 Hi guys, this is Jason here from Nathaniel, welcome to part 5 of this series on 16th note hand independence and in this lesson, yeah, we are going to continue our study on 16th note playing in general but it's going to be slightly different than the first 4 videos, if you haven't already do head over and check those out, if not you could even actually follow from this video because these are all independent exercises, none of them have related to each other and it's not in our order as such, so if you've stumbled on this one you are in part 5 but there are other parts as well, there's a playlist in the description head over there and do watch the other parts which give you different perspectives to interact your two hands and develop hand independence which is such an important thing which pianists yearn for. So continuing our study on 16th note hand independence, in this particular part or in this exercise, there's one thing which I have not added that is the pulse. In all the other videos or all the other exercises, the left hand was doing the pulse playing some kind of a chord, the right hand or else the right hand was playing the chord you know as the pulse, so one hand was doing the pulse while the other hand was holding the groove or the pattern which is on the 16th note division either as a bass line or a chord sequence or an arpeggio or whatever it was, so there are a lot of options available in this series which I think can really grow your rhythmic piano playing. So in this lesson I have adopted a technique which I call a syncopation, syncopation is basically where you are going to attack all the 16th notes of the bar. Now just a quick introduction to what's going on there, 16th notes means you are going to divide the beat into four equal units and say 1e and a 2e and a 3e and a 4e and a which is like a globally accepted thing, it just makes it easy to count without being like a tongue twister or something you know and everyone follows it now around the earth so 1e and a 2e and a 3e and a 4e and a shows us that every beat is getting divided into four units, 1e and a 2e and a now what's going to happen is you are going to play every single one of those beats but you are going to divide or distribute those beats into both your hands and it's going to end up sounding like this, you see I am playing all the divisions 1e and a 2e and a 1e and a 2e and a right and a 2e and a 3e and a 4e and a 1e so I have not really left out any gaps unlike the last lessons where there were gaps and you had to maintain a pulse which is just the 1, 2, 3, 4 of the bar so here we adopt this thing called syncopation which is what you will find a lot of drummers use and more particularly percussion players like you know bongo players, jembe, darbuka and tabla players for sure so the left hand is going to hit the bass drum while the right hand is going to hit the higher drum which has a higher pitch I try to simulate that on the body by going here for low or my left hand and right hand goes high and plays on the thigh which gives you like a nice sharp snare like quality so if I do the same pattern which I did on the keyboard it's going to be a very percussive pattern even if I do it on the body it's almost as though I'm drumming something like this right so if you observe I'm not doing all the hits in one hand I'm not going I can't even do that it's impossible so I have to divide and distribute the beats as per the pitches so what happens is it's sort of like a conversation which is happening between your low register or your left hand and the high register or the right hand they are literally having a chat with each other you know or a conversation so that's how you need to visualize your two hands you could also visualize it as pattern by pattern or this hand is doing that pattern that hand is doing that pattern but yeah there are many ways to visualize it so I guess as long as you get the job done well and good now syncopation as I said earlier at least what I'm imagining as syncopation in this lesson is where the two hands are playing every single beat but distributing it in certain ways not evenly you don't want to do it's very predictable and rather annoying if you ask me so it's not evenly distributed that's what makes it groovy so one hand the left hand at some instances will take up some of the off beats while the right hand in some instances will take up the off beats and then some one hand will go on while the other hand will go off so they really complement each other well and 16th notes essentially means you have four subdivisions in a beat so that'll be 16 divisions in a bar of four and I've composed this exercise on a bar of four basically four beats per bar so let's now get to it let's first look at the chords independent of the rhythm arrangement and then we'll bring in the rhythm so the chords are basically a very simple six four one five chord progression which you'll find in a lot of songs I've chosen e flat major for my scale so six of e flat let's first look at e flat major again right so that's your e flat major three flats and now you try to find the six that's c c minor then you go to the four a flat major then you go one which is e flat major and then you go five which is b flat major okay and this is how I'm playing the chords in my right hand chords are in the right in this exercise and the bass notes are played in the left hand so I'm just playing the roots of each chord c for c minor a flat for a flat major e flat for e flat major b flat for b flat major okay and then the right hand will play our chords first chord c minor played as gc e flat I'm using this inversion just like this area of playing it and now a flat major you can play like this but the shape I'm using is this suspended shape so c minor I'm playing b c e flat b c e flat so it creates like an a flat suspended or a flat add add two because the three is also there right so I'm knocking off that a flat and going to b flat it's just a colorful way of playing that a flat major chord which is the four so you go c minor a flat add two and e flat is right here gb flat e flat is how I'm playing it c minor a flat add two e flat played as gb flat e flat and then lastly fb flat d using the correct inversions so I'm actually using chord inversions to make it easy to shift and great on the year e flat b flat and for b flat I'm coloring it up by adding a fourth note e flat which is anyway the root of the scale so it'll sound good on anything so it's also nice while playing these flurry runs so I just keep that e flat there if you want or you can remove it it's optional so chords a flat e flat b flat with the added e flat if you wish and each chord is basically played for two counts so one two change four so at the three you're going to change the chords it's like a quick chord change c minor a flat e flat major b flat let's keep that going a flat e flat b flat okay and at the end of the bar instead of just playing b flat I could also play this chord which adds to the you know the resolution or creates a nicer loop you know by playing a nice dominant chord at the end let me play that for you c a flat major e flat b flat what's that chord right there it's basically b flat diminished seventh in your right hand you want to go a flat b d f with a b bass to give you that diminished seventh chord there which takes itself back to the root c minor so it really that diminished seventh chord is a very tense chord beautiful at the same time but it's an unstable quality so it's great to add that at the end of the bar so then it immediately you know sort of locks magnetically to the first chord of the chord progression in this case c minor so c minor a flat e flat b flat you can stay there or c minor a flat e flat b flat b diminished c so those are your chords e flat b flat c minor a flat add two e flat b flat b diminished seventh then back to c okay just keep in mind before we get into the rhythm patterns of both hands and then interact them together the left hand basically you need to play it as octaves don't just play a single c because in the very near future we are going to kind of distribute our left hand as well not to just play the notes together but also to do a rhythm pattern between the root and the octave right so figure out a way to play both of them together it's quite easy pinky on the root and the thumb on the octave and also keep your index finger or the middle finger whichever is easier to play the fifth of each chord so for c minor the fifth is g for a flat major the fifth is e flat you don't want to play them together it'll sound very muddy so we're going to play them like a bass player in a group like that okay c minor a flat major e flat keep your fifth finger ready in this case the index finger waiting on b flat and then b flat what is b flat's fifth it's f it's a little tricky to find that but it's f theoretically okay and back okay so this is basically what your hands are going to be holding now coming to what your hands will be doing rhythmically okay i'll play you the rhythm pattern again very quickly just to refresh your memory and then we'll try and slowly but surely break it down so stick with us stick with me till the end you will definitely get this okay and remember we are in the 16th note domain so we're dividing the beat into four units so i'll play it same voicings which i taught you earlier c minor gc e flat a flat e flat gb flat e flat d flat major fb flat d there okay now what am i doing let's break this down the first thing i will advise you to do before you get to a stage like maybe this so before you get to that confident stage just keep your left hand only on the ones and the threes because the chord hit points are at the one and the three so you go one one e and a two e and a three and a four e and a one e and a two right and a four e and a just the roots of the chord played as octaves just start with that okay and keep the count going two e and a three and a four e remember each chord is changing every two beats one e and a two e and a three okay and a three and a four okay now coming to the right hand the right hand basically attacks at the e and the end of beat one one e and a two e and a that's all you need to remember because i've sort of repeated that for beat three e and a and four so e and two a e and two a so e and two e and two e and a e and two e and a e and two e and a you repeat the phrase even for the three e and a four e and a e and a four e and e and a four e and so one e and a two e and a one e and a e and a two e and a three i forget the three sometimes but you get the idea one e and a two e and a three e and a four e and a so that's your right hand let's slow it down E and 2, E and a, E and 4, E and a, E and 2, E and a, E and 4, E and a, 2, E and a. So as you can see I am itching to do something more in the left hand that's coming up very shortly. For now you can just hold the roots as minims or two beat values. Get this going. You can do that as well. If you'd like to play that B diminished 7th chord, so normal B flat at the end now. We're going to do the diminished and E and a, E and a, 4 E and a, so I am just hitting at E and E and back. So coming to the finishing piece of this puzzle, the left hand right, so instead of just going the roots and octaves played together as a sort of a pulse. We do this sort of a rhythm pattern which I'll break down for you right now. One E and a, this is the groove, one E and a, two E and a, one E and a, two E and a. So root octave, octave 5th. It's a four note phrase every two beats, so C, C, C, G. So these are the base notes of C minor, so if I play C minor here a great way to start I guess is just hold the C minor chord in the right end, don't groove or don't play that pattern I showed you earlier, just hold it so, okay. Get the C minor nice and tight, one E and a, two E and a. Now let's go through the chord changes, C minor, A flat. What happened there? Same thing right, root, octave and it's 5th, so root, octave 5th, root, octave 5th, root, octave 5th, then left hand and a nice way to make it more epic is just hold down the pedal for every chord, of course make sure to lift it before the next chord otherwise things will get really crazy, so pedal on, E flat, B flat, A flat, E flat, B flat. And now slowly see if you can get the pulse in the right hand, puts everything into perspective right, one E and a, two E and a, three E and a, four E and a, one E, basically every pulse or quarter note. Now getting to the syncopated phrase, as I told you in this lesson there's no pulse needed, well you could do the pulse, I just showed you, you can also play the chords as the pulse, remember the right hand pattern discussed earlier, so you want to do that now with the left hand, which now for some strange reason you'll find that it may actually become a lot easier, it's like your two hands are talking to each other and it just somehow works, so a great way to get this somehow is to get maybe the left hand first, which is going dum, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, or maybe get the right hand first, which is going ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, get internalized, both of those rhythms separately and start with one of them, maybe now I'm starting with the left hand, see if you can imagine the right hand rhythm, and slowly but surely bring that in, right hand, with the left hand base, left hand pattern, right, only left hand, fill in that diminished chord as well perhaps, so maybe the second bar or the second cycle, you could add that diminished seventh chord, so first cycle you just do C minor A flat, E flat, B-flat, second cycle you do C minor, A-flat, E-flat, B-flat and then add the diminished and then it creates a very interesting loop of chords, right? Right guys, so let's just revise the exercise once more. We've looked at 16th note independence, this is part number 5, we've looked at syncopation where the important things to keep in mind are the left hand and the right hand will interact with each other by playing basically all the divisions of a bar of four where you're dividing by the beat into four units and you develop a pattern in both hands which is sort of not even, you don't want to do left-right, left-right, left-right, left-right, you want to kind of do something different in each hand so that the accents and the off-beats shine randomly, it's like the two hands are talking to each other, right? So the left hand had a pattern, the right hand had a pattern and then we put them together. Right, so before I sign off I'm going to play the lesson really slow for you to play along with me I hope and if you have it already don't forget to subscribe to our channel, turn on the bell for notifications, leave us a comment, that'll be fun, give us a like, share the video, bring more people on board and you could also consider being our patron on Patreon where you're going to get all the handwritten notes from the exercises I do now in the past and of course in the future, it's all going to be there on Patreon as neat PDF files so head over there and it'll also be a great support to our channel and here's me signing off with the super slow version of the exercise.