 Hi guys, this is Jason here from Nathaniel School of Music. In this lesson, we are going to use a classic rock, a very common classic rock bass line which I'll first teach you on the piano. It would normally be played on the bass guitar. So we learn that in the left hand of our piano, this one. Once we learn that very groovy riff which divides the beat well, lot of rest, lot of interesting positions of the notes. Once we learn that we are going to work on our hand independence but not just play random stuff in the right hand like melodies and just holding chords. We will play very sort of iconic classic rock style licks, phrases and chord patterns in the right hand or the treble clef as we call it. So what I'm going to tell you will also remind you, if you listen to a lot of the stuff from the 80s or the early 90s, it may remind you of stuff like that, glam rock, bands like Toto, Bon Jovi and not only bands which use piano for their performances like Journey and Kansas but also rock bands like standard 80s glam rock bands. So even if you haven't heard classic rock, I would suggest go back in time, rewind the clock and listen to some of this awesome music which can get your head banging skills going. So before we start, it will be great to just go through all the topics which we are going to learn in this lesson. First of all, we are going to develop our hand independence using four variations which I have planned in the right hand versus the same thing in the left hand which is the bass riff. Then we are going to learn and develop the ability to play the pulse in the right hand. The way the listener's head moves to the music is called the pulse. So we figure out a way to play that pulse and play the riff in the left hand. Normally we play the pulse in the left hand and then stuff in the right hand. So I thought this lesson would be interesting to figure out the other way where you do the pulse in the right. Then we look at a very famous Mixolydian chord progression which I talk a lot of in my lessons, I'll link a few of those in the description so check that out. We are also going to develop our accents, accented phrases over a standard time signature like 4-4. So it's not going to be da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, it's not going to be predictable. That's what makes rock music so exciting. So accents and accented phrases using some arpeggios. I'm also going to teach you a fusion lick, a lick which you could say is a bit Indian in nature. So do stick around till the end. For all of you fusion lovers, I'm going to fuse an Indian lick into this classic rock progression and all through the lesson we are going to cover scale theory as well as chord theory. We need cadences and the circle of fips, the usual music theory stuff. Get a pen and paper out as well that will also help and all of these notes which are used for the lesson are available on our Patreon. The notes will imply the theory, diagrams which I draw and of course good old notation which I've handwritten for the most part in this lesson and I think my handwriting is quite good, you can follow it quite well and do consider giving the video a like or a thumbs up as we call it, a share, a subscribe and leave us a comment with something you'd like me to teach in the future. It's your comments and suggestions which have actually kept this channel growing and also feel free to hit that bell icon for regular notifications. Let's get cracking guys. So first off let's learn the bass riff. So I've chosen a very guitar friendly scale E so let me play it for you and then break it down. Very few notes, I guess 3, 4 if you want to count an octave, let's play it to the speed. So with the bass riff it's important to look at it yes from the point of view of notes but also from the point of view of the intervals because that's how it works when you're composing a bass line. So this will be 1, 1, 5, 7 flat octave, 1 octave, 5, 7 flat octave, thumb, pattern, dera, sa, sa, pani, sa, sa, pani, sa, sa, pani, sa, sa, pani. Usually the 1 of the bar will be a deeper bass which is the lower note and then they play around like a common bass line could even be built using just with the pinky and the thumb playing octaves that itself could make something very catchy like something like this you know but what I've composed here is Okay, let's do it slowly together, now you may argue with scale did this riff come from it's come from the E mixolydian scale which is like the E major scale with a flat 7 right not not that note D sharp it's with a D which is the flat 7 of E so flat 7 means you take the major scale 7 which is D sharp and drop it down a step or what they call as a semitone so the riff again on the mixolydian and mixolydian is almost always used for a rock riff or a rock bass line it's it's very rare that you're going to hear a major 7th in a rock song it'll be that and then maybe the third would either be minor or major depending on the the lyrics and the vibe of the song okay that's the riff I'd like you to give a nice lift off at the E you can even say if you wish thumb so this riff I'm not going to change for this entire lesson with all our four variations it's just going to be this right let's move forward now now the variations are essentially what the right hand is going to do let's look at variation one which is pretty much just pulses so you're going to do these two chords B D E and then B C sharp E as blocks so B D E B C sharp E those are your chords so could probably do them as quarter note so you could go either play them four times and then change you may argue what are these chords well it all depends on the base that's like an e dominant 7th a voicing of that chord like I said in this lesson these are very common ways in which people play these chords in rock music they may not be playing it as more pop ballad or classical so that's the voicing for like a rock song and then I'm just dropping it down there it's a bit of mystery also adds that major 6th vibe so you could start off with this keep a simple base playing e you can sing something till you get comfortable with the right once you get that try to play this with the riff so that's your first goal get the pulse of those chords two bars of each chord so as a pulse so pulse also means the way our head or the listener's head move or the body moves naturally in a periodic manner to the music we play so as you can see my head is moving in a certain way at all speed and the right hand is pretty much just emulating that which I think we as musicians have to be able to do when we are playing music if we are not able to do that and feel that I don't think the audience ever will so there we go move your head and replicate or copy copy that simulate that with your hand playing these two cards so bang now some people like to absorb the concept of independence by notating both the clefs treble clef in the bass clef right hand left hand and then seeing where the two hands align to do that I would encourage you yes fine write it down but then start off really slow and count 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 so we analyze the bass riff there are a lot of the ands being used right 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 so that causes the issue with the right hand and the left hand integration because the left hands playing at the off beats a lot of the off beats while the right hands only going on they are not really you know coordinating with each other you know they're doing their own thing this is doing the pulse this is doing a groove but together they come together and make people done so it's important that you do both and that's what this exercise is geared for and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and right keep the pulse going there we go slow it down sometimes it's good to I don't know things like closing your eyes will help just to feel those notes feel those beats moving past you help sometimes to close your eyes yeah right and you never know and maybe you have a particular musical expression which you do with your face do something with your eyes whatever works for you you know you need to find something which is helping you so even if it means just closing your eyes or just making a strange face I don't know what I'm doing but it comes out naturally so that's just a way to concentrate so beyond all the logic and the math behind the two hands integrating I think there's a there's a mental side to this as well and when you practice this you may struggle on day one you may not ever get it on day one but you've put in an effort you've put in like a solid amount of practice so that is going to give you a reward in the future just like an exercise just of just like a sport or a physical exercise so the advice I give students and you guys watching this would be practice it to a point that your mind kind of fries itself up it's like almost fried right but it's not it's not like burnt out so to speak it's just fried up so saturated and now that's it for the day you can do something else listen to some songs take your dog out for a walk do anything else forget playing the piano for that day but you need to play so that your mind is a little bit fried up as I say okay but you've not got it so here's the thing right when you sleep what's going to end up happening is the subconscious mind will start working on this process of mastering and getting what you wanted to get out of so it's important for you to visualize yourself playing it you know just imagine okay pam pam pam pam pam pam pam that's the base and ting ting ting ting ting visualize both hands achieve your goal right you need to visualize your goal and the next morning it's going to get better or you may actually get it in the next morning okay so don't forget to take your breaks don't fry don't burn out rather saturate your mind fry it up but then take a break sleep have a good night sleep let the subconscious work on the process and then the next morning or the next evening whenever you practice don't take a long break after that you don't want to give up take like a one week off and then try then you're back to square one you want to do it the next morning with the same intensity you'll realize what took you like an hour is now taking like five minutes to just muscle back together so this is block cards in the right hand right so I'm going to conclude this part of the lesson series we're gonna have four variations in the right hand the first one is this blocked structure the next one is I'm going to teach you the accents accent groupings which will be with the riff as well that's gonna be a lot of fun and we look at some standard glam rock stuff played on synths and guitars and stuff like a little bit of theory to transpose it together then a nice fusion lick with that same thing right so I thought I'll divide this into a few parts and yes stick around in the next part we are going to do arpeggios in groups of three accents basically and we'll also look at a turnaround which is very common and then back so lots coming up guys the next part will be available so do check it out it's there on our YouTube channel itself so what you want to do is hit that bell if you hit the bell some of you already know how regularly we put up our YouTube lesson so hit that bell you'll get a notification hit the subscribe to stay tuned and don't forget to share the video give it a like a thumbs up and get the notes on patreon let's move on to the next part