 Hi everyone this is Jason here from Nathaniel. In this lesson we are going to learn my arrangement of the great Beatles song When I'm 64. So it's a solo piano arrangement so what that means is there's no option of playing with a band playing with a singer it's just you on the piano and what I like about this arrangement or what I enjoyed while creating the arrangement was the fact that the piano is not the driver of this song the piano is not the main force of the music so that allows us to think creatively to figure out options which might suit the piano and I've also tried to look at lots of commonly used solo piano options you know adding the thirds embellishing the melody I've also focused a lot on the bass in this lesson because the bass line is really cool and I've paid a lot of attention towards copying or being inspired from all the elements which are there in the existing song which is obviously the melody the vocals there's a lot of other instruments as well there's drums there's bass bass is huge and then there's obviously the horn and the wind section where there's a lot of fillers passing notes which I've designed on the piano in different octaves so the way I'll do this lesson will basically be I'll tell you the melody as well as the left hand backing together in one shot otherwise it may get confusing to then bring in the left hand later and we'll go section by section there's an intro and an outro which are ditto then there's a a section or the verse and a b section you could call it the next part or part b or chorus or whatever okay so the song is on the original key I'm teaching you the arrangement based on the original key which is D flat major D flat as you may know has five flats basically all the black notes and the white notes will be F and C that's about D flat the song is on four by four and it's swung so what that basically means is the eighth note which was which once may have been tadadadadada will now be so that's what you call a swing it's important to understand the difference between straight music and swing music and when I'm 64 is a great song which is already swung right it's not it's not not ta-da-da-da-da, it's ta-da-da-da-da-da, okay? So those are the fundamentals you could say of the song. So now let's get cracking and if you read sheet music, what might help is we have this entire notation as a PDF available on our Patreon page. Do head over to our Patreon, get yourselves a copy and obviously there'll be notation for every other lesson we will be putting out and also the previous lesson. So it's all there on Patreon for a simple subscription fee of about $5 a month or you could choose some of the other subscription packages as well, which you may find useful, right? So let's get cracking with the arrangement. So let's first do the intro, the intro, the melody will go, okay? So starting with F with your thumb, okay? And what I've done with the intro is I've also added some embellishments. So I'm going... So we call that a choral part. You could, you could perhaps say that that's the tenor part. If this was the soprano, it's a nice little counterpoint. The melody goes, melody goes, and the tenor harmony goes, okay? So that's the tenor harmony and you'll find that in the song, but the Beatles arranged it so well with so many instruments. So one challenge which I had was what parts to keep in the arrangement and obviously what parts have to leave. Not because I wanted to throw them away, but it's just because it's just physically impossible at least for me to play all the parts in the song. Sometimes you get a bit carried away with the piano as it kind of feels like a one-man orchestra. You know, it's, you can do so many parts if you want to, you know, if you put in the effort, you can play every part in the song. So it's such an incredible instrument because your two hands are always free. Anyway, so coming to the melody, so we split the melody into parts, soprano and tenor at the end of the intro, B flat, A flat, G flat, F, okay? And then I've just added that for fun, it's a bluesy thing. So and now you'll see how this complements with the left hand. The left hand is basically playing D flat and A flat, sort of like exactly what the bass guitar does in the original song. You should definitely hear the original song, it's a great song and if you haven't heard or have not listened to the Beatles, you have missed something, right? The Beatles is something which will really inspire you at any level, any genre, whatever you want to play as a musician, you have to go through the pathway which is Beatles, okay? So you go, the left hand I'm going to show you, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum. Let's do that first with the melody, okay? Let's do that again, F flat, A flat and then you bring your left hand up to do. Just to kind of harmonize the soprano again. Let's do the whole intro again with the bass, pum, pum, pum, and that takes you into the verse. So the same story with the outro, the only difference I'm doing there is, I'm just kind of ending it there, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum. Just do root fifth octave, any octave. So this is the outro, okay? So that's about your intro, outro, now let's do the verse. The verse is obviously the lyrical part, right? When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now, okay? Let's work it. I think two lines at a time or two sentences at a time, when I get older, losing my hair, many years from now, that particular part. So the same thing as the intro, same melody almost, right? For that line and the same bass pattern as well. So let's get that going. When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now, from now go up to the higher A flat. So many years from now and then, so that's pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, that's the little horn thing or the oboe or clarinet, I guess, which you hear in the background, high pitch. And I've harmonized that because on a piano, you can harmonize anything, I guess, so. And the descending, the other part, soprano, and two, two, two, two, two, two, two, okay? One more time. Pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, losing my hair, many years from now, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa. Okay? The next line moving forward, will you still be sending me a valentine? Now that's quite easy visually, but it's a bit tricky because it's using a lot of chromatic. So will you still be sending me a valentine? Get my fingering. Okay, and whenever you practice the melody, try to practice the melody with your snaps of the left hand. Don't let your left hand chill out and be idle. Do something with the left hand to help you groove. So the way I like to groove with my left hand is always snap on the two and the four. So don't do, you don't get that swing feel, right? So you should probably go, okay, so keep the two and four snaps. You see me snapping all the time. It's not some random thing for fun. It's very important. It's part of the learning. Okay? So that whole sentence, will you still be sending me a valentine birthday greetings bottle of wine? So will you still be sending me a valentine? Probably use the thumb there and then birthday greetings, birthday greetings, bottle of wine, bottle of wine. So as you can see in the notation, lot of accidentals, bottle of wine. So accidental means those are notes which the artist has added to kind of add flavor to the song because it's going out of the scale. So it's just adding this additional embellishment, which the song clearly has, then birthday greetings chromatic from C up to E flat, birthday greetings, then bottle of wine, bottle of wine. Another chromatic, but ending there. And then the left hand goes the same pattern, but on A flat since the chord is A flat major. So hope the left hand was good there. And then birthday greetings, I'm following what the bass is doing, birthday greetings. So I'm harmonizing the melody, that's exactly what's there in the song as well, which you should hear. So birthday greetings and the bass goes birthday greetings and then bottle of wine, come back to your usual root 5 groove. So the whole second line, climb back to the next line. The first half of the third sentence is pretty much the same, right? And then would you lock the door, I've tried to add some interest on the keyboard by again bringing in some of those harmonic layers. So very important tip. So I hope by teaching you this arrangement, first of all, it'll be the start of many more and also it'll be your gateway towards all these different techniques, which you can use to your own favorite songs, I hope. So let's look at the third line again. So would you lock the door, lot of things are happening. First of all, I'm bringing back some harmony in the right hand. So instead of doing would you lock the door, would you lock the door? Instead of that, I'm doing would you lock the door. I'm adding these additional hits, which you can see in the notation. So would you lock the door, add some harmonic vibe, primarily because if you play chords in the left hand and the melody is already so deep, right? The melody is around middle C, because I'm playing it in the singer's register. I don't want to play, to my ear, I don't like playing it there, which is why I've even put an octave sign in the notation for you to follow. So I'm playing it around here. Now would you lock the door? And what does the bass do while would you lock the door happens? Would you lock the door? That's so that's D flat, E flat, F, G flat. And the word door needs to come in a bit earlier, so little bit of independence there. So the whole third sentence. So when I do, so I'm adding a nice little bass embellishment there, which may not be in the song. So pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, okay, that's the whole thing again, third line, I'll play it again, okay, and now will you still need me, will you still feed me part? Okay, I'll play it once and then teach you, okay, so this is, I guess the trickiest part of the song. So I'm trying to put in like a jazzy walking bass, which you'll find, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, and then pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, which is the horn part, right. So okay, let's first do the bass, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, F sharp, Ab, Ab, D flat, so, okay. And the right hand, you see the parts which I'm adding there, F sharp, F, normal F, then will you still feed me? So, will you still feed me, pump, pump, pump, pump, that's the chord note, chord root and it's 5th. Will you still feed me flat F, pa, pa, and then, so let me play the whole thing again. Will you still feed me pa, pa, pump, pump. Let me play that whole thing again, okay, pa, pa, pa, so it goes to the bass, so I hope you've got the left hand, try to sing it along, that generally helps, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, okay, and then let's talk about the right hand, then only the right, okay, that's quite easy, you just add that extra part with the bass, that becomes a little tricky. Okay, now when I'm creating these jazzy chords, that gives you like an E flat 9th sound, that's like an A flat 13th sound there, so one more time, I'm imagining like an entire horn section or something playing that together, so piano is really awesome in that sense, if you can digest what's there in an existing song, can always bring it to the keyboard, it's always a possibility, which is why I always like doing arrangements or covers of songs, some of which may not even need the piano, you can see some of my covers, I've done a Nirvana song of all the songs, we've done a Nirvana cover, I've done one of my favorite bands from India Parva's cover, so most of those songs I try to do in a sense that the song doesn't have the piano, so what could the piano do, so that could be a way you can work forward, don't always cover songs which are piano songs, you know, because that has been done before, you know, so you try to think a bit out of the box sometimes, that can also be of great value, okay, so this is the whole verse or the A section, however it ends with, let me just show you the ending, so it's a simple D-flat arpeggio, in triplets, okay, whole A section, let's get it done slowly, you can play along if you wish, climb, repeat, third line, climb, okay, so that's the entire A section, check out the notation as well or rewind the video, whatever way you can to kind of learn it and let's move on, so the next section I've completely changed the feel of it, I've tried to make it a bit more melancholic to see if it adds something different to the song, right, so let's get cracking with the B section, right, so for the B section I'm kind of taking the entire melody up a notch or up an octave, instead of doing trying to play it here, so I think that first line is quite easy, it's literally just this, okay, so that's that, and figure out some of those off beats where he kind of precedes the beat, if it's not too dear, he's not, if it's not too dear, that'll be a bit too cheesy I guess, so and then, so the left hand is basically starting with the B-flat minor, root and fifth, then you climb and play all and then play thirds, right, so third, third, third, another third, end on F-flat and then you groove in the left hand, okay, that's like a B-flat minor inversion where you go the top two notes first and you stop there, one more time with the bass, bass is slightly tricky, you may want to hold down the pedal because if you have to jump from here to here, the pedal will really help, also I've put a marking to kind of play it softer, okay, in comparison with the earlier, that's a bit more lively, but when we go to this second part, trying to make it a bit more melancholic and now you bring it up and then let's move on to the next sentence which is, so here I've tried to kind of emulate the backing vocals, add some of my own harmony and just try and put it all together, right, so that's that line, we shall scrimp and save, so it goes, we shall scrimp and save, so the soprano will go save, but the other harmonies go, okay, and the word save, the soprano can be held with this finger, so it goes, we shall with the lower third, we shall scrimp and and save, hold on to the soprano there and the left hand, we shall, quite easy, just a B-flat, we shall scrimp and okay, I'm just adding the base of the song, so there's a kind of a crescendo there, how do we create the crescendo, first of all by building the intensity, okay, and then you drive it, or you can figure out any other way you want to build the chord, you know, like you can just basically go crazy there, I guess, right, that could work, okay, let's just do the two lines again, and then let's move on, okay, so there I'm going to like these staccato chords with the melody, okay, but I'm harmonizing the melody because the piano otherwise may sound a bit weak at the top end, so that harmony and then some nice staccato octaves there, add that intensity one more time, okay, now the Virachak and Dave bit, which is pretty much exactly what's going on in the song, which goes Virachak and Dave, and I'm coming down to Dave at the lower end, so what I have done is kind of do an interplay with the right hand and left and there, and I'm whacking this twice there in succession, Dave, Dave, you come down and then that's the other instrument, I guess the clarinet also in the song, so Virachak and Dave, right, so let me show you that, now you need both hands together, there's no point in doing left hand and right hand separately, we have to do it together, so Virachak and Dave, get that start with your thumb, so that's left, right, left, left, right and it ends with the dominant A flat chord, one more time, and then the out row, which I told you earlier, okay, so it's a very very interesting song and I think it'll be quite challenging for you at any level, if you're a beginner, what I would suggest you to do is ignore all the harmonic embellishments notated in the right hand, just don't do any of the harmonic embellishments, just focus on the melody, so you can just do it, just do only the soprano part, if you're an intermediate or an advanced player, played exactly as it's written and then have some fun, have your own improvisation around it, and I would always encourage you, if you have a strong backing of chord theory, make a note of the chords, make a note of each chord before you play and it may also help to get yourselves a copy of the notation, it'll be available on our Patreon, so do head over there and get yourselves a copy right now and support the channel, it'll be awesome, right, so this is When I'm 64 by The Beatles, an amazing song which does not really have the piano, it's more vocals and horns and bass and big band and what not, I hope you found the arrangement useful and I hope it can help your growth as a piano player, right, again this is Jason here from Nathaniel, thanks a ton for watching the lesson, if you haven't already hit that subscribe button, hit the bell for notifications, very very important and I will see you in the next one.