Nathaniel School of Music

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.

Video lesson by Jason Zac · Beginner · 29 min

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Key points

This lesson from Jason Zac at Nathaniel School of Music gives you five simple ways to accompany yourself or another singer on the piano. It suits beginners, singer-songwriters and producers. You need very little theory or notation. Keep your keyboard nearby and try singing as you play, because these patterns exist to support a voice.

1. Fifth Chords with a Moving Bass

A fifth chord has no major or minor third. It is the piano version of the guitarist's power chord, played in the right hand. A G fifth is root, fifth and octave: G D G. You can also invert it to D G D.

Hold the right hand still and let the left hand move through notes of the scale. In G major, try the bass line G, E, C, D. Moving from G to E takes you from the root to the sixth. D is the fifth, or dominant, and it pulls you back to the start of the loop. The bass decides where the harmony goes, so keep the moves simple.

Because a fifth chord sounds neutral, it works in minor keys too. In G minor you can move from a minor sixth (Eb) to a major sixth (E) in the bass, which full chords make awkward. You can even use dissonant notes such as the flat two (Ab) for a Phrygian colour.

If you have a chord chart such as G, Em, C, D, play a G fifth throughout and put the roots G, E, C, D in the left hand. The approach also works when you do not know a song's chords. It suits simple melodies and hymns, which often have complex harmony.

2. Beginner Arpeggio Patterns

Take a chord and break it up so a note falls on every quaver: 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and.

This suits ballads. In 3/4, play three notes of the chord per bar. In 6/8, play three notes and add the pinky on the octave for a lilting, swinging feel.

3. Ballad Ratios

Think of your two hands as a ratio. In a 1:4 ratio, the left hand plays the root once and the right hand plays the chord four times. Both hands play together on beat one.

Keep right-hand chords around middle C and above so they do not sound muddy. For more energy, play an octave in the left hand and ghost the thumb, playing the upper note very softly so you feel the pulse without hearing it over the singer.

Choose the ratio from the metre. Try 1:3 for a song in 3/4. For 4/4, use 1:4 or 2:4.

4. Syncopation: Following the Drums

For dancier, groovier songs, stop the hands landing together. Imagine a drummer: kick and snare rarely hit at once, just as a tabla player alternates the bass and treble drums. Play the root of a chord such as D minor in the left hand and the chord in the right, then call out patterns:

Listen to the drummer you play with, or isolate the drums of a recording, and copy that conversation between bass and treble.

5. Chord Trees: Harmonising the Melody

Start from a melody note and find the chords that contain it. A single G can be harmonised by G major, G minor, Eb major, C major, C minor or E minor. Melodies have landing notes and passing notes. Harmonise the landing notes. One held note can carry several chords in turn, as in many Adele ballads. A simple method is to write out the chords of your scale and test which ones work under each landing note.

How to Practise

  1. Pick a song you can sing and choose one technique at a time.
  2. Loop a short pattern until it feels automatic, then sing over it.
  3. Match the technique to the style. Fifth chords and syncopation suit rock and groove songs. Arpeggios and ratios suit ballads.
  4. Use your ears to work out chords yourself instead of only reading charts.

Questions about this lesson

What is a fifth chord on the piano?

A fifth chord uses only the root and the fifth, often with the octave added, such as G D G. It has no third, so it sounds neither major nor minor. That makes it useful over a moving bass in either major or minor keys.

Which arpeggio pattern should a beginner start with?

Start with low, middle, high, middle across four quavers per beat pair. Once that feels easy, try high-middle-low-middle or high-low-middle-low. In 3/4, play three notes of the chord per bar instead.

What does a 1:4 ballad ratio mean?

The left hand plays the root once while the right hand plays the chord four times, with both starting together on beat one. For songs in 3/4, a 1:3 ratio usually works better.

How do I find chords for a melody I am singing?

Identify the landing notes where the melody rests and list the chords that contain each note. For a G, that list includes G major, G minor, Eb major, C major, C minor and E minor. Try each option by ear and keep the one that serves the song.

Practise it

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