 Hi guys, this is Jason here from the Nathaniel School of Music and in this lesson we are going to learn about rhythmic anticipation, a simple and effective way to make your piano pattern sound a lot more groovier. In this lesson, we are going to just take four chords in the key of D major, D major as you people know has two sharps namely F sharp and C sharp, okay. And the chords which you are going to build in this lesson are the one chord, the four chord and the five chord. So we are going to essentially play them in a nice pattern where we play the chords evenly together and then change it a little bit and try to bring out a sense of groove using a topic called rhythmic anticipation, right. So before we get started guys, I would request you all to please subscribe to our YouTube channel and turn on the bell icon for notifications if you haven't already. It will help us to move forward and become like a super famous channel, okay. So we are going to just take three chords for this exercise. We are going to take the three major chords of the D major scale, namely D major. You can learn that in any of the respective inversions. You could say D F sharp A, F sharp A, D, A, D, F sharp, okay. Then you could do the four chord which is the G major chord, G, B, D, B, D, G, D, G, B. And with any of the chords you are going to play the root of the chord in the base hand or the left hand. So for D major you play D, for G major you play G and lastly for the fifth chord A major you play A bass and one of the available chord options which are A C sharp E root position, C sharp E A E A C sharp. Now why do you need these inversions? Just to make the shift between the chords a lot more effective, a lot more smoother. As we always know chord inversions make life a lot easier on the piano by creating a nice shift and also great voice leading movement. So it's also sonically great for the listener. Moving on. So the first objective for you guys is to play these four chords in a nice succession perhaps one bar per chord would be quite nice. So you play four hits in your right hand, two, three, four, change to the A, change to the G and back to D. Let's do that again. One, two, three, four, A, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. And as always we are trying to use inversions to make the connection a little more easier okay and a lot more ergonomic. If you haven't already do check out my video series on chord inversions we will be putting it up in the description. So watch that in detail that will help you to shift really well and get all the mechanics going for your chord playing. Anyways, so now that you've finished playing that each chord four times you can also play a very simple bass by just holding the left hand once, one, two, three, four, change two, three, four, change two, three, four, back two, three, four, okay so that's the basis. Now the first thing I'd like you to do is engage what I call as a time field which is nothing but a division system of the beat. So the best way or the easiest way is to start by dividing the beat by two. So that will be one and two and three and four and one and two and so that and is at the 50% mark of the beat. So if beat one is here and if beat two is here the and is somewhere in the middle. So you count one and two and three and four and one and these are very tried and tested symbols which is used all over the world so just go with that it's also not too much of a tongue twister when you speak it right. So you go one and two and three and four and change and two and three and four and change and two and three and four and back and two and three and four and and what's nice about getting that time feel into your system is it could actually translate into something cool in the left hand. So the left hand could create something like and two and you see what's happening here with my thumb or the other finger I'm either latching on to the fifth of the chord or the octave of the chord and I'm playing it nice and soft so it doesn't really cloud the sound too much it still sounds quite pleasant quite peaceful you hear the right hand more but you feel that division by two time feel you know so remember to keep your pinky held and that other finger will need to keep playing the time field which is and and so now that you've got that or once you have got that the next thing we are going to do is to apply a very very exciting thing in the field of music or musical rhythm called as rhythmic anticipation so what we do is the first bar we just play as we are playing and three and four and while the second bar the A chord or the A major chord which comes in I'd like you to start hitting that chord not at the one of bar two but hit it at four and of bar number one so that'll be one and two and three and four and one and three right so latch on to the end of the four and you're going to change the chord by playing the A major chord so it actually comes before the left hand shifts to the A which will be beat one of the next bar and now I can go on and toggle and so you'll see that you can create a nice on the beat and off the beat kind of a interplay so let's see how that goes again one and two and three and four and that was off to a major and four and G on the on and that's the off D major on again and four and two right so and even the G went off now and four and it kind of gets a bit infectious you know keep doing this speed it up slightly can play some other chords if you want I'm just getting carried away a bit here and so on and so forth so the whole idea is to anticipate and that adds an off beat flavor as well as the on beat flavor be a bit weary of your piano in the sense your left hand should try to not follow the right hand you may not want to do and that's a bit muddy when the two hands play together right it's like a nice drum groove that's what a drummer would do the drummer would play something and then complement it with something else okay so again the groove eighth notes rhythmic anticipation there we go on and if you guys have a problem with playing the chord changes perhaps you want to work on that later or before you know first do the chord changes or else you could practice rhythmic anticipation with just one chord and just get sort of the independence of both the hands going something like this and one just focus on the end and once you get a grip on D change to a G okay so that's about eighth notes now I plan to stop the lesson here but what I think we should do is also go to divide by four which is sixteenth notes right who doesn't want to do that that'll make it sound very groovy and very funky so if you divide by four you can count it in the conventional way as one e and a two e and a three and a four e and a one e and a two e and a three and a four e and a so now you're dividing the beat by four parts you're going to get a lot more off beats three off beats to be clear the 25% mark or the quarter point of the beat the 50% mark which is the end we learned earlier and the 75% mark which is called as a so one e and a so the a is what we are going to now push that one of bar two back towards so it's going to be one e and a two e and a three and a four e and a two e something like this right four e and a two e three and a four e and a so these off beats also if you observe I am getting a little bit more excited at the off beats that I feel is very very important when you're observing the off beats otherwise you're not going to feel the groove and for the audience to get up on the floor and dance well they have to feel something exciting and you should first feel it I guess before you send out that groovy energy to towards your audience so let's focus on the of the four and that should do for the lesson so you go two e and a three and a four e and a one e and a two right so that's second chord and the fourth chord every alternate chord is anticipated Let's do that again 1, 2, 3, 4, and again your thumb which was once playing 8th note ghost as we call it has now moved into the 16th note domain because your mind is sort of reacting I've done another very important lesson actually which I'm going to share in the description it's about how to feel the groove a lot better or count a lot better I've actually taken a very popular ARM on baseline and I've broken it down quite well so do check out the link in the description and as always if you're not if you're struggling a bit with chords watch our chord inversion series we have a very detailed list of videos which will help you shift your chords a lot better okay so that's about it guys you have 8th note anticipation 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and then you have 16th note anticipation which means you're moving the next bars beat 1 a a little before time you're anticipating it as we say 1 and 16th note right so I hope you guys found this lesson useful and I hope you're going to use it in your music right now and as always this is Jason here from Nathaniel school of music do subscribe to our channel if you haven't already share the video with your musician friends and as always turn on that bell icon for notifications for all of our upcoming videos which will hit you quite regularly as we normally do cheers have a good one and stay safe