on autopilot, then sing and add pop melodies in the right hand one small section at a time.
• 5 Simple Ways to Make Your Chords Colourful Without ExtensionsYou can make simple major and minor triads sound colourful on piano, without sevenths or jazz extensions, by using five voicing techniques: static fifth chords, add2 and add4 chords, slash chords, spread voicings, and quartal or quintal voicings.
• 5 Things You Didn't Know About the Harmonic Minor ScaleThe harmonic minor scale (root, 2, b3, 4, 5, b6, natural 7) gives you a minor or major VI chord, many dominant colours such as 7b9, 7#5 and 7sus4, borrowed chords when mixed with natural minor, colourful or mysterious extensions, and four interchangeable diminished seventh chords, all usable for composing on piano.
• 5 Useful Exercises to Practise a Chord With an Extra Note on PianoAdding a copy of one triad note, usually the octave of the lowest note, turns a three-note chord into a four-note shape that you can use for 6/8 arpeggios, salsa montunos, one-hand melody-and-chord playing, a left-hand banjo roll and blues grooves.
• 5 Ways to Make Your Piano Arpeggios Sound Melodic and SoulfulYou can make a piano arpeggio sound melodic by focusing on its top note and then copying the bottom note to the top, floating the top note through the scale, accenting a 3-3-2 rhythm, adding a colour note such as the 2, and floating diatonic thirds over a held root.
• 6 Common Piano Mistakes (and How I Fix Them)Six common piano mistakes are avoiding the thumb on black keys, ignoring the sustain pedal, relying on left-hand fifths, playing chords only in root position, practising in one key, and avoiding reading; you fix them with a curved thumb, pedal use, spread voicings, inversions, multi-key practice and rhythm reading or sight singing.
• 6 Famous Songs That Use the Spanish (Andalusian) CadenceThe Andalusian cadence (i–bVII–bVI–V, in D minor Dm–C–Bb–A) can be played on piano with the rhythm patterns of songs like Feeling Good, House of the Rising Sun, Believer, Who Is It, Walk Don't Run and The Ketchup Song, then reused over other progressions.
• 8 Proven Strategies to Master Piano Hand IndependenceTo build piano hand independence, keep a steady left-hand pulse in quarter notes, minims and semibreves, then sing the melody, break it into fragments, notate both hands together, practise in five-minute blocks and test yourself with a metronome.
• A Simple Method to Play Folk Music on Piano (5 Accompaniment Techniques)To play folk-style piano accompaniment, hold a static fifth chord (root, fifth, octave, such as D A D) in the right hand while the left hand plays the chord roots and diatonic thirds of the scale, then apply ballad, rock, country, pop or Indian triplet rhythms.
• A Unique Piano Arpeggio Pattern Using Just 2 NotesHold the root of a fifth chord with your left-hand pinky and play the fifth with your thumb on every offbeat quaver, with the sustain pedal down, to get a two-note accompaniment that works under almost any melody.
• Amazing Grace Piano Tutorial: Spread Voicing Chords and Melody (Solo Arrangement)To play Amazing Grace as a solo piano arrangement, play each chord low in the left hand as a three-note spread voicing (root, fifth and the third an octave higher, a tenth above the root) in F major and 3/4 time, so the right hand is free to play and embellish the melody.
• Bass Line + Melody in Thirds: Build Serious Piano Hand IndependenceTo build piano hand independence, keep one right-hand melody in thirds constant in F minor while the left hand changes between a syncopated bass riff, a 3/4 pulse of spread chords and a dotted-quaver pattern, practising each combination slowly against a steady pulse.
• Beginner Left-Hand Piano Workout for Melodic Independence (Part 1)To build hand independence on the piano, keep a melody in your right hand while your left hand plays steady root-and-octave rhythm patterns: a simple pulse, a toggling pulse, a disco pulse, the We Will Rock You rhythm and the Afro-Cuban tresillo.
• Beginner Piano Exercises That Actually Sound NiceThree musical beginner piano exercises from Jason Zac: repeat E G# A B over changing left-hand bass notes, improvise grooves on the E minor pentatonic over a steady pulse, and pair each note of the Ab major scale with the diatonic third below it in the left hand.
• Beginner's Guide to Chord Inversions: Step-by-Step Piano LessonTo learn chord inversions on piano, play the I vi IV V progression (G, Em, C, D in G major) in the right hand, keeping common notes in place and sliding only the notes that change, while the left hand always plays the root of each chord.
• Blackbird Piano Tutorial (The Beatles): Learn Every Section, Note for NoteTo play Blackbird on piano, keep the G just below middle C ringing as a constant middle note in G major while chords change above and below it, using simple eighth notes when chords change quickly and a busier Travis-style sixteenth-note pattern when a chord lasts a full bar.
• Bring Piano Chords to Life With Ghost Notes and Swing (Double-Thumb Trick)To make piano chords groove, feel each beat divided into swung eighths or triplets, then bring that subdivision out with broken chords and arpeggios in the right hand, soft root, octave and fifth ghost notes in the left hand, and both thumbs working together.
• Build Cinematic Piano Chord Progressions Using Intervals and the Circle of FifthsYou can create cinematic piano progressions by moving major or minor triads by a fixed interval: perfect fifths and fourths around the Circle of Fifths give strong cadences, while repeated minor thirds (diminished seventh roots) or major thirds (augmented triad roots) give mysterious, movie-like chord changes.
• Build Long, Emotional Piano Progressions With the Circle of Fifths (Cadences Explained)You can build long, emotional piano chord progressions by moving around the Circle of Fifths one cadence at a time, chaining perfect (V–I) and plagal (IV–I) cadences and adding minor chords for colour, before finally resolving back to your home key.
• Build Piano Finger Independence With This Rhythm Exercise (Fsus4 Drill)To build finger independence and syncopation on piano, play an Fsus4 arpeggio (F, Bb, C) in 16-note cycles accented in groups of 5, 5 and 6 against a steady metronome, then add thumb and little-finger variations and finally left-hand quarter notes.
• Chord Climbing on Piano: Add Tension With Slash Chords, Resolve With the Circle of FifthsChord climbing moves a progression up a whole tone scale (C, D, E, F#, Ab, Bb, C) and inserts the dominant of each target chord as a slash chord with its third in the bass, such as A/C# before D, so the bass line climbs chromatically through tension and resolution.
• Chord Progressions on Piano: Write Epic Ones with the Circle of FifthsTo write an epic chord progression with the Circle of Fifths, pick a tonal centre such as C, step a few positions away from it on the flat side (for example to Ab), then play major chords moving up in fifths back home: Ab, Eb, Bb, F, C, a chain of plagal (IV–I) movements.
• Chord Substitutions and Jazz Tensions for Minor Chord Progressions (Piano)In a D minor progression you can colour the pre-dominant G minor chord by swapping it for E diminished, combining them into Gm6 or Em7b5, adding 7th, 9th and 11th tensions, or substituting Bbmaj7, Bb7 or a secondary dominant E7 (with b9 or #9) before resolving through A to D minor.
• Chord Trees: Build Any Chord From Any Root on PianoAny single note belongs to exactly six major and minor triads: as the root of a major and a minor chord, the fifth of a major and a minor chord, the major third of one major chord and the minor third of one minor chord. For C these are C, Cm, F, Fm, Ab and Am.
• Conquer Piano Hand Independence and Sharpen Your Rhythm (Part 2)To build piano hand independence, keep a steady pulse in one hand while the other hand plays the first five notes of C minor in dotted eighth notes, quarter note triplets or eighth notes accented in threes, then swap hands.
• Country Piano Walk-Ups & Walk-Downs: Stepwise Fills With Grace and Ghost NotesCountry piano walk-ups and walk-downs connect the I, IV and V chords with stepwise scale notes in the bass, harmonised by diatonic thirds and a held anchor note (the root or fifth of the scale) in the right hand, often in a 3/4 waltz feel.
• Ear Training: How to Detect the Notes in a Chord (Piano)To detect the notes in a chord, play the chord (for example G major: G B D) and hum each note one by one, then play only the root and fifth and imagine the third, and finally play just the root and hum the rest of the chord.
• Essential Waltz Piano Accompaniment Tools (3/4 Rhythm Patterns)To accompany a waltz on piano, play a left-hand root, fifth and octave on beats one, two and three, then upgrade to full chords, broken low-middle-high arpeggios and eighth-note rhythm patterns while embellishing the melody with stacked notes and grace notes.
• Every Chord Formula, Every Inversion, Every Speed Level: One Triad WorkoutTo build chord fluency on piano, harmonise F major and F harmonic minor into seven triads each, then play every chord in root position, first inversion and second inversion as block chords up and down the scale, changing chords every bar, every two beats and finally every beat.
• Every Minor Scale on Piano and the Emotion It Unlocks: Natural, Harmonic, Melodic and MoreEvery minor scale keeps a flat 3 (minor third) with a normal 4 and 5, and the four main minor scales differ only in their 6th and 7th: natural minor has b6 and b7, harmonic minor b6 and major 7, melodic minor major 6 and major 7, and Dorian major 6 and b7.
• Explore the Y-Axis of Music With All Intervals and Scales Using a Simple Chord ProgressionThe pendulum scale drill trains you to move both above and below the root (one, two, three and four steps each way from F), then harmonise the right-hand pattern with a left-hand tonic, predominant and dominant chord in major, minor and modal scales.
• Folk & Bluegrass Piano Arpeggios With Melody (Banjo-Style)To make a piano arpeggio sound folk or bluegrass, play the chord as straight eighth notes in the left hand while the right hand adds scale notes on the sixteenth-note e and a of the beat, the spots the left hand leaves empty.
• Groovy Latin Piano Over the 2-5-1 Jazz Progression (16th-Note Pattern)To play a Latin groove over a 2-5-1, voice Am7, D7 and Gmaj7 with the root and fifth in the left hand and the 3rd and 7th in the right hand, then let the left hand keep a steady pulse while the right hand plays a syncopated 16th-note pattern.
• Groovy Piano Arpeggios Using Latin Rhythms (Tresillo, Son, Rumba and Bossa)To make piano arpeggios groove, play the chord notes only on the hit points of Afro-Cuban rhythms such as the tresillo, son clave, rumba clave and bossa clave, counted in sixteenth notes, while your left hand holds the root on a steady pulse.
• Guitar-Style Piano Accompaniment: Syncopated Block Chords and Ghost NotesTo make piano accompaniment sound like a strumming guitarist, play the first chord of each bar on the downbeat and push the second chord early to the 'and' of beat 2, creating a 3 + 5 quaver syncopation, then add ghost notes, grace-note glides, imagined drum hits and short fillers.
• Half-Diminished vs Fully Diminished 7th Chords on PianoA half-diminished chord (m7b5) is a diminished triad plus a minor seventh, such as D F Ab C, and works best as the ii in a minor ii-V-i, while a fully diminished seventh chord is a stack of three minor thirds, such as D F Ab B, and behaves like an unstable dominant that can resolve to four major and four minor keys.
• How to Actually Play A Thousand Miles by Vanessa Carlton (Piano Tutorial)The A Thousand Miles piano intro sits in B major, with a recurring left-hand bass line of E, F#, D#, E under a right-hand riff built around a B octave, counted in semiquavers (one e and a) and played with sustain pedal changed at each chord.
• How to Actually Play Bohemian Rhapsody on Piano (Queen Tutorial)The Bohemian Rhapsody piano intro is built on a Bb major chord in second inversion (F Bb D) over a Bb octave bass, played by striking the top two notes, returning to the thumb on F, then crossing the left hand over to strike a high G octave, all held together with the sustain pedal.
• How to Actually Play Clocks on Piano (Coldplay Tutorial)Clocks by Coldplay is built on Eb major (G Bb Eb), Bb minor (F Bb Db) played twice, and F minor (F Ab C), with both hands playing each chord as a high-middle-low arpeggio grouped 3+3+2 and accented to create the song's syncopated feel.
• How to Actually Play Don't Stop Believin' on Piano (Journey Tutorial)The Don't Stop Believin' piano intro is in E major over the chords E, B, C#m and A (I-V-vi-IV), played as eighth-note broken chords in the right hand, with a walking bass line whose chord landings are anticipated on the off-beat.
• How to Actually Play Imagine on Piano (John Lennon Tutorial)The intro to John Lennon's Imagine is played low on the piano in C major, alternating C major and F major as broken chords in eighth notes, with an added B that turns C into Cmaj7 and a short chromatic lick (A, Bb, B) over the F chord.
• How to Arrange Any Song for Solo Piano (Beginner to Full Sound)To arrange a song for solo piano, start with a simple melody in steady time, add a chord progression and planned dynamics, then build the left hand from roots and octaves into stride and rhythmic grooves such as the toggle pulse, tresillo and son clave.
• How to Build Chords for Any Melody on Piano (Cadences and Music Theory)To harmonise any melody on piano, start by adding fifths and thirds under each melody note, then choose chords using cadences such as V–I, ii–V, V–vi and IV–I, and add colour with line cliché basses, secondary dominants, ii-V-I movements and chords borrowed from the parallel minor.
• How to Change Piano Chords Smoothly (5 Fixes for Fumbling Hands)To change piano chords smoothly, visualise the next chord while still playing the current one, keep common notes using inversions, practise the changes two chords at a time, understand each chord's function, and always shift on time even if you make a mistake.
• How to Choose the Correct Keyboard or Piano That Suits You BestTo choose the right keyboard, decide how many keys and what action you need, make sure it has touch response, then check polyphony, multi-timbrality, MIDI and computer connectivity before picking a portable keyboard, workstation, digital piano or MIDI controller.
• How to Compose a Better Piano Melody (Part 1)To build a better piano melody, take a simple idea, shape it into AAB phrases like a poem, give it rhythm through beat division (eighth notes, triplets, straight or swing), change a note or two in the repeats, and support it with bass roots and fifths such as D, B, G and A (I–vi–IV–V) in D major.
• How to Compose Epic Cinematic Piano Chord Progressions (5 Techniques)To write cinematic, movie-like chord progressions on piano, move chords symmetrically by minor or major thirds, add a minor sixth or tritone to a triad, link chords through a shared note (chord trees) and voice triads spread out in the bass.
• How to Compose Original Chord Progressions on Piano (Songwriting Theory)To compose original chord progressions, start with the diatonic triads of a major scale, then widen your vocabulary step by step with add chords and sevenths, slash chords, chords borrowed from parallel scales, and secondary dominants that point towards the next chord.
• How to Count 6/8 Time on Piano Using Arpeggios (Part 1)To feel 6/8 on piano, add the octave to a triad to make a four-note arpeggio, play it up and down so it cycles every six notes, and count those six either as two groups of three (a triplet feel) or as three groups of two (eighth notes in 3/4).
• How to Count and Feel 6/8 Time on Piano Using Arpeggios (Part 2)To make 6/8 arpeggios sound unique on piano, group the six sub-beats unevenly, as 2+4 for a busy feel or 4+2 for a lazy feel, extend to a 12-beat cycle grouped 5+4+3, and weave a non-chord tone such as E into a D minor arpeggio.
• How to Create a Blues Solo on Piano (Scales and Phrasing)To create a blues solo on piano, form the major blues scale (major pentatonic plus the minor third) or the minor blues scale (minor pentatonic plus the tritone), then build a short, singable motif from it and play it, and smaller pieces of it, over the 12-bar blues.
• How to Creatively Practise Finger Crossovers for Piano Scales (The Pendulum)The Pendulum is a piano exercise where your thumb anchors on the root of a scale and your fingers swing one, two, three, then four notes above and below it, training thumb-under and finger-over crossovers while teaching you to hear the scale on both sides of the root.
• How to Creatively Practise Thirds Over Piano ScalesTo practise thirds over a piano scale, write the scale in a circle, pair each note with the scale note two steps above it (E with G#, F# with A, and so on in E major), then play those pairs up, down, or in mixed directions to build both technique and melody.
• How to Embellish and Improve a Piano Melody (Part 2)To embellish a piano melody, treat it like spoken language: phrase it with punctuation, answer each musical statement with a response, and vary that response with new rhythms such as triplets, finger slides and odd time signatures.
• How to Enhance a Simple Melody Without Chords (Piano)You can enrich a simple piano melody without any chords by moving single bass notes in the left hand, changing the landing note, flipping and shifting the melody's shape through scale degrees, stacking one harmony note below it as an alto voice, and adding a rhythmic groove.
• How to Improve Your Piano Playing (5 Things to Focus On)To play piano at a professional level, learn to play in all 12 keys without the transpose button, stay aware of the other musicians, react to the melody with suitable chords and rhythm, feel a steady pulse in your body, and control your dynamics.
• How to Make I V vi IV Sound Way More Exciting on Piano (5 Methods + Bonus)To make the I V vi IV progression (C, G, Am, F in C major) sound more exciting, keep the four chords but add plagal embellishments, passing bass lines, an epic bVI-bVII cadence, secondary dominants or ii-V-I approaches, or revoice the chords with fifths, sevenths, spread thirds, add2 and sus chords.
• How to Make Left-Hand Piano Chords Sound HugeTo make left-hand piano chords sound huge without getting muddy, use a spread voicing: play the root, then the fifth, then the third an octave higher (a tenth), so F major becomes F C A and F minor becomes F C Ab.
• How to Make Piano Chords Sound Better: 8 Embellishment Techniques (Part 2)To make basic major and minor piano chords sound richer, change the time feel with a triplet at the end of the bar, weave diatonic thirds through the chord, add secondary dominants before target chords, and colour chords with extensions such as sevenths and ninths.
• How to Make Your Left Hand Cooperate on Piano (5 Tips + 2 Bonus)To strengthen your left hand on piano, Jason Zac suggests learning a little percussion and guitar, playing riffs in both hands, focusing on real left-hand jobs like pinky independence and steady grooves, using call and response between the hands, and starting every session with a left-hand pattern, plus finger isolation drills and sports.
• How to Play "Take It Easy" on Piano (Eagles Tutorial)"Take It Easy" by the Eagles is in G major and is built mostly from G, C and D (I, IV and V) in the verse and Am, Em, C and G in the chorus, with a D7sus4 in the intro and an F/G colour chord in the closing bridge.
• How to Play "What's Up" on Piano (4 Non Blondes)To play "What's Up" by 4 Non Blondes on piano, loop the chords A major, B minor, D major and A major (I, ii, IV, I in A major) in a 16th-note strumming rhythm, with close right-hand inversions, left-hand root octaves, and your thumbs adding guitar-style ghost notes.
• How to Play 5 Famous Piano Riffs by Female MusiciansJason Zac breaks down the chords, voicings, riffs and rhythm patterns of five piano-led songs: Fallin' by Alicia Keys, cardigan by Taylor Swift, Love Song by Sara Bareilles, Don't Know Why by Norah Jones and Walking on Broken Glass by Annie Lennox.
• How to Play 9, 11 and 13 Chords on Piano (Extended Harmony)To play 9th, 11th and 13th chords on piano, make sure a seventh is present, then add the extension using shortcuts such as a 3-7 shell voicing with a note on top, a triad over a different bass (for example Gm/C for C9), two triads stacked as a polychord, or quartal and quintal stacks.
• How to Play a Funky Clavinet Groove on Keys (Percussion Techniques)To get a funky clavinet-style groove on keys, keep chords in the right hand and add very short, percussive left-hand ghost notes on the octave or fifth of each chord's root, in eighth notes, swung eighths or triplets, filling the gaps in your right-hand rhythm.
• How to Play a Melody With 5 Left-Hand Chord Accompaniment Techniques on PianoTo accompany a right-hand melody on solo piano, keep the right hand on the tune and give the left hand the chords, using one of five patterns: block chords on the pulse, eighth- or sixteenth-note arpeggios, broken chords, spread 1-5-3 voicings, or stride (low bass note then a chord near middle C).
• How to Play Bless the Broken Road on Piano (Rascal Flatts Intro Tutorial)To play the Bless the Broken Road intro on piano, keep a steady half-note bass in the left hand while the right-hand melody in C major starts most phrases just before the beat, then add C and G double stops, stacked chords and spread bass voicings for the original sound.
• How to Play Boogie Woogie Piano Over the 12 Bar BluesTo play boogie woogie piano, swing a left-hand bass line built on the root, 3rd, 5th, 6th and flat 7th against a steady octave root, play short and long right-hand chords over a 12-bar blues in C, and finish with a Dm7–G7#5 turnaround and a C6 ending.
• How to Play Chinna Chinna Aasai / Dil Hai Chota Sa on Piano (AR Rahman)Chinna Chinna Aasai (Dil Hai Chota Sa) is played on piano in D major over a steady reggae groove: the right hand plays the chords on every 'and' while the left hand plays the root on beats 1 and 3, using mainly D, A, D7, G, A minor, E minor and E minor 7 over a D bass.
• How to Play Disco and Dance Piano: Left-Hand Bass and Syncopated Right HandTo play disco piano, keep the left hand toggling between a root and its octave in steady eighth notes (pinky legato on the root, a short staccato thumb flick on the octave) while the right hand plays the chords in rhythms that build from held whole notes to off-beat hits, tresillo patterns and sixteenth-note syncopation.
• How to Play Do-Re-Mi on Piano (The Sound of Music, Easy Tutorial)To play Do-Re-Mi on piano, learn the melody in Bb major (Do = Bb) with the right hand, then accompany it in the left hand with Bb and F roots for the first four lines and Eb, C, F, D, G minor, Eb, F and Bb for the second half.
• How to Play Inteha Ho Gayi Intezaar Ki on Piano (Kishore Kumar Classic)Inteha Ho Gayi Intezaar Ki is played in E minor using two grooves: a swingy root–chord–fifth–chord pattern with a staccato right hand for the verses, and a disco groove with left-hand root octaves and right-hand chords on the upbeats over E minor, A minor, F# major and B7.
• How to Play It's a Man's Man's Man's World on Piano (James Brown Tutorial)It's a Man's Man's Man's World is played in Eb minor with a 6/8 feel, alternating Eb minor and Bb minor every six beats over left-hand octaves, with a turnaround of Ab minor to Bb7.
• How to Play Kaisi Paheli Zindagani on Piano (Sunidhi Chauhan) – Full TutorialKaisi Paheli Zindagani is played in Bb major with a swing feel: the intro uses Bb, Gm, Cm and F (a I-vi-ii-V), while the verse and chorus use two bars each of Bb, Cm7 and F7 before returning to Bb.
• How to Play Kingston Town on Piano (UB40 Reggae Tutorial)To play UB40's Kingston Town on piano, use a reggae groove in Ab major: the left hand plays the chord root on beat 1 and the fifth on beat 3, while the right hand plays short staccato chords on every 'and'. Then follow the verse chords Ab, Cm, Db, Eb, Db, Eb, Ab, Eb.
• How to Play Linus and Lucy on Piano – Full Tutorial (Including Solos)To play Linus and Lucy on piano, learn the Ab major I, IV and V chords (Ab, Db, Eb) in a 3-5-octave-9 horn-thirds shape for the right hand, set them over a legato bass line that anticipates each downbeat, then add 3-b7-9 ninth voicings for the salsa and jazz solo sections.
• How to Play Ornaments on Piano: Grace Notes, Turns, Mordents and TrillsTo ornament a piano melody, target the strong beat of each bar and decorate that note with a grace-note slide from below or above, an added diatonic upper third, a rolled chord, octaves with thirds, or a turn around the note, while keeping your timing steady.
• How to Play Pasoori on Piano: Full Tutorial, All SectionsPasoori is played on solo piano in B minor, built mainly on B minor, A major and F# major chords, with a tresillo-rhythm left hand in spread or stride voicings and an ornamented, vocal-style right-hand melody.
• How to Play Piano Chords That Sound Full and ProTo make basic piano chords sound full and professional, embellish each triad with sus2 and sus4 suspensions, plagal (IV–I) cadences, arpeggio fills at the ends of phrases, melodic passing notes between vocal lines, and a left-hand bass line that walks towards the next chord's root.
• How to Play Piano Chords With Real Passion (Dynamics and Groove)To play piano chords with passion, keep the same notes but vary the articulation (legato, staccato, sustain pedal) and the dynamics, accenting the beats a drummer would hit: 2 and 4 for a snare, 4 alone for an open hi-hat, or 1 and 3 for a laid-back half-time feel.
• How to Play Rock Piano: Bass Riff With Pulse Chords (Part 1)To play rock piano with pulse chords, learn an E Mixolydian bass riff (built from the root, 5th, flat 7th and octave) in the left hand, then play steady quarter-note block chords B-D-E and B-C#-E in the right hand, two bars each, counting slowly until both hands lock together.
• How to Play Someone Like You by Adele on Piano: Intro and VerseThe piano intro of Adele's Someone Like You is in A major and uses four chords (A, C#m/G#, F#5 and D in second inversion), each played for two bars as a low-middle-high-middle eighth-note arpeggio in the right hand over a held fifth in the left hand, with the sustain pedal down.
• How to Play Sweet Child o' Mine on Piano (Guns N' Roses)To play Sweet Child o' Mine on piano, use a D Mixolydian sound (D major with a flat 7, C), play the D–C–G–D progression with left-hand roots and an eighth-note 1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and rhythm, switch to power chords for the heavy sections, and add the guitar hook over a sustained bass.
• How to Play Tum Ho Toh on Piano (Rock On!!)To play Tum Ho Toh on piano, start with a held C major arpeggio intro played four times, then play the verse chords or a guitar-style pattern, a pre-chorus built on G minor, F major and Bb with quick chord changes, a chorus with irregular changes, and a chant melody in octaves starting on G minor.
• How to Practice Piano Chords the Right Way (Theory, Technique and Ear)Pick one note, find every chord that contains it, and play each chord in an inversion that keeps that note on top with your right-hand pinky, the chord's root in the left hand, while you sing the top note and then the bass. This trains your theory, technique and ear together.
• How to Practice the Piano With Maximum EfficiencyTo practise piano efficiently, use a bottom-up approach: first build a reliable left-hand engine with simple root-and-octave patterns such as a steady pulse, the We Will Rock You rhythm and the tresillo, then play your melody, chords, arpeggios or exercises in the right hand over them.
• How to Practise Chord Inversions Using the Circle of Fifths (Piano)To practise chord inversions with the circle of fifths, pick a target chord, play its neighbour on the circle (IV for a plagal cadence, V for an authentic cadence), and choose the inversion that keeps the common note in the same position so the chords connect smoothly.
• How to Practise Piano Scales With Creativity: The Compression-Expansion TechniqueTo practise piano scales creatively, play the first five notes of the scale up and back (1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1), then stretch out to the chord tones 1 3 5 8, playing the scale notes at double speed and the chord notes at single speed. This trains your hand to compress and expand while you keep a steady pulse in the left hand.
• How to Really Practice Piano Scales (Part 1)To practise a piano scale with purpose, play the continuous up-and-down cycle in groups of seven notes per 4/4 bar, with six quavers and one crotchet, and move the long crotchet one note later each time so every scale degree gets its turn on a different beat or off-beat.
• How to Really Practise Scales on Piano: Creative Rhythmic Approaches (Part 2)To make scale practice more musical, play the scale up and down with your normal fingering but count it in groups of three (triplets) or five instead of twos and fours, marking each group's first note with a left-hand note or chord.
• How to Train Your Harmonic Ear by Singing (Piano Ear Training)You can train your harmonic ear with just a piano and your voice by singing chord roots in the bass, singing the top note of each inversion, singing smooth voice leading between two chords, and improvising around each note of a held triad.
• How to Transpose to Any Key, Scale, Mode and Chord Progression on PianoTo transpose a melody on piano, first choose its tonic and scale, write each note as a scale-degree number (or swara), then rebuild those numbers in a new key, a new scale, a new mode or over a new chord, singing it before you play it.
• How to Use Suspended Chords Creatively on PianoSuspended chords replace the third of a chord with the second (sus2) or fourth (sus4), and on piano you can use them to add tension inside a progression, over a moving bass line, or as melodic fills between a chord and its resolution.
• How to Voice the 2-5-1 Jazz Chord Progression on PianoTo voice a 2-5-1 on piano, play the root and fifth of each seventh chord in the left hand and the third and seventh (as 3-7 or 7-3) in the right hand, choosing whichever order lets the right hand move by the smallest step.
• How to Write a Melody on Piano Using a Motif (Building Phrases)To write a melody from a motif, create a short melodic-rhythmic phrase over the chord tones, then keep it fresh across a progression by changing its landing note, transposing it to start from each chord's root, and adding or removing notes.
• How to Write a Melody on Piano Using ArpeggiosTo write a melody with piano arpeggios, choose chord inversions so the top note carries the tune, then break each chord into a pattern like high-middle-low-middle, adding accents, diatonic wandering notes and passing tones to make it memorable.
• How to Write a Melody on Piano Using Chord TonesTo write a melody over a chord progression, pick one chord tone from each chord (such as the third), play it in the right hand while the left hand plays the chords, then bring it to life with rhythm patterns that grow from semibreves to minims, crotchets and quavers.
• How to Write a Melody on Piano Using Passing and Landing TonesTo write a melody over a chord progression on piano, land on chord tones on the strong beats or longer notes, and use non-chord passing tones from the scale on weak beats and off-beats to add colour and tension before resolving.
• How to Write a Melody on Piano Using the Pentatonic ScalesTo write a melody over a chord progression on piano, build the major pentatonic (scale degrees 1, 2, 3, 5, 6) or its relative minor pentatonic, then create tunes from mechanical note patterns, by singing phrases and playing them back, and by repeating a short motif that fits every chord.
• How to Write Beautiful Minor Chord Progressions on PianoA simple minor chord progression uses functional harmony: a predominant chord (iv, G minor in D minor) moves to an unstable dominant (V, A major, borrowed from the harmonic minor) which resolves to the stable tonic (i, D minor).
• Improvise Over 7th Chords Using Pentatonic Scales (The Chord-Scale Trick)To improvise over seventh chords with pentatonics, play the namesake pentatonic for a safe sound, or start a pentatonic a perfect fifth or major second above the root of a major 7 or minor 7 chord, and a perfect fourth or tritone above the root of a dominant 7 chord, for jazzier colours.
• Inspire Yourself With the Major Scale: A Musical Way to Practise Piano ScalesInstead of repeating the top or bottom note, play the scale up and down in 16-note cycles, adding the seventh below the root the first time and the ninth above the octave the second time, then support it with tonic, predominant and dominant chords in the left hand.
• Learn All 12 Major and Minor Piano Chords (Triads) Using Intervals, Shapes and TheoryEvery major and minor triad uses a root and a perfect fifth; a major chord adds the major third (four semitones above the root), and a minor chord adds the minor third (three semitones above the root).
• Learn All 72 Piano Chord Inversions With One Exercise (Pivot Note Drill)To practise all 72 major and minor triad inversions, anchor one note (such as D), play the six major and minor triads that contain it with that note at the bottom, top and middle, then repeat on its tritone (Ab) to cover 36 unique shapes.
• Left-Hand Independence on Piano: The Starter ExerciseTo build left-hand independence on piano, hold the bass note G down with your left little finger while your other fingers play a swung eighth-note broken G minor chord pattern, then move only the little finger between G and F while the rest of the chord stays the same.
• Left-Hand Piano: Build Bass Lines With Broken Chords (Blues & Rock)To build a moving left-hand bass line on piano, break the chord up, either bass note then the upper two notes (oom-pah) or the outer two notes then the middle note, and then vary the bass with a root-and-fifth toggle or a descending line cliché while the right hand plays melody.
• Make a Full Chord Progression From Just One Chord on Piano (Major and Minor)You can turn a single static chord into a full progression on piano by holding one inversion in the right hand (such as G C E for C major or C Eb G for C minor) and moving the left-hand bass through notes of the scale, which changes the mood and function of the chord without changing the right hand.
• Make Catchy Piano Melodies From a Vocal Rhythm (No Fancy Theory)To write a catchy piano melody without much theory, first sing or tap a short rhythm, then play it on a few notes of one scale (such as A B C# D E in A major), break it into parts, and develop it by moving the left-hand bass through I, IV, V and vi or by shifting the same finger pattern to other notes of the scale.
• Make Chord Practice Fun With the Circle of Fifths (Part 1)To practise major chords around the Circle of Fifths, play all 12 triads moving clockwise (the plagal direction) and anticlockwise (the authentic direction), keeping the common note and sliding the other two notes, then turn it into a rhythm workout by shrinking the arpeggio cycle from 8 beats down to 3 while the metronome stays at the same tempo.
• Make Simple Chords Sound Pro: Country Piano SecretsTo make simple country chords like G, D, A and Bm sound professional on piano, voice every chord in the right hand with the same note (D) on top, add the A in between for colour, and support it with left-hand root octaves or root-and-fifth.
• Make the Simplest Piano Chord Sound Unique: From Power Chord to Rich HarmonyTo make a plain left-hand 5th chord sound rich on piano, keep the root and 5th (G and D for G major) and let your thumb float to colour notes from the scale, such as the 9th (A), 10th (B), major 7th (F#) or major 6th (E), instead of the octave.
• Make Your Piano Arpeggios Sound Unique Using Accents (8th and 16th Note Phrases)To make a piano arpeggio sound unique, group its notes in uneven patterns such as 3+3+2 eighth notes or 5+5+3+3 sixteenth notes, so the anchor note of each group lands sometimes on the beat and sometimes off it, creating natural accents.
• Make Your Solo Piano Sound Full: Arpeggio Accompaniment SecretsTo make solo piano sound full, keep a steady left-hand engine of root-and-fifth patterns that toggle between the root and the fifth on the off-beats, then thicken the right-hand melody by stacking chord tones or adding alto and tenor thirds beneath it.
• Master Chord Inversions, Rhythm and Hand Independence in One Piano ExercisePlay the I–vi–ii–V progression (G, Em, Am, D in G major) with the smoothest inversions, alternating an eighth-note arpeggio with quarter-note block chords, and keep climbing until you land on G major an octave higher.
• Master Piano Rhythm: Beat Displacement, Anticipation and Rhythmic SubtractionRhythmic subtraction means removing chosen eighth-note positions from a steady two-bar pattern, and beat displacement means moving a chosen note slightly earlier (anticipation) or later (delay) on a sixteenth-note grid, so that a monotonous line gains space and groove.
• Modern Pop Piano Chord Exercise: Spread Voicings, Intervals and Odd Meter (Bm–D–F#m–E)This exercise plays the Bm–D–F#m–E progression (ii–IV–vi–V in A major) as root–fifth–tenth spread voicings in a 3/4 arpeggio, changes the last eighth note into each diatonic interval above the top note, then regroups the pattern into odd meters such as 4+3.
• Mysterious Piano Chords: Move the Fifth in an Odd-Time ArpeggioTo create mysterious piano chords, keep the root and third of a major or minor triad and move the fifth to nearby notes, such as G to F#, G# or A over C and E, then play it as an arpeggio with crescendos, decrescendos and an optional 5/4 feel.
• One Left-Hand Pattern for Folk and Pop Piano (Works on Almost Any Song)Hold A and D on top of a D major shape while the lower fingers float through the diatonic thirds of D major (D-F#, E-G, F#-A and so on), and you get a banjo-like left-hand accompaniment that fits almost any folk or pop melody.
• One Mammoth Lesson: Major Scales in All 12 Keys, Circle of Fifths and Chord InversionsYou can practise chord inversions in all 12 keys by moving triads around the Circle of Fifths: go counterclockwise in authentic (V–I) cadences with your right hand climbing up the keyboard, then clockwise in plagal (IV–I) cadences with the chords descending, always keeping common notes and moving the others by the smallest step.
• One Piano Exercise for Scales, Intervals and Chords (E Minor, Both Hands)This combo exercise trains the E natural minor scale with both hands at once: the right hand plays every diatonic interval from seconds to octaves while the left hand supports with roots, octaves, thirds, fifths, triads or seventh chords.
• One Rhythm Pattern Is All You Need to Create Music on Piano (Part 1)You can make a lot of music from one bar of eighth-note rhythm by applying it in turn to a left-hand drum-style octave groove, to right-hand block, broken and arpeggiated chords, and to a minor pentatonic or blues bass line over a simple chord progression.
• One Trick, Endless Piano Progressions: Reharmonise I–IV–V Across Many ScalesBy playing each chord of a I–IV–V progression as either major or minor, you get 2 × 2 × 2 = 8 different progressions, and each one points to its own scale, such as major, natural minor, harmonic minor, Dorian or Mixolydian.
• Piano Arpeggios That Flow: Add Triplets and Sixteenths for Instant GrooveTo make a piano arpeggio groove, divide each beat into four sixteenths or three triplets, leave out selected subdivisions (such as the 'e' for a gallop or the middle triplet for a swing) and then combine two of these rhythmic patterns over the same chords.
• Piano Ballad Accompaniment: Block Chords, Broken Chords and Arpeggios (Creep Progression)To accompany a ballad on piano, play the I–III–IV–iv progression (G–B–C–Cm in G major) with smooth inversions in the right hand as block chords, broken chords or 16th-note arpeggios, while the left hand plays root octaves as whole notes, minims, toggles or soft ghost-note eighths.
• Piano Chord Inversions: Play Any Progression From Any Major ScaleTo play any chord progression smoothly on piano, write out the chords of the major scale, list every inversion of each chord, then move between chords by keeping their common note in place while the left hand plays each chord's root.
• Piano Ear Training for Beginners: 5 Levels to Build Your Melodic EarTo build your melodic ear on the piano, sing a short melody over a steady left-hand root and immediately play it back, working through five levels: three scale notes, the triad, triad inversions, the first five scale notes, and finally the minor versions of each.
• Piano Foundation: An Introduction for BeginnersFor a beginner, a digital piano with 88 keys or a portable keyboard with at least 61 keys, plus an adjustable stand, a supportive chair, a power adapter and a sustain pedal, is all you need to start learning the piano.
• Piano Hand Independence and Interval Theory: One Modern Pop DrillThis modern pop piano drill uses four right-hand notes from Bb major (G, A, Bb, F) over left-hand notes a diatonic third below, then builds hand independence with rhythmic ratios such as 1:4, 4:1, 1:3, 3:1, 2:4 and 4:2 before stacking fifths and thirds into seventh chords.
• Piano Hand Independence Using Sixteenth Notes (Step by Step)To build piano hand independence with sixteenth notes, count every beat as 1 e & a, place a right-hand melody on chosen sixteenth-note hit points, and play a steady left-hand pulse of chords on the beats underneath it.
• Piano Hand Independence Workout Using the Bossa Clave (Dance Groove)To build piano hand independence for dance music, play the bossa (pop) clave, a one-bar sixteenth-note rhythm, in one hand while the other keeps a steady four-beat pulse over a Bm–D–F#m–E progression, then swap the roles of the hands.
• Piano Hand Independence Workout: Bass-Line Variations Under One ChordTo build piano hand independence, keep the right hand pulsing a single G minor chord (D G Bb) while the left hand plays rhythm variations on just three bass notes, G, A and Bb, mixing crotchets, minims, quavers, ties and rests.
• Piano Hand Independence: 5 Habits That Actually Build ItTo improve piano hand independence, make one hand an instinctive engine that runs a pattern without thought. Free the other hand for the melody, and when things fall apart, simplify the right hand rather than the left. Build up with simple rhythms, singing and steady practice.
• Piano Hand Independence: Melody in the Right, Chord Patterns in the LeftTo build piano hand independence, keep one simple right-hand melody fixed and practise the left hand through more and more demanding patterns: quarter-note pulses, eighth-note toggles, half notes, spread chords, syncopated rhythms and finally a sixteenth-note tresillo.
• Piano Hand Independence: Play Offbeat Chords Over Arpeggios (Part 1)To build piano hand independence, play a steady sixteenth-note arpeggio in the left hand while the right hand places chords first on the downbeats and then on the e, and and a of each beat, switching between staccato and legato.
• Piano Hand Independence: Steady Right-Hand Pulse Over a Left-Hand Bass LineTo build piano hand independence, keep a steady, accented chord pulse in the right hand on C7 and F9 while the left hand plays a bass line built from the root, octave and fifth, with occasional chromatic passing notes.
• Piano Hand Independence: The Exercise That Finally WorksTo build piano hand independence, play the first five notes of C minor (C D Eb F G) up and down in both hands, keeping one hand on the pulse while the other divides each beat by two, three or four, then swap hands.
• Piano Improvisation: 3 Ways to Use the Pentatonic ScaleTo improvise with the pentatonic scale on piano, build it by dropping the 4th and 7th from the major scale (or the 2nd and 6th from the natural minor), play it in the right hand, and move the left hand through root notes taken from the parent scale.
• Piano Modes Made Easy: Instant Moods and ColoursTo get a modal sound on piano, write the mode as a scale, build a triad on every note, find the note that makes the mode unique, and alternate the tonic chord with a chord containing that note over a held bass drone.
• Piano Runs and Fills That Make You Sound Pro (Using Arpeggios)You can build professional-sounding piano runs and fills by adding one extra note, such as a 2, 6, b6 or 4, to a major or minor triad and running the resulting arpeggio up or down the keyboard in groupings of three (triplets) or four (semiquavers).
• Play a Rock Bass Line and Melody at the Same Time on Piano (Hand Independence)To play a rock bass line and melody together on piano, learn an Em7 to A7 chord change with smooth inversions, learn a syncopated left-hand bass line on E F# G A B, add right-hand chords as whole notes, half notes and quarter notes, and then replace the chords with a melody while the bass keeps going.
• Play Any Chord Progression in Every Key Using the Smoothest InversionsTo play any chord progression smoothly on piano, write out the key's scale and triads in a circle, list every inversion of each chord in the progression, then choose the next inversion that keeps common notes in place so your hand barely moves.
• Play Jingle Bells on the Piano in 5 Ways: A Christmas LessonTo play Jingle Bells on piano, play the melody in G major starting on B, accompany it with the chords G, C, A and D, then choose a left-hand rhythm: root-fifth bass, oom-pah, eighth-note oom-pah, a blues/rock 'n' roll root-fifth-sixth shuffle, or a ragtime stride pattern.
• Play Melody and Chords in One Hand: The Piano Trick That Sounds ImpossibleTo play melody and chords in one right hand, keep the melody note on top with your pinky or ring finger, choose a chord (I, IV or V) that contains that note, play it in the inversion that puts the melody highest, and arpeggiate the lower notes underneath.
• Play O Holy Night Beautifully on Piano: 3 Christmas TechniquesTo play O Holy Night beautifully on piano, use a flowing 6/8 arpeggio in the left hand, add slides and quick arpeggiated chords to the melody, play the pre-chorus melody in slightly delayed octaves, and in the chorus play faster right-hand arpeggios inverted so the melody note stays on top.
• Rhythmic Anticipation on Piano: The Trick That Makes Any Pattern GrooveRhythmic anticipation on piano means playing the next chord in your right hand slightly before the bar line, on the and of beat four (eighth notes) or the a of beat four (sixteenth notes), while the left hand still changes on beat one, which creates an on-beat and off-beat groove.
• Rock 'n' Roll Piano: Left-Hand Bass and Right-Hand Chords in 12 BarsRock 'n' roll piano comping pairs a left hand alternating root–fifth and root–sixth (G D G D G E G E in G) with a right hand moving through 1-3-5, 1-4-6, 1-5-b7 shapes over each chord of the 12-bar progression.
• Rock Piano Grooves Any Beginner Can UseA simple rock piano groove alternates the left hand (kick drum and bass) with the right hand (snare and chords), mixing loud accents with soft ghost notes over a progression such as Cm–Eb–Bb–F so the piano locks in with the drummer.
• Simple but Beautiful Piano Arpeggios to Serve Any MelodyTo build left-hand piano arpeggios that suit almost any 4/4 melody, start with chord roots, move to root-and-fifth patterns, then triad rhythms, and finally the low-high-middle-high (LHMH) arpeggio in quavers and then semiquavers.
• Slash Chords on Piano: Add Rich Colour With One Bass-Note TrickA slash chord is a familiar triad played over a different bass note, and on piano you can enrich a progression like D–Bm–Em–A by keeping the bass note and playing the triad built a fifth above it, which brings out 7ths and 9ths automatically.
• Stand By Me Piano Tutorial: The Bass Line and Chords in 5 Accompaniment StylesTo play Stand By Me on piano, play the iconic bass riff in your left hand over the chords A, F#m, D and E in A major, using close inversions in your right hand in five styles: block chords, staccato pulse, Clocks-style arpeggios, a flamenco gallop and a melodic counter-line.
• Static Chords on Piano (Part 1): The Subtle Texture Trick Pianists UseTo add movement to a static chord on piano, keep the root (such as G) held in both hands while the right hand moves through pairs of thirds taken from a scale that contains the chord, such as G Dorian or G natural minor.
• Subset Scales on Piano: Create New Colours From Major and Minor ScalesA subset scale is made by taking a seven-note scale you already know, such as major, minor or a mode, and removing two or more notes so the remaining (often five) notes create a fresh sound for riffs, fills and melodies.
• Subtractive Arpeggios: Make Common Piano Patterns Sound OriginalA subtractive arpeggio is a common piano arpeggio pattern, counted in eighth notes (1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and), from which you deliberately leave out one or more of the eight beats and off-beats to create space, rhythmic flavour and a more original-sounding part.
• Summer of '69 Riff on Piano with Hand IndependenceThe Summer of '69 piano riff moves through Dsus2, D, Dsus4 and D arpeggios (then the same pattern on A) in sixteen semiquavers grouped 3+3+3+3+2+2, and you build hand independence by playing left-hand root octaves first on the accents, then on the steady pulse.
• Suspended vs Add Chords vs Extensions (9, 11, 13) on PianoA suspended chord replaces the third with a 2 or 4, an add chord keeps the triad and adds a 2, 4 or 6, and an extension (9, 11, 13) adds those same notes on top of a chord that already contains a seventh.
• Syncopation on Piano: Make Your Chord Progressions GrooveTo add syncopation to a piano chord progression, subdivide each chord into eighth or sixteenth notes, share those subdivisions unevenly between the left and right hands, break chords into root-and-fifth plus third, and then fit a melody over the groove.
• Teri Deewani Piano Tutorial: How to Accompany SingersTeri Deewani is played with the chords of G major centred on E minor, using a gentle six-beat groove, with the pre-chorus and second verse changing chord every three beats and the chorus built mainly on E minor and D major.
• The 12-Bar Blues Bassline Every Piano Left Hand Needs to LearnThe classic 12-bar blues left-hand bassline plays the 1, 3, 5 and 6 of each chord's own root (Bb D F G over Bb7), then grows into a two-bar 1-3-5-6-b7-6-5-3 line, while the right hand comps dominant seventh chords in a swung Charleston rhythm.
• The 2-5-1 Jazz Piano Chord Progression ExplainedA 2-5-1 (ii-V-I) progression takes the chords on the 2nd, 5th and 1st degrees of a scale; in G major that is Am7 (A C E G), D7 (D F# A C) and Gmaj7 (G B D F#), and in G minor it becomes Am7b5 (A C Eb G), D7 and Gm7 (G Bb D F).
• The 5 Pillars of Piano Accompaniment for Any GenreJason Zac's five pillars of piano accompaniment are ballad chords with a chosen time feel, arpeggio patterns, a low-high marching groove, the tresillo dance rhythm, and copying the drummer's kick, snare and hi-hat, all built by first deciding how the beat is divided.
• The All-In-One Piano Finger Exercise: A 6-Bar Melody for 6 SkillsJason Zac's all-in-one piano exercise is a short melody in F major, played in semiquavers over left-hand chords that change every beat, which trains hand independence, chord shifting, finger crossing, pivoting, triplets and beat subdivision in one 10-minute workout.
• The Beatles – In My Life: George Martin Piano Solo TutorialThe In My Life piano solo is a Bach-inspired counterpoint passage in A major, played as two melodies rather than chords, and is best learned by first pairing the right-hand melody with simple chord roots, then adding fast triplet trills and finally the independent left-hand line.
• The Best Blues Piano Patterns for Both Hands (Swing and Charleston)A classic blues piano groove pairs a left hand alternating root-fifth and root-sixth over each chord (C-G, C-A for C) with a right-hand Charleston rhythm, played legato on the beat and staccato off the beat, counted with the feel on beats 2 and 4.
• The Chord Progression Behind Hundreds of Songs (Pachelbel's Canon)The Pachelbel's Canon progression in D major is D, A, Bm, F#m, G, D, G (or Em/G), A, which is I–V–vi–iii–IV–I–IV (or ii)–V. On piano you invert each right-hand chord so the violin melody note sits on top, then arpeggiate it with a high–low–middle–low pattern.
• The Daily Piano Chord Exercise: Climbing Inversions With Many Rhythm PatternsThis daily piano drill moves three-note chord shapes up and down the keyboard in C major, then plays them as block chords, broken chords, arpeggios and a broken-arpeggio combo, across different speeds, time signatures, syncopated hand patterns and finally in the left hand.
• The Daily Piano Scale and Chord Exercise (Up and Down)Play the G major scale up and the G major chord down from the octave, then the scale down and the chord up, fitting the seven scale notes into eight eighth-note slots by lengthening one note while the chord falls on the four downbeats.
• The Easiest Way to Expand Your Piano Arpeggios: Octave Displaced ArpeggiosAn octave displaced arpeggio takes a simple low-middle-high-middle triad pattern and, every alternate time, plays the bottom note an octave higher (or the top note an octave lower), giving a four-note, guitar-like pattern from only three chord tones.
• The Easiest Way to Make Piano Chords More Complex (Spread Voicing)To make piano chords more complex, play the triad as a left-hand spread voicing (root, fifth, then the third an octave higher as a tenth), keep the root and tenth fixed, and change only the middle note to create sixth, seventh and augmented chords.
• The Floating Fifth Chord: Emotional Solo Piano Harmony With Minimal MovementThe floating fifth is a left-hand piano technique where the pinky holds a bass root as a whole note while the thumb plays the fifth on every offbeat, and then the pinky moves to new roots (in Bb minor: Bb, Gb, Ab) while the thumb stays on F, implying full chords without muddy triads.
• The Left-Hand Bass Line Every Piano Player Should Know (4 Chords)To build a left-hand piano bass line, land on the root or bass note of each chord on beat one and use passing notes, such as the chromatic climb C, D, D#, E into C7/E, to connect the chords in between.
• The Mixolydian Cadence: A Bright, Bluesy Piano Progression (bVII–IV–I)The Mixolydian cadence is the chord progression bVII–IV–I built from the major chords of the Mixolydian mode, such as Bb–F–C in C Mixolydian, and it gives the bright, anthemic sound heard in songs like With a Little Help from My Friends.
• The One Survival Piano Rhythm That Works on Any Song (Oom-Pah Groove)The oom-pah groove is a piano accompaniment pattern in which the left hand plays the chord's root (alternating with the fifth) on each beat while the right hand plays short, staccato chords on the 'and' of every beat, giving a steady rhythm that fits almost any song.
• The Only Left-Hand Piano Arpeggio You Need (Works on Any Song)Play each left-hand chord as low, high, middle, high in steady eighth notes (two cycles per bar), use inversions so the chords move smoothly, and then improvise a right-hand melody using chord tones, the pentatonic scale, singing, or small scale shapes.
• The Piano Accompaniment Technique That Works in Every GenreTo accompany any song on piano, hold the root with your left pinky for the whole bar, play the chord on every beat in your right hand, and use your spare thumbs or index fingers to add soft subdivisions that match the song's time feel.
• The Piano Engine: Build Finger Independence With One Epic ThemeThe piano 'Engine' is a driving accompaniment where the left-hand thumb keeps a steady pulse while the pinky holds longer notes, the right-hand thumb adds a third on the last sixteenth of each beat, and the remaining fingers play a simple melody on top.
• The Plagal Cadence on Piano: The Amen Move That Adds Instant EmotionThe plagal cadence is the IV chord moving to the I chord, such as F major to C major in C, and on piano you can add it as a passing slash chord over a held bass note, or use IV to minor iv to I for a more emotional sound.
• The Reggae Piano Rhythm Pattern You Need to LearnTo play reggae piano, count swung sixteenth notes (1 e and a), play the chord root in the left hand on beats 1 and 3, play short staccato chords in the right hand on every 'and', then add soft, choppy ghost notes on the fifth of the chord.
• The Scale Practice Routine Pianists Skip: Parallel, Contrary and Similar MotionA complete piano scale workout plays each scale hands together in parallel motion, then contrary motion, then a parallel-contrary-contrary-parallel combination, and finally similar motion in thirds, using accents to strengthen the weaker fingers.
• The Spanish Andalusian Cadence Every Pianist Should Know (Part 1)The Andalusian cadence in D minor is Dm–C–Bb–A (i–bVII–bVI–V), a descending, flamenco-flavoured progression that borrows the C from the natural minor and the A major (with C#) from the harmonic minor.
• The Spanish-Sounding Left-Hand Arpeggio for Almost Any SongThe pattern plays root, octave, fifth, octave over each chord of the Andalusian cadence (Dm–C–Bb–A), then adds the root an octave higher, with the pinky on the root, a finger on the fifth and the thumb on the top octave.
• The Tresillo: Pop's Most-Used Piano Rhythm, ExplainedThe tresillo is a 3+3+2 rhythm: in its slow form it hits beat 1, the 'and' of 2 and beat 4 across a bar of eighth notes, and in its fast form the same shape fits into two beats of sixteenths (1, the 'a' of 1 and the 'and' of 2), repeating twice per bar.
• Train Both Hands With a Simple Chord Progression and Bass Line (Piano)To build hand independence on the piano, play a steady quarter-note chord pulse in the right hand (Em, A-E-F#, Am/C, Em in E minor) while the left hand plays a four-note eighth-note bass figure, E F# G E, and shift that figure half a beat at a time through all eight positions in the bar.
• Turn Arpeggios Into Beautiful Melodies (Piano)Melodic arpeggios let one hand play a melody and an arpeggio together: start the pattern on the chord's top note, then move that top note through the scale while the middle and low notes keep the arpeggio, and let the left-hand bass move too.
• Two-Hand Piano Arpeggios That Sound Beautiful (Melody on Top)To make piano arpeggios sound creative, play them in both hands using speed ratios such as 2:4 or 3:6, give each hand a different note order, alternate the hands in syncopated grooves, and shape a melody by moving the top note of the pattern with your last two fingers.
• Two-Hand Piano Arpeggios With Melody Over the Andalusian Cadence (Part 4)To play double arpeggios over the Andalusian cadence, hold the root while the left hand plays a slow low-high-middle-high pattern, and have the right hand play a different pattern (high-low-middle-low) at double speed in a different inversion so the hands never collide and a melody can emerge on top.
• Two-Handed Melodic Piano Arpeggios Using the Andalusian Cadence (Part 2)To play two-handed arpeggios over the Andalusian cadence (Dm–C–Bb–A, or i–bVII–bVI–V), split each chord's notes between both hands in one fixed position, play up through the chord and back, then add or remove notes to fit 4/4, 3/4, 5/8 or 7/8.
• Walking Bass Piano: From Basics to AdvancedTo play walking bass on piano, start with the chord roots in your left hand, keep a steady pulse under a swung right-hand melody, then connect each chord to the next with one scale note and one spicy chromatic approach note, coming from above or below.
• Ways to Shift Chords on Time (Piano Inversion Practice)To shift piano chords on time, practise inversions with three drills: play every major and minor chord containing one anchor note, toggle the I-V and I-IV cadences in all major/minor combinations, and move up and down by each interval from one root while keeping shared notes.
• We Wish You a Merry Christmas Piano Tutorial (Easy and Advanced Arrangements)Jason Zac teaches We Wish You a Merry Christmas on piano in five stages: the melody with a simple bass, an anthemic choral arrangement, an arpeggiated version, a bluegrass version and a loungy outro, so players of any level can choose a version that suits them.
• What a Wonderful World Piano: Jazz Arpeggios With Extensions and Slash ChordsTo play What a Wonderful World with a jazzy piano sound, Jason Zac keeps a simple two-hand 6/8 arpeggio (low, middle, high, octave of the low note, then back down) and swaps the plain F major triads for seventh chords, add9 and add4 chords, sixth chords and slash chords.
• What to Play Between Chords on Piano: Arpeggio Fillers for AccompanimentTo make the space between chords interesting on piano, mix block chords with arpeggio fillers: play three block chords and a triplet arpeggio in one bar, then a block chord followed by twelve semiquavers grouped in fours or threes, moving through inversions as you go.
• What Your Left Hand Should (and Shouldn't) Do in Piano AccompanimentIn piano accompaniment, play full triads in the left hand only around middle C, switch to fifths (root–fifth–octave) or spread 1–5–10 voicings lower down, and use bare octaves or single roots in the very lowest register, because closely spaced low notes sound muddy.
• When I'm Sixty-Four (The Beatles): Solo Piano TutorialJason Zac's solo piano arrangement of When I'm Sixty-Four is played in the original key of Db major with a swung 4/4 feel, a root-and-fifth bass inspired by the bass guitar, and right-hand harmonies that recreate the song's vocals, horns and clarinet.
• Which Digital Piano Should You Buy? Yamaha CK88 vs Roland RD88The Yamaha CK88 suits players who want graded hammer action, dedicated organ drawbars, MIDI in and out, Bluetooth, battery power and three-part layering, while the Roland RD88 suits players who want a simpler live layout that works from day one with a good pedal and adapter in the box.
• Why Your Piano Trills Are Uneven (And How to Fix It)To even out your piano trills, play a one-octave D major scale up and down and add a short trill at the top with your ring and little fingers, without changing the number of beats in the cycle.

Music theory

• A Healthy Reality Check for Figuring Out Chords by Ear (Harmonic Ear Training)To figure out chords by ear, first find the key and scale, list the chords that belong to it, sing the bass note of each chord within the real song, judge its quality by its emotion, and use theory and familiar two-chord cadences to narrow your trial and error.
• Carnatic Music Theory for Beginners: Melakarta and ShankarabharanamThe 72 melakarta ragas come from fixing Sa and Pa, choosing one of two Ma notes and one of six Ri-Ga and six Dha-Ni pairs (6 × 6 × 2 = 72); raga 29, Shankarabharanam, uses the same notes as the Western major scale.
• Carnatic Music Theory for Beginners: Scales and Western SimilaritiesIn Carnatic music, the C major scale (C D E F G A B C) corresponds most closely to the raga Shankarabharanam, melakarta number 29, because it contains Sa (C), Ri (D), Ga (E), Shuddha Madhyamam (F), Pa (G), Da (A) and Ni (B).
• Carnatic Ragas Meet Western Chords: Harmonizing Melakarta Ragas on PianoTo harmonize a Melakarta raga on piano, write out its seven notes (Sa and Pa fixed, plus one choice each of Re, Ga, Ma, Dha and Ni), then stack thirds on every note of the raga to get its triads and seventh chords, including unusual ones such as augmented and flat-five chords.
• Ear Training: The Sounds of Intervals (How to Identify Them Fast)To identify an interval by ear, ask whether it sounds resolved (perfect fifth, major third, minor third), dissonant (minor second, diminished fifth, major seventh) or like it wants to move somewhere (major second, perfect fourth, minor seventh), with the sixths sounding mysterious and versatile.
• Find Every Chord That Fits Any Melody NoteTo harmonise any melody note, list every chord that contains that note (for C: C major, C minor, A minor, Ab major, F major and F minor), then choose between them using diatonic, seventh, borrowed or fully chromatic options.
• How to Figure Out Any Song's Chords by Ear: 5 Ear Training StrategiesTo figure out a song's chords by ear, first mark where the chords change and find the song's scale, then narrow down each chord using the bass note, cadences, the melody's landing notes, the chord's quality, and its sense of tension or rest.
• How to Harmonize a Single Note With All Possible ChordsTo harmonize a single note such as G, ask which chords contain it: three triads in each of the seven major keys that include G, six chromatic major and minor triads, and then chords on every one of the 12 roots, where G becomes a seventh, sixth, fourth, second, ninth or altered tone.
• How to Improvise Over One Chord and One Rhythm Pattern (Part 1)To start improvising over one chord, fix a single swung two-bar rhythm, play only the chord tones of a Bb major triad (Bb, D, F) on its hit points, then colour the melody with the major 6th (G) or the dominant 7th (Ab).
• How to Sing and Play Intervals (Theory and Ear Training on Piano)To practise intervals in three dimensions, play a root note on the piano, sing the target interval first, then play it to check your answer, working from stable resolutions to anticipations and finally tensions.
• How to Use Secondary Dominant Chords to Write Colourful MusicA secondary dominant is the major or dominant seventh chord built a perfect fifth above any diatonic chord except the tonic; in Bb major these are G7 to Cm, A7 to Dm, Bb7 to Eb, C7 to F and D7 to Gm, and Do-Re-Mi from The Sound of Music is built almost entirely around them.
• How to Use the Circle of Fifths for Pro Chord WritingTo write non-diatonic progressions with the circle of fifths, move between neighbouring major chords such as C, F, Bb and Eb, or C, G and D, because each neighbour shares a common note and the change sounds smooth even outside one key.
• Scale vs Key vs Mode vs Raga: Finally ExplainedA key is the root note everything is heard against, a scale is the set of intervals chosen from that root, a key signature is how a major or relative minor scale is written in notation, a mode is the same set of notes heard with a new leader (relative) or borrowed on the same root (parallel), and a raga adds rules such as different ascending and descending notes and glides.
• The Roman Numeral System Explained: Build Any Chord Progression by NumberThe Roman numeral system names each chord by its scale degree, using capital numerals for major chords, small numerals for minor, a degree sign for diminished and a plus sign for augmented, so a progression like I iii IV V can be played in any of the 12 keys.
• Truly Understand Modes From 2 Easy PerspectivesYou can understand modes in two ways: treat each mode as its own scale built from one root by changing intervals, or keep one key signature, such as F major with Bb, and start on each scale degree to get Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian.

Rhythm

• 5 Methods to Use and Feel Triplets in All Forms of MusicA triplet divides a beat into three equal parts, and you can learn to feel it naturally by practising triplet rhythmic devices, 3-over-2 polyrhythms, compound time such as 6/8 and 12/8, accented sets of three, and swing.
• Compose Music Starting From Rhythm: Accents, Time Signatures and Beat DivisionYou can compose music by starting with rhythm instead of melody or chords, using three seeds: accent groupings (such as 3+3+2 over eight beats), metric or time signature changes (such as 9/8 felt as four beats plus a quaver), and beat divisions (such as quavers, quavers, triplet, semiquavers across four beats).
• Fix Your Timing: Build a Rock-Solid Sense of Rhythm on Piano (Part 1)To build solid timing, first feel a steady pulse with your body (such as a head movement), use breathing in and out to change volume without rushing or dragging, then count how many beats make up each repeating cycle to find the meter, splitting odd meters like 5 and 7 into smaller groups of 2, 3 and 4.
• Improve Your Sense of Rhythm on Piano: Time Feel, Swing and Triplets (Part 2)To build a strong time feel on piano, keep a steady pulse, divide each beat by two, three or four, choose straight or swing, and then create grooves by playing only some of the divisions or accenting them in irregular groups. In short: divide more and play less.
• Make Endless Piano Melodies From Just 3 Notes: Subdivisions (Part 1)By dividing each beat into smaller units (subdivisions) and moving notes earlier (anticipation) or later (delay) onto those units, you can turn a simple three-note melody like D E F E into many different, rhythmically interesting phrases while the left hand keeps a steady pulse.
• Proven Ways to Instantly Improve Your Rhythm (Piano and Any Instrument)To improve your rhythm, move your body to the pulse, know how each beat is subdivided, imagine a ghost drummer, sing the melody as you play, save the metronome for checking your timing at slow settings, use notation and rhythmic patterns, and play regularly with other musicians.
• Tresillo vs Hemiola: Triplets, Dotted Notes and Accents ExplainedThe tresillo divides the beat into four sixteenth notes and accents them in an irregular 3+3+2 grouping, while the hemiola is a true triplet that divides time into three equal parts, such as three quarter notes in the space of two beats.
• Urvasi Bass Groove: 4 Exercises to Improve Your Timing (Part 2)To improve your timing on bass, keep a steady quarter-note pulse with your foot, imagine a sixteenth-note shaker running in your head, sing the line as you play it, and transcribe the groove onto a 1-e-and-a time grid so you know exactly where each note falls.

Guitar

• 5 Groovy Strumming Patterns for Acoustic Guitar (Advanced)These five advanced strumming patterns keep the strumming hand moving in constant 16th note down-up strokes while the fretting hand switches between ringing chords and muted ghost notes, creating son clave, reggae, funk, offbeat and 3-3-2 grooves.

Production

• How to Set Up REAPER (DAW): Preferences, Project Settings, Audio Devices and MIDITo set up REAPER, install it with the SWS extension, choose your audio interface and enable your MIDI controller, set project and peak-file paths, turn on timestamped auto-backups, copy imported media into the project folder, and set the project to 48 kHz with 24-bit WAV recordings.
• Send Audio and MIDI Between iPhone, iPad and Mac With Just the Charging CableOn a Mac, combine your audio interface and your iPad or iPhone into an aggregate device in Audio MIDI Setup, then select that device in your DAW and set the iPad as a MIDI hardware output, so the charging cable carries audio to the computer and MIDI to the device.

More lessons

• The Top 10 Tools for All Musicians: Students, Performers and Recording ArtistsJason Zac's top 10 tools for musicians are a metronome, a tuner, drum loops, practice tracks, a recording app or DAW, notation software, a stem splitter, publishing tools, streaming services and a good listening environment, most of them free or usable on a trial.
• Urvasi Bass Lesson: Scale Positions You Need to KnowThe Urvasi bass line by A.R. Rahman sits in C minor and uses the root, major second, minor third, perfect fourth and perfect fifth (C, D, Eb, F, G), and you can play it from three positions by starting the riff with your index, middle or little finger.