 Hi guys this is Jason Zach from Nathaniel School of Music. In this lesson I'm going to teach you the George Martin piano or Hopsicord sounding solo of the amazing great Beatles song in my life. So we are just going to deal with the solo part and it's a very Bach inspired counterpoint kind of performance as you heard in the intro video. So even if you're not a Beatles fan I'm sure you will become one and you may even become a Bach fan after learning this because ultimately the composer is very influenced by that kind of music the older era of music the classical era and how the counterpoint style works is you don't really play chords you're not going to play you know chords in the left hand as we normally do when we play a piano it's literally a melody in both hands there's a melody in the right hand and then so there's a lot of melodic counterpoint or chatting or conversation happening together and the two melodies which come together in a beautiful way will also take care of the harmonic movement of the song and also add the rhythm because at some point some of the beats are going to be rested some notes are going to be delayed or played for a bit longer or shorter staccato-laccato sometimes you're going to embellish the melody so we are going to learn it exactly the way we are hearing it in the tape version again this is in my life by the Beatles so I suggest you if you haven't heard the song you could perhaps listen to it on Spotify or on Apple Music or on YouTube or whatever because it's a beautiful piano solo it happens somewhere in the middle of the song you could say after the the second verse is over so we'll just get down to the the very very the infamous solo so to speak so before we learn this infamous solo what I would encourage you to do is head over to our Patreon on the Patreon page you're going to get my handwritten notes for the entire solo I have notated the treble clef as well as the bass clef and if you'd like to download MIDI imported into fancy softwares which show you each of the notes running by you can again consider all the downloads which are available for you on our patreon page for just a five dollar fee monthly right so without any delay let's get cracking with the piano solo so we go on a major scale let's first recap a major what is a major a b c sharp d e f sharp g sharp a a g sharp f sharp b d c sharp b a three sharps namely c sharp f sharp g sharper f sharp c sharp g sharp in the order correct order you could say so the key signature has three sharps pretty much diatonic the solo is going to be pretty much diatonic so I'll just break it down for you in the right hand first and keep a very simple left hand and the chord progression against the solo would be a major e major f sharp minor m a seven d minor a major pretty much the same chords as the verse of the song there are places I remember in my life I love them okay so I'll just try and hum the piano solo against the chord so you get an idea of the harmonic change and then let's break it down image f sharp minor a seven d minor right so I just demonstrated it with my voice so you get an idea of the pivotal changes of the chords now coming to the tune so we'll keep a simple left hand how I learned the solo was I just got my left hand to pulse with the root you know so just something like this would work in the left hand or the bass clef while we tackle the right hand okay it's notated for you you could check it out or you could download it so I'm just going to take you through the right hand of the piano solo then we look at the left hand okay now let's break that whole deal down it's pretty much a four bar phrasing so la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la you may want to start like that one and two one e and so you could count it as one e and a two e and a so 16 note phrasing one e and a two e and a three e and a four e and a okay one more time observe the fingering, fingering will change slightly because we are going to add the fillers or the trills very shortly which are something like things like that, right? So for now, that's bar one and now second bar, similar rhythm phrasing as the first bar, so let's put that together, F sharp, it's a little slower maybe and knowing the chords also helps because if you're not in a position to play both the tunes together, like if you're not able to get that independence, you can still play it in a very, very workable or a very amazing way with just the chord roots of the left hand. So that could work depending on your level on the piano. So moving forward, so it's a very simple pivoting thing, so how do I play that? Start at the E of the one so you don't do it on the beat, you do it off the beat and look at this F sharp, it's always every alternate note in that bar. And then now E becomes the pivot, so A, you see the pattern there, that's pretty much the gist of the melody. So just those last two bars again, bar three and bar four, slower, A, okay putting it all together, line one and when we repeat it, it's almost a ditto copy paste except for the last bar, so the first three bars would be the same. And now it changes to, so that'll go, let's just do that, okay, just that. You could do it with these three fingers and make sure you end with your pinky because what happens is it's just A major going down like a finger exercise, super fast. So the whole story of the last bar of the second half, slower, try to sing it, so you get a more accurate feel of the timing, okay, it's the last cycle. Now the right hand melody as well as the left hand melody as I'm calling it which will come later in the tutorial, have trills in them. So I've marked it out with a little trill sign in my hand written notes and I've marked it out as triplets, super fast, what do you call them, sixteenth note triplets. So that'll divide an eighth note into three so to speak, right, so really fast triplets. So you go, so at this note you're going to go, just call it a trill, so you can do that. If you're getting it without the trill that's also fine but if you'd like to do it with the trill, that's a C sharp, first trill was, so it's almost like the target note comes down by one and then goes back to the target. So the whole story again, okay, now not too many trills in the third bar, yes there's one, there's one trill in every bar actually, so there's that trill there at the F, just to make that F more catchy or more prominent because F is not part of the A major scale, right, that F is a non diatonic note and then at the same spot at the end of the three. So those are about your trills again, okay and the very last bar of the second half there are no trills, you just go, okay so now for the left hand which was keeping a good vibe but now we'll try and play it exactly like the original, so the left hand will go, let me just isolate it bar by bar, first bar we go in the bass clef, left hand, okay I'd like you to do that as a phrase and this goes with the melody in the right hand, okay, again, continuing, second bar, so first bar was one, one e and a two e and a three e and a four e and a, one e and a two e and a three e and a four e and a, second bar, one e and a two e and a, at the end of the two and the on of the one in the second bar, F sharp, so after you get F sharp G then we have a nice trill, now this trill, I had a lot of issues when I was practicing it with the fingering, so follow this exactly trust me it works, you don't want to put your thumb there and you do your index finger on the C sharp, cross your thumb immediately and then it neatly gets your pinky to end on D, so the cue points are start with your index at the C sharp, bring your middle finger on the B, cross without fail at the A and you'll get good speed doing that lick, okay, so whole story, let's do that whole thing, with the melody slowly, okay then it actually relaxes the left hand, just the first two bars I think are quite tricky, let's keep rolling that, okay, second bar, remember the left hand starts the second bar, the right hand comes in later, with that C sharp trill over the G, then right hand does then the left hand goes fancy, so breaking that second bar again, then okay coming, remember the right hand was doing, very pattern like right, so this you should kind of get into your subconscious mind by kind of grilling, you know grilling it over and over, over a couple of days of practice or even more if you wish, so the left hand is quite easy in the third bar, so D, A, D, D, B, A, now initially I used to do D, A, D, D, B, A but then I heard it more and more and I figured it's, so that's the lick of the two hands, sounds a bit funny A and B together like that, a major second usually you'd expect a third but that's how it is, it sounds beautiful at that speed, okay, one more time, at speed, slower, that's C sharp and A as crotchets, quarter notes, this is a bit tricky, you could keep that toggle going or you could just hold it down like that with two quavers, I think this would also work, this is what is there in the original, it's a bit tough to hear actually because it's sort of like a piano played at X speed and then they've used tape to kind of speed up the performance, so it's a bit not so clear, some notes get phased out in the mix so to speak but it's interesting to figure it out, you can use an app to even slow it down from the originals, you could hear everything really well in the song, so again the last bar again of the first line, okay and the very last line was finally a unison between the two hands, I think that's quite easy and then in the recording, okay both the hands play that, it's basically a major super super super fast, almost at an inhuman speed so to speak, so the very last line, my recommendation is don't do the scale in the left hand, you could just keep a root going because even I can't play it to that level, so you go, that kind of works, high A and a low A, it'll also make it clear if that's your vibe or you could do the whole scale, okay depends on the speed at which you're preferring to play, this will sound good at much slower than the original speed as well, right guys so we've looked at the right hand in terms of the melody and we added the trills to that and then we brought in the counterpoint left hand, second line, okay now let's do the whole thing very slowly so you can capture every moment or every point of contact between the hands and that's pretty much the lesson, maybe even more slower if that works, right guys so this was in my life, the piano solo of in my life, now there will be another lesson on our YouTube channel which will also finish off the entire song which has the verse, the chorus, the bridge and all of the other amazing stuff which happens, this was just the piano solo, so do stay tuned to our channel for the other part or the other video, you'll find it, you just have to type in my life on our channel or a better way to figure this out is to hit that subscribe button and make sure to turn the bell icon and enable regular notifications, so what will then happen is whenever a new video comes your way, it could be a Beatles song, it could be whatever we decide to do or whatever you suggest to us as a loyal subscriber, we will consider doing that and it will roll and you will get a notification, so do consider hitting the subscribe and the bell will help you to get updates whenever we launch and if you would want to supplement your learning for this entire lesson there will be MIDI files, some of you who know MIDI files you know what to do with them, import them into an app of your choice and then it plays and you can visualize it easier, you can also get the sheet music which is available for the entire piano solo of this arrangement, you will also get my handwritten notes which will allow you to figure out exactly where the trills are, what the chords are and so on and so forth, so happy learning, have fun with the song, hope you enjoyed the lesson and catch you in the next one, cheers.