 Hi guys, this is Jason here from Nathaniel and in this lesson let's learn how to play the popular song Jingle Bells on the piano and I've developed five ways to play this song keeping the melody the same of course. So first off we are going to learn the melody then we learn the chords which are used for the piece and then we are going to learn a lot of patterns which you can play the song in and this is a very rhythmic song. So all the five methods which we have for chord playing revolve around different rhythms. I think there will be some version out of this five which will work for you. So let's get started right away with the melody. I've chosen the melody on the key of G major one sharp F sharp right. So let's just get the melody I guess you can figure it out by your ears itself but nevertheless let's just figure out the notes. We start with the third of the G major scale which is B, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way, okay quite simple right, lot of B's, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way, okay next line, okay, oh what fun it is to write in a one horse open sleigh. If you cannot play those B's very fast it's okay you can do something like, I think that also sounds nice, anyway let's do the whole line together, B, B, B, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way, oh what fun it is to write in a one horse open sleigh. And then it repeats one more time and then it has a different ending, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way, again, oh what fun it is to write in a one horse open sleigh. Okay so that's how we end the piece, oh what fun it is to write, the first time, yeah it changes a bit only at the end, let's do the whole melody once more everyone, you can play along with me, so that's about the melody, let's first look at a very simple block chord pattern in the left hand which will be more than sufficient to get cracking with the song, okay, so we start with our G B D or the G major chord or the tonic chord first as most songs end up starting with in any case, so we start with G major, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way and try to hit the tonic chord at every one and three of the bar, so one and three and four and one and three four, okay and then oh what fun, see the G major chord doesn't sound good on the C, so there what chord shall be used, let's do the C major chord there, oh what fun it is to write and then you have to come back to G, okay let's do the whole thing till there, Jingle Bells, G major, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way and now C, okay what do we have there, okay there we have an interesting chord, we have an A major chord which is actually not part of the G major scale but it's actually what we call as a secondary dominant chord wherein it resolves to another chord of the scale, in this case A resolves to the D chord and then D comes back to G, so D is actually what we call as the primary dominant chord because it's a dominant chord which resolves to the tonic and it's part of the G major scale, so in the G major scale you need to remember that the D major is your dominant which resolves to G major which is the tonic but then you could also have another chord resolving to the dominant which is the A major chord coming back to D and repeat, so it creates a nice sense of excitement going back to the next section of the song which is pretty much the same thing so let's do the whole thing with chords, I'm going to call out the chords, Jingle Bells, that's G major, Jingle all the way, still G major, now C major, yes to write G major, in a one horse A major, then slay, hey going to D I'd encourage you guys to download the PDF which we have with the chords of this entire song and that'll help you a lot I guess while learning the piece of music or you could just follow along if you're following the chords well Jingle, G, now C, back to G, A and now back to C again like we did earlier and now instead of going to that A major chord, we play in a one horse, keep it simple, go to D, the dominant directly one horse open, slay, okay, whole thing again guys, sing along, Jingle Bells, G major, Jingle all the way, and C to G, A, D, stay on G, C okay, and now let's do the verse of the song, dashing through the snow and that sort of a thing, dashing through the snow on a one horse open, slay okay, let's work that out melodically, dashing through the snow, slower, dashing through the snow next, in a one horse open, slay all the fields we go sort of climbing melodically, so all the fields we go and then laughing, okay, let's do the whole section again also keep the melody a little staccato that'll sound a lot more groovy not all the time, here and there okay, got that in a one horse open, slay all the fields we go laughing all continuing, almost the same, the second half bells on both, making spirits bright what fun it is to laugh and sing okay, get that what fun it is to laugh and sing a slaying song tonight okay, the whole dashing through the snow verse back to the chords, G major in the beginning okay, in a one horse open, slay okay, C major there all the fields we go D major because you have this F sharp in the melody laughing all the way because D major is the dominant and it comes back to G okay, or just remember the chords G major, D major, D major back to G major and now almost the same thing and C major so that's about the melody and the chords hope you have understood that because that's like the foundation and now the fun stuff begins the rhythm of the left hand so let's get cracking with a rhythm which I think will work for each one of you even if you started playing the piano I think you can get this and all you have to do is play the chord roots of each chord so if it's G major the root of the chord is the name of the chord so you basically play G and I'd like to create a nice baseline effect so play it deep on the piano maybe this G as opposed to that so you go here and for additional flavor you play the root of the chord and then the fifth of the chord sort of like what a bass player would do in the first place so you go G, D and you just go with the pulse of the song so 1, 2, 3, 4 1, 2, 3, 4 let's get that so it's root, fifth, G, D okay now you can do for all the chords you can pretty much play like that G, D, G, D whenever we have a C major chord printed out you should do C, G, C, G C with its fifth which is G and then G, D then A major A, E A's root is A A major's fifth is E and D, A D with its fifth A so that's pretty much your chords isn't it so let's do the melody real slow and interact with the left hand now earlier the left hand was just holding the blocks which I think is a nice pattern on its own but this is going to make it a little bit more groovy and have this bass dimension it sort of feels like there are two people playing the piano your right hand and your left hand so let's get cracking right away that's the G chord and now C A, D G major and now C chord that's pretty much it and you repeat the same for the verse as well right guys so here's pattern 2 for jingle bells it's what I call or what we pretty much call in the piano world as um pa so you go um let me show you the pattern first so the um indicates the left most note of the chord played in a longer way or a legato way pa and um pa um pa and pa as the syllable indicates is a little bit more on the staccato side so that's why we say um pa to help us create that dynamic between the left and the low and the higher pitch sound um pa um pa um pa this is pattern 2 okay so what you could do with all these patterns is focus on singing the tune before you actually attempted on the keyboard right and sing freely once you've got the vocals going which will be a lot of fun on its own you can then voice in the piano right hand so so that's basically um pa so again what is um pa um will be the left most note or the bassiest note of the chord played in a longer way or a legato way while the pa will be the remaining notes of the chord okay so that's about um pa and the next pattern pattern number 3 if you will would be to play the exact same thing the um pa but to play it in eighth notes we count 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and where in the beat got divided into two equal units so um pa um same thing pa um pa 1 and 2 and 3 and right 1 and 2 and 3 and as always try to sing jingle bells jingle let's do the other part one horse open sleigh all the fields we go laughing all the way okay and once you establish the confidence to sing and play the keyboard with this eighth note um pa pattern start playing you may have to move the left hand lower depending on where you want to play the right hand you want to play there you can play your chords here if you want to play here you will have to move your chords here same chords okay so that was pattern 3 now onward to pattern 4 pattern 4 is basically inspired by the blues so a very traditional piano pattern which we play in our left hand is what we call the chicago blues you know it works really well for a lot of blues music you know and it sounds like this we don't want to swing it because jingle bells doesn't appear to be swung so we just stick with pulse and how am I doing this the breakdown of this would be if this is the G major chord G major's root is G G major's fifth is D so you knock off the third don't want the third play the root fifth together and then you go root in sixth you go one step up so that constitutes one bar of the piece let's try singing change now for o-word fun you'll have to change fast right okay and if you're bored playing it this slow you can always play it in eighth notes that will establish like a very rock and roll vibe if you will I quite like this so jingle bells jingle bells jingle all the way speed it play you do a little bit of improv as well if you'd like G major C major watch out with your A chord the sixth is F sharp sometimes we play F by mistake and yeah that's your blues piano line or rock and roll if you play it like on the faster side and the last technique of playing jingle bells which I think works really nicely is what you could call as the ragtime piano version or also what some people call a stride piano inspired by some great American ragtime musicians like the legendary Scott Joplin and so on so what you'll find them doing is pretty much create the entire rhythm section the bass and the drum like movement in just one hand freeing up their right hand to really explode you know so what happens here is it's very similar to the umpa style I taught you earlier and and it's also very similar to the the one five but we are gonna combine that together and go one so we do umpa and then drop this G down to its fifth play D and the same two notes there so umpa umpa umpa um you'll have to flip out some fingers probably the middle and then the index has to come in immediately umpa sorry I think this is the coolest one of them all well I actually like all the patterns but this one is quite a work out you see how similar it is to the earlier umpa we learnt the earlier umpa just sort of stuck where it was without drifting towards the fifth this is a bit tricky because your hands may tend to your fingers may tend to slip if you can practice this you can use this actually for so many songs right so play jingle bells in all these five techniques and then think maybe there could be other songs which you could apply this for doesn't have to only be Christmas when Christmas gets over I'm sure music will continue to be played by all of you so you go this is your umpa with the stride piano technique or the ragtime technique let's recap all the five techniques which we've studied so far well the first technique which I'm not really calling a technique is just holding the blocks just hold the chords the next one we did was with the bass line fifth right then what is the next one we learnt umpa on the pulse then we sped it up to play eighth notes very groovy right and then we did the bluesy version of jingle bells you can make the bluesy version or double that as well to be a nice rock and roll version and last but not least I guess the most challenging of them all the ragtime pattern right guys again this is Jason from Nathaniel thanks a ton for watching this video and if you haven't already don't forget to subscribe to our youtube channel like the video share the video and also leave us a comment with anything else you'd like to learn and also don't forget to download our pdf notations and all my hand written notes with all the chords if you haven't already head over to our patreon channel and also merry christmas and compliments of the season to you and your family cheers