 Hi everyone, this is Jason here from Nathaniel School of Music. In this lesson we are going to focus on hand independence. Yes, if you follow this channel for a while now, you know that a lot of the stuff which goes on on the channel is focused on hand independence. But as I try to do in each of my hand independence videos is to try and focus on either a different genre of music or a different aspect or a different challenge of hand independence, right? So in this video, what the right hand is going to do is two things. The right hand is going to focus on a steady chord progression, a very simple two chord one, E minor 7th and A 7th. I will break down the chords very shortly and it's also going to be playing a melody. Now normally what you do when you are playing chord hits in the right hand or even a melody, you would end up playing like a steady pulse in the left hand, right? And most of my lessons on independence, especially at a more beginner level, cover the ability or cover the skill of developing a steady pulse and that pulse can be either a single root note or it could be a chord. It could be anything for that matter. So in this video, however, we are going to look at a bass line, something which you would expect a bass player in a band, a bass guitar player in a band to do. So one might, one might argue that whatever I'm teaching you now would apply a lot for rock music or for funk music or for blues music in specific because in these genres, the left hand pretty much will need to play what the bass player is doing or at least follow the drummer, the kick and the snare of the drummer. So this becomes a serious independence challenge because unlike a bass player in a band, you don't have to only play the bass line on the piano. You have to always ask the question, okay, what is the right hand doing, right? So in this exercise, we are going to start with chords in the right hand and then we are going to do a melody and throughout the lesson notation for each of these exercises will be provided. It's my handwritten notation. It's not, I would say officially done in a software, but I think the reason why I do it in handwritten form is so that I hope it can be understandable or more understandable by you guys and that's the way it is. So you can always download yourself a copy of the handwritten notation on our Patreon page. It'll also help support the channel and help us grow forward, right? So let's get started with the lesson and if you haven't already, if you're watching this video and if you haven't subscribed, please hit the subscribe button, turn on the bell for notifications because we are going to do a lot of lessons as we have been doing and we are going to just pretty much keep going forward with new lessons on a variety of music topics, not just piano. It'll also be theory, year training and various other live streams covering rhythm exercises and of course learning songs. So it's very important to subscribe to the channel, otherwise you're not going to get regular notifications, right? So let's get started. In the right hand, you have two chords. You have E minor seventh and A dominant seventh. Now, if you are a beginner or if you've not really encountered these seventh chords, you could just, you know, play the minor and the major triads without complicating it too much. You would even go E minor and A major. But of course, this is a highly inefficient way of playing the two triads. You would need inversions. So treat this also as a very good independence challenge. So you go E minor. Maybe you could start with this version of E minor, E G B and then this version of A major, E A C sharp, E G B, E A C sharp. If you have any doubts with inversions, we've done a lot of chord inversions videos. We have a playlist on our YouTube channel. So click that and you'll find it in the description. Anyway, so what I want you to do is get acquainted with the different shapes of your chords as well as the chord changes because if you don't know your chord changes and if you, yeah, if you have complications in finding your notes, independence is going to be really tricky because independence is trying to develop things using just muscle memory and just using sort of the subconscious mind, where you're not supposed to think when you play. Otherwise it starts getting a bit scary. So first work your shifting between the chords. So you have E minor to A major, option one. Option two is you'll have the inversion of E minor, which is G B E. Okay, that's the first inversion. And this is how we go to A major. Now, if you don't like playing your chords so high, you can even play them one octave lower. I quite like maintaining a kind of a sort of unwritten rule where when you play chords played in and around middle C, whenever you do that, you gel well with a band. And more importantly, you make the singer sound good because the singer will highlight some of the higher notes. So it's always good to play your piano chords, especially during accompaniment and playing with a rock band in and around middle C. Okay, so second option E minor in first inversion going to A major in root position and then B E G. That's your second inversion of E minor going to C sharp E A B E G C sharp E A. As you can see with inversions, things become a lot easy when it comes to shifting. And to test it, you may want to just kind of play the chords either without looking or just close your eyes and just get the shapes. Just like a guitar player would do when you practice chord changes. You have to make the challenge of a chord change blind. You have to do it without looking, at least two chords at a time. Okay, now if you're a more intermediate player, if you've been playing seventh chords, you could also sneak in a seventh chord for each of these. So E minor. Now I'm starting with E minor in this particular shape. Okay, now what I'm adding is the minor seventh. So E minor is the normal triad. Minor seventh would be the flattened seventh or the dominant seventh. Now a lot of people, when we learn these seventh chords or seventh intervals, we first build the triad and then we go above that and then get our minor seventh. The challenge of this approach is you're not going to work with that seventh interval across different inversions of the chord. So if you're here, how are you going to know the minor seventh? Well, some of you may know it's D. You know, because E, D, that's the dominant seventh or the minor seventh interval. But on the piano, it's a whole new game because where is the D? At the spur of the moment, you're not going to find it that easily. If you're thinking E, G, B, D. If you're thinking, oh, D should always come above the triad. So the way I look at the seventh chords is first get the triad in any position possible. In this case, B, E, G. Ask yourself, what chord am I playing? Currently, I'm playing E minor. So E is the root of the chord. If you want to find the seventh of this chord or the flat seven in this case, always move down a tone or what I like to call two chromatic steps. So E, D sharp, D. That's the simplest way to form a minor seventh chord in my opinion. It's almost guitar-like. If you look at guitar intervals and forming chords on the guitar, I guess a lot of guitar people use that approach. So find the triad and add the seventh somehow. So there we go. So if you're here, where is the seventh? Now, the seventh is either two steps below the root. You could play it there. Or the seventh, if you're here, could be looked at as two steps below this root. There's still an E here, right? So you go E minor seven. So E minor seventh again, you get this shape. You get this shape. First play E minor, then add the seventh. And maybe in this shape, seventh is nothing but root minus two. And each inversion, especially when you play seventh chords, actually sounds very different. If you take a major seventh chord, let's say A major. And if you play the seventh, you can play it up top. And what is a major seventh compared to a minor seventh? A major seventh is the octave minus one. Octave or the root minus one. So if you're here, you can still get to your major seventh. If you're here, root minus one. You don't move minus one. You add a note, which is minus one or one semitone below your root or your octave. So major seventh, that's your G sharp. Minor seventh, which is your G, thus creating a dominant seventh sound. OK, great. So that's about your chord. So if you're a beginner, you just play triads. If you've been playing for a while, you could play the chords in this way. B, D, E, G for E minor. And A is A, C sharp, E, G for A dominant seventh. So B, D, E, G, A, C sharp, E, G. And we are going to play the chords in the right hand using three methods. First off, we're just going to play semibreves or whole notes. Just hold on to the chord. Two, three, four, change. Two, three, four, change. Counting four. Second way, we'll be using half notes or else known as minims. Two, three, four, one, two, three, four. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. And last but not least, on the pulse, what we call is crotchets or quarter notes. So you go, every chord is hit four times. And when you do pulse notes or crotchets, we can focus on some dynamics. So choppy, choppy, long. The last one can be long or accented. Two, three, four, one, two, three, four. Always remind yourself of what a drummer would do, especially with the hi-hat of the drum, which will generally open out at the end of the bar. Something like, right? Ultimately, you're playing rock music in this case, so you have to observe what the rest of the musicians are doing in your ensemble. Fine, so chords in the right hand, E minor seventh, A dominant seventh, played in a variety of ways. I'm just showing you for this lesson, this shape and this shape. And you're gonna wanna play it as semi-brieves in the first case, long, minims in the second case, one, two, three, four. And lastly, crotchets or quarter notes in the third case, following the pulse with some dynamics. Okay. And the lesson will include chords in the right hand. Once we do that very well, we will then move on to a melody line, which I've also composed. Okay, now coming to the left hand. The left hand is gonna do something which you may find rather unique as a piano player who just plays maybe ballads, country music, folk music, or just singer-songwriter stuff. You know, or even for that matter, classical music, because you don't have a defined melody in the bass. You don't have a very defined bass groove or a bass tune, which is happening here. That's what I tried to incorporate in this lesson. So I'll just show you the bass line and then I'm gonna break it down. Okay. It's quite easy. You just need to use all your five fingers of the left hand. Just see how they are aligned. E, F sharp, G, A, B. And perhaps just get used to all five of them. E, F sharp, G, A, B. Or B, A, G, F sharp, E. Okay. So my line is pretty much using these five notes. Pa, pa-ra, pa-ra-mt, pa-ba-pa-m, pa-rem, pa-rem, pa-rem, pa-rem, pa-rem, pa-rem, pa-rem, pa-rem, pa-rem, pa-rem, t-t-t. Okay. E, F sharp, G, B, A, G, F sharp, E. And a great way you can count this better is to figure out how much is the beat getting divided by. In this case, I would imagine if my pulse is that. Then if I sing the bass line. Pa, pa-rem, pa-rem, pa-rem, pa-rem, pa-rem, pa-rem, pa-rem. So the division process, I would say, or the division system would probably be dividing the beat by two, because pa-m, pa-m. So you count one and two and three and one and two and three and four and one and two and three. So if you see the notation, which we've put out there, you'll find that it's one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four. Okay. Then I've given a gap there. One and two and three and four and one and two and three and four. That's a bit tricky. Those ends, right? The ends always give you that excitement or that energy. So, I mean, it is tricky, but at the end of the day, that's what makes people dance. It's the off, off beats and the sub beats, which you add along with the on beat stuff, which really creates the groove. So I'll play you the line again. I'll count the subdivisions. E, two and three and four and one and two and three and four. One and two and three and four and one and two and three and four. Wait, then two and three and four and one and two. One and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and three and one. That's the line. Always advisable to sing it along as you play so that you get it into your, into your veins. So, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. After a while, you can stop counting the one and two and then just focus on the melody. So essentially the bass is playing a melody, isn't it? It's just played in the lower end. So we call it a bass line. That's the line again. And now you slowly but surely bring in the right hand. So I'm going to demonstrate all that we said the right hand should do. Semi-brieves, minims and crotchets. Those are the three exercises in the right hand. So with the bass, one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four. One and two and three and four and one. Now, in the second bar, sometimes we are tempted to kind of go to the on of the three instead of the end of the two. We may end up doing one and two and three and four and one and two and three. Makes it a bit lazier, but it's fine. If you can't get the off of the two, that's the end of the two. It's okay, go to the three. But I'm gonna try and demonstrate the end of the two. One and two and three and four and one and two and three. There we go. One and two and three and four and... Simple right hand, right? But when you change from E minor seventh to A dominant seventh, you don't wanna change like this. One and two and three and four. You saw the problem there. The right hand changed at the four and but the left hand was only supposed to do that. You don't want both the hands to follow each other and that's the point of independence. One hand, both hands try to follow each other because the signal is coming from the same brain. So you have to figure out a way to isolate the signal or what I like to think is you make one thing very pre-programmed or very robotic or very involuntary, so to speak. And let the other thing be observed consciously by your brain or what maybe some drummers would do since they have four limbs, maybe they'll try and make at least two limbs involuntary and practice it so much for hours and hours such that, well, it just happens. So you need to do that. So practice, I would say practice always, practice the tougher thing more often. So in this case, the bass is clearly the tougher thing, so practice that hard and we have a fairly simple right hand which is going on the pulse. Rather than the first case, just semi-brieves. One more time. One and two and three and four and one and two. Goes on. One and two and three and four and now, minimums. One and two and three and three. So the hit points are one and three of the bar. Let's do that again. One and two and three and four and one and two and three and four. One and two and three and four and one. There we go. Minims. And now, crotchets. The quarter notes which is next with some dynamics. Maybe now since this is now rather gonna be tricky with both hands, should perhaps see if you can sing the left hand. Pum, pa-pum, pa-pum, pa-pum, pa-pum, pa-pum, pa-pum. That's another great way to develop your independence. Sing it instead of playing it. Sing what you're trying to play or sing. If you don't get it instantly, go back to singing. So you go, pa-pum, pa-pum, pa-pum. Quarters. There we go. Same bass line. Let's break it down a bit slower. So for added sonic flavor, you can also focus on your bass or your left hand to kind of vary between some staccato hits and some legato hits. Something like long, short, short. So that's what dynamics means to me, I guess, on the piano. What you can do is just, you know, staccato, legato, short notes and long notes. And then you can just play things louder and softer. That's what we generally call as accents. That's what we're trying in the right hand, you know. So pa-pum. Loud at the end. Pa-pum. You don't have to overdo it, but I'm just giving you the idea that both hands can have the dynamic control as well added to the playing and that'll really, really test your independence. And more than that, don't think of it as an independence exercise. Just think that this is just some awesome music which is going on right now, which you have to generate as best as possible so that people can enjoy it and move to it and relate to it in the best way they can. Okay, so we've covered pretty much most of the exercise, which is to be able to play the two chords, E minor seventh and A dominant seventh with the bass line in semi-brieves with minims. And finally with crotchets or quarter notes, also what I call as pulse notes. Now, let's move on to something a little bit more challenging. So I've developed a melody line in the right hand along with this bass line or a bass melody in the left hand. So the challenge here is you're playing two melodies. There's one here and the same one we just learned here is going to continue. So let me first play you the melody in the right hand and then of course break it down. There's also the notation which you could check out if you read music. If you don't also, I think it's fine. You can just watch me and I'll break it down slowly. That's the melody. So. Now you could, let me just show you a bit in the domain of fingering. You should figure out a way to somehow get your middle finger on C sharp otherwise the whole tune is going to be a bit challenging to play. So let me break it down. It's always good to break down a melody. So the whole tune was. So let's try and break that down. So I've kind of broken it down into three parts. Let's first get that. Then. Try to land your middle finger on C sharp somehow. So maybe ring finger on D would be nice. So far so good, I hope. And now the latter part. C sharp D, E D, C sharp B, A, okay. So. You could even cross. And just to add a nice Celtic or a folk vibe, I do like. That's like a little triplet. You can do it if you want. But these are just like flares, which a lot of melodic instruments tend to do. Like, even if you sing it, you'll probably go. It's just, it just comes naturally to the voice, to the violin, to a horn, to any melodic instrument. That's why these melodic instruments are so powerful. They can bend notes. They can do anything to notes. They have vibrato. None of that we have on the piano. So the piano that way is a very, very binary instrument. You just have a note or you don't have the note. There's no two ways about it. You play the note loud and soft. That's all you can do with a note. But there's so much more variety if you add these trills and so on and so forth. So I'm doing. One more time. You can even try singing it. If you don't get the trill, no problem at all. It's still going to sound awesome. And a great way to start your journey now with independence is your left hand already used to play. Now the concern or the challenge for us is we have to get both going, right? Now to get that happening, it's not going to happen in a flash. So maybe start with the pulse in the left hand. What we did in the right hand kind of now comes to the left hand. So it's right hand doing the pulse. Now it's left hand. You could try just holding an E or just do E as a semi-brief. A. E, A. Minim. A. A. Pulse. Breakdown and melody for you once more. Now before you get the bass line, maybe you can just do some simple bass stuff, which is E, G, A, G. Sort of like a contour of the bass notes or the bass line. A. A. A. Slowly but surely you can sneak in that F-sharp. You can do that B, A. Another great way to practice is just stop there, you know? Just hold it there and just kind of refresh your mind. Now move on. Wait a little. Finish the bar. We finished about 50% I think. Now finish it off. There's just a G, F-sharp to go. This is the exercise. Once you're done with the melody, maybe you could have a nice interplay between the two concepts we learned so far in the lesson, which is pretty much the lesson. We have the chord options. Pulse for now. Move on. Maybe the melody now. Back to pulse. Some dynamics. Staccato, legato. Melody. So that's pretty much the lesson and you could use this a lot for rock music, for folk music. You saw the melody was very folk, Celtic you could say, and supported by a nice bass line. I think it's a very powerful way to play the piano. It's literally two instruments. Chank, chank, chank, chank, chank. That could be what a guitarist plays. And pom, pa-bom, pa-bom. That's what a bass player would do. So it's literally two instruments by one human on one instrument. So that's what the piano is all about. At the end of the day, it's one of the few instruments where your left hand and your right hand are not working on the same objective. On the guitar, you're holding something and you're providing energy in your other hand to get the sound out of what you held there. But on the piano, if you see a thing, you can just play it with that one finger. You don't have to rely on the other hand. So if ever we compare this instrument to something, you would compare it with a drum or a percussion instrument because those are the instruments where the hands are isolated. So whenever you look at hand independence, don't just think that you are a piano player. Think that you're a percussionist. Practice it with singing, very important, especially in this exercise, which is quite melodic. And also, take a step back from the piano and you can also try and do it on your body. Pomp, pomp, pomp, pomp, pomp, pomp, pomp, pomp, pomp. Sing it. You can practice independence everywhere. You don't need a piano to practice independence. So yes, so that's about the exercise. Yet another one of our independence exercises. I hope we are not boring you with so much of this stuff, but independence is a very important thing about playing the piano and it is what makes the piano fun at the end of the day. This is what you want to do. You want to have all sorts of things going on with both your hands and in all sorts of combos and in all sorts of groupings. Melody there, chords there, pulse there, bass line here or melody there, bass line there, which is what we did in this lesson to make the music really, really interesting. Right guys, thanks again for watching our lesson. This is Jason from Nathaniel School of Music. If you haven't already, please subscribe to our channel, hit the bell for notifications and all the notation you saw in the lesson can be downloaded on our Patreon page. Do head over there and also it'll help support the channel. Have a good one, cheers.