 Hi guys, so welcome to part two of this left hand rhythm pattern series over a melody in the right hand. So we've already constructed a melody in the right hand. So we're going to take that same melody and build forward. We've looked at the pulse, we've looked at the toggling pulse, we've looked at the quicker pulse or the disco pulse, we've looked at We Will Rock You, we've looked at the Thresio, which is a very nice Latin pattern. The left hand approach is to look at certain beats, very few beats, like maybe one beat or just two beats over the entire bar and just hit them with a lot of power and a lot of energy, right? And I call them as just stabs or choppy stabs. So you go, maybe I just want to hit the two of the bar, one E and a two E and a three E and a four E and maybe the two and the four, one E and a two E and a three and a four E and a four E. Right, I hit that at the two, so it's a little tricky because normally you'd want your left hand to begin at the one but this adds a lot of impact for your song. So you do a stab at two, then you can also do a stab before the two and before the four, that's the end. So it'll be one E and a two E and a three and a four E and a one E and a two E and a four E and a four E. go 1e and a 2 okay you can do that stab those stab points you can also do 1e and a 2e and a 3e or something like that or 1e and a 2e and a 3e and a 4e and a 1e and a 2 right so specific beats you could target in your left hand so this will really enhance your melody and also train your independence on the piano okay another style or another rhythm pattern which will really work is what I call as melodic missing beats so your melody will not have all the beats of the 16th note phrase isn't it there will be gaps and that's what makes a good melody there needs to be some breathing space as well so if there was no gaps it would be rather annoying I guess it would be this sounds like a machine gun shooting so there are gaps in this melody where are the gaps for instance in beat number one itself 1e and a so where the e and the a are gaps 1e and a 2e and a so 2 and the and are in beat 2 those were gaps so you fill in those gaps with your left hand the other hand and it sounds really interesting it sounds very percussive almost like a tabla player or a jembe or a darbuka player of sorts so you could work on maybe something like this a good way to start off would be just hit hit the left hand not on the piano maybe on the body it already creates a groove of its own so you I'm right now hitting all the missing beats you don't have to you can hit a few right but you get the idea I hope you don't need your left hand should never collide with the right hand let the right hand play where it's composed on and the left hand fills up all the missing spaces so let's see how that sounds so it's sort of like a no-brainer for the left hand the pattern of the left hand is already there it's inbuilt it's just what the right hand is not playing so it's easy to build and it's very customized and it will always sound unique because every melody tends to also be unique so the missing beats will also be unique right moving on so let's now look at an extension of the Latin pattern which we learned in part one again if you haven't watched part one please head over and watch it and if you haven't subscribed to our channel it'll be awesome if you can subscribe and stuff so the Latin pattern moving forward from the thresio could be looked at as the clave and we call a clave well there are many claves let me just show you one of them I'll show you the song clave which is 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 so that's the hit point it's sort of like a thresio and then a sense of relaxation ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta one e and a two e and a three and a four e and a four so this is going to be a little tricky to incorporate both so I would suggest first get the left hand this called as the song clave or the three two song clave because it's three beats a group of three beats and then a phrase of two beats we look at it that way one e and a two e and a three and a four e and a one e and a two e and a three right one e and a two e and a three e and a four e and a one e and a two e and a okay and to add more interesting challenges you could also not play the left hand together with root and octave well start with root and octave together and then try to dissipate them play the root ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta taa right let's see how that sounds now so that's your song clave another very very popular latin rhythm for you to practice on and it's very scalable you can use these rhythms for or these rhythmic concepts for I'm hoping a lot more melodies to come so that's about the clave and the next rhythm pattern which you could try out in your left hand will be pretty much what I call as following the drummer and essentially you're following the kick drum and the snare drum of the drum player and you try to beatbox it or try to vocalize it in some crude way so that it triggers your left hand to play it. So for example, doom, ta, doop, doop, ta, doop, ta, doop, ta, doop, ta, doop, ta, which is one and two and three and four, right? But when I say doop, I kind of mean kick drum and ta, I mean snare drum. So if you create a drum groove like doop, ta, doop, doop, ta, doop, ta, first say it with the pulse, doop, ta, doop, doop, ta, doop, ta, doop, ta, and now try to play it with your piano left hand. Doop, ta, doop, doop, ta, kick, snare kick, kick, snare kick. So this is an eighth note groove and then the back to the melody. This feels really cool once you get it. It's sort of like there's two instruments happening with one guy or one player. There's like a drum kit and a tune right there. Doop, ta, doop, doop, ta, doop, ta, doop, ta, doop, ta, doop, ta, doop. So right now I'm beatboxing it. Also try singing. Come. Ta, doop, ta, doop, ta, doop, ta, doop, ta, doop, ta, doop, ta, doop, ta, doop, ta, sometimes actually playing the piano may be a bit easier than singing but I'd encourage you to do both because you need to do both. And this feels really cool, doesn't it? The drums there and a melody instrument here. That's what the piano is all about. That's the fun of playing the piano. So if I now try and attempt the melody over the doop, ta, doop, doop, ta drum groove. Singing really helps, moving the body really helps, connecting with what you're playing, enjoying what you're playing really helps. And have fun. Don't worry about the mistakes. The mistakes are just going to get better and eventually it'll be perfect. So you go. That's about following a drummer. You could follow any drum groove, find a few on the internet or jam with a drummer friend and develop what the drummer is playing on your left hand on the piano. Moving forward. We have this idea of playing dotted 8th note pulses, right, a very consistent set of a stream of dotted 8th notes. So a dotted 8th note is where you divide the beat into four equal units, but you don't hit it at 1e and a 2e and that will still be the pulse. You go 1e and a 2e and a 3e and a 4e and a 1e and a 2e and a 3e and so you get very different accents or very different accented points by just giving yourself this dotted flavor or dividing the beat which was already divided into four into three accented unit divisions. So that's 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, even though the pulse is 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, right. So it's a little tricky to practice so I'd suggest you slow it down and write it down and then feel the pulse and then execute. So it'll be 1, 2e and a 3e and a 4e and a 1e and a 2e and a 3e. Takes a while to resolve, right, and slowly. Here and there you may make a mistake and resolve it, but it's okay. You could continue from then on and do the same 3, 3, 3, 3 divisions, right. For example, summer of 69, right, you could do something like this or just dotted eighth notes. Okay, let me try that with the melody. Very nice practice to kind of understand every subdivision of the 16th note and really isolate those subdivisions without anything before or after because you're dividing it fairly regularly, right, you're dividing it by 3. So that is about dotted eighth notes. Try practicing it. It's a very good rhythmic tool to build your rhythmic chops and your independence. And last but not least, I want to talk about the same hand, the left hand, but with some finger independence which will make your sound a lot more grand and epic. So with finger independence in the left hand, it's essentially hold the root, what you're playing with pretty much the pinky. And then try to do a rhythm pattern with just the thumb or just the index finger if you're playing the fifth. So with just the thumb, see what's happening there. My pinky is lingering on and my thumb is playing at certain beats, maybe off beats, maybe the clave, maybe the thresio, maybe any, we will rock you, maybe anything we've done in the past or anything you come up with, but hold the pinky whilst doing something with the thumb. So or maybe just use that as a ghost, like what drummers do, you know, think of it as a snare ghost, let's see how that works. Currently doing dotted, now the clave, something like this or melodic missing beats. I'll really add another layer of your piano, right? You have the pinky doing its thing, you have the other finger doing its thing, you sort of isolated the fingers of the left hand itself. So all through we've been doing right hand versus left hand or right hand melody, left hand rhythm. Now within the left hand itself, there's a little bit of stuff going on, right guys? So we've done five left hand rhythm patterns in part one. I hope you've also watched that. If you have, thanks a ton for sticking this far and watching all these rhythm exercises, and we've done five more in part two. I really hope that all these rhythm patterns help you with your playing, not only to play this melody, I've used this melody to kind of give you a template on which to build your piano playing on. You could take a popular song, you could take your own song and try to spice things up or try to bring in these left hand patterns over the course. Okay. And the thing about rhythm is once you've got it, you've sort of got it. You're not going to leave that rhythm when you work hard and get the pulse, when you work hard and get the thresio or whatever it may be. It's pretty much with you for life. So when it comes to piano independence or independence of the hands, the way I look at it is it's more independence of tasks. The melody is there and the baseline is there or the groove is here and the chords are here. So that's another perspective, perhaps to look at your independence, because it's not just how do you develop hand independence? No, it's about what you do there versus what you're going to do here. And it'll really enhance the fun you're going to have on this amazing instrument. Right, guys? Again, this is Jason here from the Nathaniel School of Music. If you found the lesson useful, please subscribe to our channel. Share the video with all your musician friends. Keep rocking and I will see you in the next one. Cheers.