 Hi guys, this is Jason here from the Nathaniel School of Music and in this lesson, let's learn the traditional Christmas carol Silent Night. We are going to do the song on C major and I am going to start you off with the chords. Then we will try and do the melody line and then we will put it all together on the piano and do stay tuned till the end. I am also going to show you how you can perhaps sing it and accompany yourself while singing it. We have three chords which you are pretty much going to use for the entire song. C major which is C E G, F major which is C F A. I am playing it as C F A in an inversion so that when you shift, it's going to be quite easy as opposed to going, that's a huge jump. So we will take C E G, C F A and the other chord is going to be G 7th or you can consider it as G major. The way I am playing G major or G 7th is B F G which gives a very sort of classical piano vibe. You will find this in a lot of piano music. So C major, the first chord I want you to try out, C F A, F major with a C at the bottom, C major and B F G which is your G dominant 7th chord. So C major, F major, G 7th and back to C major. So Silent Night is going to have pretty much these chords which are going to serve the melody. So it's important to know how these chords work with the melody. If I take C major for instance, it's going to work really well with the melody line. Silent Night because there's a G already in the melody and it lands on E which is already a chord tone of C major. So that's going to be the general roadmap behind choosing these chords. So if you are trying to make a decision while choosing chords and let's say you have these three options but you know the melody, you can actually derive the chords from the melody line itself and that's how I'm going to also navigate you through the chord progression. So let's build it together. I'm going to just play you the melody part by part. I will break down the melody shortly as well. So the first chord will be C major, Silent Night. So for the whole Silent Night you play Silent Night there and the chord in the bass will be Silent Night, C major. And then you repeat that, Holy Night, again C major. Now what are the notes there? That's D and B, which chord will work, G dominant or G7 because it has those notes. I come back to C major because all is bright has C and G in it. Let's do that whole line again, Silent Night again and then G7 is come back, all is bright and now we have an A there. The C major chord doesn't have an A, the G7 chord does not have an A. So what is the other chord I told you at the beginning, F major, C, F, A that totally has an A. So round yon virgin, round yon virgin you pretty much play F major in this way for the whole piece. There it goes back to C because G, A, G, E chord tones of the C major and then we repeat the melody with different lyrics. Okay, let's break that down again, F major, F major going to C, okay. Last line, sleep is a D. Obviously we have to choose G7 because it has the D in it. P, E's come back to C major because the melody is C, E. Let's do that, last line. A little bit of quick chord changing there because the melody is structured that way. Sleep in A is G, so I need the G chord, heavenly peace, end with the home chord. We also call these chords by name, C is called the tonic chord, F major is called the predominant or the subdominant chord and the G7 is called as the dominant chord. Whenever we have the dominant chord it tends to always want to resolve to the tonic. So in this song, heavenly peace, so whenever you have a C major coming up, for all you know what's before it is going to be the G dominant chord which is B F G, C E G. Very shortly we are going to do the rhythm pattern as well in the left hand which is going to really embellish the melody well. So let me again play the whole melody with blocks and show you how the chords are changing with the melody. Silent night, C major, holy night, C major, all is come, that's a G7th, all is come, all is bright, back to C major. Okay, let's do that again. Silent night, holy night, G, all is come, C, all is bright and now the new melody, round yarn, that's F major, round yarn, back to C, mother and child, so that's F going back to C. Repeat the melody with different words, comes back to C, last line, that's G7th, that's obviously C major, the melody just has those notes, G7th, peace, end on C major which is your tonic home. So that's about the chords and do check out the notation as well which can be found at our Patreon page. You'll get two versions of the song where the left hand patterns are going to change depending on your skill level. If you feel that you're just starting off on the piano, there's one for you, if you feel that you've been playing for a while, again there's one for you and both notations have been done on C major scale which I guess for most people is considered the easy scale, so that should push you to play this really well. I also don't do C major very often but this song, we are doing it on C major. So now that we've got the chords and we've got the melody structure, let's now move into the rhythm pattern on the piano. The rhythm pattern, I'm going to start us off with just a simple waltz pattern. The song is on a three by four time signature, so how we are going to play it in our left hand is as follows. We are just going to go one, two, three, one, two, three, up the chord. So you start with the first note, so if you have to play this in waltz, C major, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three. Earlier we just sort of held the chord. Now we are rhythmically playing it, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three. Okay, that's your bass and what I would encourage you to do is first sing the melody and then try to play it on the keyboard. Right, so if you observe the phrase, that's at the upbeat or at the offbeat. So you're going to need to develop that independence between your hands. Silent night, observe, holy, right? Even with holy night you have that offbeat and where does the offbeat come in the melody? So you can't really change that, you have to get that going. So let's now bring that on the piano. First of all the tune, silent night, that's G, A, G, E, repeat, holy night. Let's just do that with the chords. Okay, so the left hand is pretty much maintaining that waltz arpeggio. One, two, three, one, two, three and another very important way to play this arpeggio is to hold your pinky finger. Don't lift it, one, two, three. So keep that held, don't go, one, two, three. This sounds a bit choppy and a bit like not so pro. So try to hold the pinky when you play. Right? Or if you have the pedal you can use the pedal to great effect. So you go silent night and then you pretty much follow the same pattern in the left hand throughout the entire song with those chords and your right hand is going to then play the remainder of the melody. So you go that's D, D, B, all is calm, all is bright, all is bright, C, C, G. Let's do that with the chord which is G dominant going to C major. That was G dominant and C major. Let's move on now a little quicker. Again, what are the chords for that again? F major, C major. Then ditto, next line. Last line, sleep in heavenly peace. Repeat it twice lyrically but the melody is different. So the first sleep in heavenly peace is sleep in, let's get that. That's G dominant, C major. Let's do that with the arpeggio, waltz arpeggio. Sleep in this very last line which is a little bit of a quick chord change. Which is C major, G dominant, C major and let's do that again. Okay, whole thing without me talking too much. Right guys, so I hope you've understood that so far. We've pretty much played a waltz arpeggio in our left hand using this chord, that chord and the G seventh chord. Right, so the next arpeggio pattern which I would recommend for those of you who already been playing for a bit is think of what a guitar player would do or a flamingo style or a finger style or a classical guitarist would do. In fact as the story goes Silent Night was actually composed by a guitar player when the church organ in this Austrian village sort of got busted. So it was actually written by a guitarist or arranged for guitar. So it's good to bring the guitar effect on the piano. Right, so the pattern which I've arranged is like very you know three-finger picking like. So you go okay, so I'm adding a note. I'm adding the high C there, so that creates a very interesting arpeggio and you're going to count in eighth notes this time. Earlier we did one, two, three. Now we are like one and two and three and one and two and it's still three by four waltz but you're doubling the beat. In other words you're initiating a sub beat. One and two and three and one and two and let's break that down. So if this is your chord you're going one and two and three and C G E G C G. So this is the pattern. You skip the middle note and then you hit the octave as well. So do check out the notation as well. You can also get it as a pdf copy. The link is in the description. This is the pattern. So as always start singing. Play same thing. Then the next chord comes, isn't it? So that's quite interesting. That's G dominant. Played. Normally you would be going in this shape but now I need to add the B. Okay, back to C what you learned earlier. Okay, I got a bit carried away. Let's do all this calm, all this bright. This calm, C major. C is bright. Now very guitar like, right? Okay, so sleep in you go back to the G dominant chord. Peace back to C major. Right guys, so we've looked at two ways of embellishing your left hand rhythmically over the chords. The first one was waltz. One, two, three. The second one was your eighth notes. You can also call it six, eight. One and two and three and four. A little bit more tricky or intermediate if you will. But both of these patterns sort of imply that you're going to be playing the melody line in the right hand. Sort of like a solo piano performance. What I'd also like to share with you is a way for you to sing and play the keyboard at the same time. And create an accompaniment version as we say. So for an accompaniment version, you're going to be playing the chords in the right hand. Contrary to what we did earlier where we did the chords in the left hand. So chords in the right hand. Exact same chords is what we've discussed and the root note or the base note or the name of the chord if you will in the left hand. So for C major, playing a C there for a G dominant, playing a G down below. And for an F major, you're playing an F. Obviously the name of the chord. So C, F and G dominant. And then you can pretty much play the song. So when you're accompanying, if you're new to the idea of singing and playing, if you're finding it a little tricky rhythmically, just start by holding the blocks. For instance. And focus on your singing. You don't want to compromise your singing chops because of the piano. So play it in a way so that you are able to deliver your best performance vocally because the piano in this instance is just there to support your voice. So keep the piano simple enough so that you can bring out all those cool chops of yours, right? Which I am not going to be able to share with you since I'm not the world's best singer. So let's get started with this pattern. And then then same chords. It's very important to count three while you play. That'll really keep your lyrics and melody and everything in place. Because you're holding that important foundation, which is three beats per bar. And then we can build. You can try and do the arpeggio we learned earlier. I quite like this. Right. You could also double that or keep it simple, but very simple. Even just holding the chords will work really well. So all the best with that. Maybe you could create two versions of this song, one with you singing and one with you playing the melody on the piano. That will be really cool. Right, guys. Again, this is Jason here from Nathaniel. Don't forget to head over to our Patreon page to get yourselves a copy of the notation in both versions. And also, if you haven't already, do like, share, subscribe and share the video with all your musician friends. And here's also wishing you compliments of the season. Merry Christmas. Cheers.