 Hi guys, this is Jason Zach from Nathaniel School of Music. In this lesson, we are going to learn a very rock piano technique, something which has been borrowed from our guitar friends who play a lot of the head banging, rock and roll and hard rock and heavy metal. So in teaching you the rock piano technique, you're not just going to learn rock piano, you're also going to learn how to develop accents over a chord progression. And these accents are not going to be too tricky, I've chosen them over 8th note patterns. So you're going to count 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and pretty much that. As you heard in the intro video, you saw my left hand playing a chord progression, very power chord driven because I'm playing it very low on the keyboard. And the same story on the guitar, when we play the lower register notes, we can't afford to play minor chords or even major chords, they sound very cluttered or very muddy. So instead of that, we tend to prefer a power chord, which is the root, the 5th and the octave. So we are going to hear this particular style of chord over the chord progression. A very simple chord progression and the right hand is going to support the left hand by embellishing the accents or doing whatever it can do really, maybe some arpeggios, we are going to leave the right hand as organically moving as possible so that you can do it in your own comfort zone. So the right hand will just be the chords with a good inversion set, but this lesson will focus more on the concept of accents and how you can execute those accents in both the left hand and the right hand. Great guys and the notation for this lesson, my handwritten notes as well for a lot of other lessons and the lessons we are going to do will be available for you on our Patreon page. You'll find the Patreon post link in our description. So let's get cracking. So the chords for this lesson are E minor, B minor, C major and D major. So the way I am playing it is E minor, any old way in the right hand, you could do E G B, you could do G B E, you could do B E G. I am choosing B E G, I like the vibe of that, B E G. The next chord is B minor, B D F sharp and the next chord C E G, C major and then you do D major which is D F sharp A or else you can do A D F sharp. And with each of these chords you could probably start off by doing it four times each just to get a feel of it. Something like this. So those are your right hand chords. Now the left hand is going to play power chords. So power chord will be the root, the fifth and it's octave. Quite a power chord used a lot in rock songs. So the pattern here will be E minor, E's fifth will be E B high E, E B E and then B F sharp B. Then you have C G C which is C major, D A D which is D major. So I am playing everything as eighth notes, C major, D major. You could actually start by playing them as a pulse which would be 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4. I am using my pedal at the four to kind of make it sustain more but releasing it before the next chord. I need to have that responsibility right. So that's your quarter notes. Then you could even do eighth notes just to prep up for what's to come in the lesson. 5 and 10 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and okay. You can support this with chords in the right hand. You could just play semi-brieves or whole notes which last for four counts in the right hand. Check this out. And we can focus on accenting the left hand which I am going to come to very shortly in the lesson. Maybe go back to simple pulse, pulse quarter notes, crotchets but with a nice sustain at the end if you want. We are playing it straight, no swinging back to eighth notes or quavers right. So that's the scope of what you are going to do in this lesson. There is only one thing which is going to change and that's the accents and now let's get to that. So let me quickly try and define an accent for you. An accent is a relative change of any property of music. So if it's volume for instance, the volume of something which would ideally be a note, a chord or anything will be louder at a given point with relation or in comparison with what's coming up next or what came before. The stuff which is very close to it in time. So you can start off by just accenting or playing. In this lesson we are going to accent with just volume. We are not going to do pitch based accenting or other such accenting which by the way I have done in a few other lessons which we leave in our description. So make sure after this video to consider watching some of our other accents lesson and I am a huge rock music lover as some of you might know in my riffs and if you have heard some of my original music there is a lot of rock in there. So we leave some of the links in our description. Some of the rock riffs which I have composed and also a link to my solo album which you should check out. I have quite a few albums which you need to probably listen to at some point. So getting back to the chords. The first accented pattern or the first accented method would be the beat one. The first beat of the bar. So let's see how that sounds. One. Two and three and four. One. Two and three and four. One. Two and four and one. Two and three and four and one. Two and four and one. Right. Two and four and one. So what's happening there? You are playing the eighth notes in your left hand but whacking the one a bit harder. One and two. Watch your shift. One and two and three and four and one. And the right hand can kind of support that goal or that purpose of the accent by just hitting the chord only at that accented point. So kind of what we did earlier. Maybe play if you are not able to play the thing hard then play everything else soft with respect to the thing which you couldn't play hard you know. So I am playing the other stuff softer. Two and three and four and one. Two and three and four. One and two and three and four. One and two and three and one. Rather simple accent but very important to start off with that. So the next accent would be the next on beat as we are calling it. That would be beat number two. One and two. Three and four and one. Two usually where the snare drum hits. One and two and three and four and one and two. Three and four and one and two. Three and four and one and two. Right hand support. Maybe play the right hand a bit choppy if you wish. Two and four and three and four and one. You have to wait for the one so. Two and three and four and one and two and three and four. And two and very glam rock progression actually. If you like glam rock. Two and three and four and one and two. Four and one and two. Three and four and one and two and three and four. Okay, what's the next beat? We have beat number three. So let's accent at beat three and eventually get our right hand to support the accent by hitting only at beat three. So. As you can see the groove completely changes. One and two and three. There you go. One and two and two and three. One and two and three. So as you accent it, now let's follow the three in the right hand. Two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one. Three and one and two and three and four and one. Three and four and one and two and three. Little choppy up. And the last on beat in a four by four sequence would be beat number four. So here goes. Quite like four. Like a very important slam. The whole band plays that hit with something. Lot of power in the four. While the power chords. Two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one. Four and four. Okay. So those were all the down beats. Beat one, beat two, beat three, beat four. Now let's combine some of the down beat combinations together. Let's do beat one as well as beat three. So that's one and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and three and four and one. Let's see how that goes. Two and three and four and one and two and three. Supporting with the right hand. And what you could do for variety in the right hand, you could do one chord staccato and one chord legato. Like I'm doing now. Choppy. Long choppy. Long choppy. Long all. Long choppy. Long choppy. Long choppy. Changes the groove and the vibe. Long choppy. Long choppy. Legato staccato. Legato staccato. All the other way. Staccato first. Legato second. Okay. Now let's do two and four which are our snare, general snare hit points. Very important to catch the two and the four. So I'm going to try and accent the two and the four. Try to hit that louder. Try to get the left hand first. Imagine your drums. And now the... You can obviously do all the four if you wish. That'll be very busy. Three and four and one and two. This is all the down beats played together. And just as an additional bonus challenge if you want, you can do different inversions at each beat in the right hand. So that's the accents. So before I move into the off beats guys, you must have heard the intro video and you must have heard me playing throughout the lesson where I'm jamming along with a backing track. Now if you'd like the backing track for your practice and a host of other tools to help you with this lesson, especially for DAW users who might be interested in this particular concept where you can import everything into your production software, you can consider heading over to our Patreon. So in this post, you're going to get the backing tracks, you're going to get the notation, you're going to get a lot of things. So do consider heading over there. And like I said earlier, even the midi. And also this particular performance is supported by an incredible guitarist by name Geeth Was from the band Laguri. So check him out and check out a bit of Laguri's music as well while you're at it. So to focus on the ands, let's just look at one of the ands, which is the and of the two. And if you combine that with two of the ands which we've learned earlier, it'll sound something like this. One and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and right and three. So we call this the thresio points or the thresio accents. I've done a nice lesson on the thresio pattern. You should check it out in the description. So you go one and two and three and four and one and two. So the accent points are at the one, the and of the two and the on of the four. And two and three and four and one and two and three four ta ta pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta pa pa pa pa pa pa ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta You can even say ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta. That's a nice way to get the flow of the beats as they go accented, non accented, you're grouping them into packages. So, Thakit, Thakit, Thak. So, these are Indian conical syllables which are very often practiced in Indian rhythmic culture. One and two and three and four and one. So, this is the Thresio. Let's bring in some right. So, the Thresio took us over a one bar sequence. Let me now give you a modified Thresio or just another assortment of three hit points or accent points in the second bar. So, it becomes a Thresio plus the second bar hit points which are going to be quite interesting. Let me play it for you. So, the second bar we are doing. So, pretty much the first two beats of the Thresio got moved a little bit to the right. So, let's put that together. Thresio plus the modified Thresio. Totally two bars. So, the last accented variation would be four accents. The end of the one, the end of the two, the on of the three, the on of the four. So, two ends and then two ends. And then if you wish you can kind of take this and permute it in different ways potentially as homework and see how that goes once you've got all these variations. So, one and two and three and four and one. I'm just trying to hit it first because it's a bit tricky even for me to remember. One and two and three four one and two and three four one and just that's a nice pattern actually. But we are here to play rock with power chords. So, right guys. So, those were all the variations with this rock piano exercise covering a bunch of our 8th note accents using a simple chord progression E minor, B minor, C major, D major. As I said earlier, the riff is available featuring my friend, Geet was the incredible guitar player from Lagoori. Do check out the video and there's a lot of supplementary material waiting for you on Patreon, a backing track to help practice this exercise midi and notation. Quite a bit of stuff. So, do consider heading over there and look at some of the related videos in our description to help you learn rock piano and thus accents a lot better as this genre allows you to really dive into your accents very well. Right guys, thanks a ton for watching. This is Jason Zach from Nathaniel. Cheers.