 Hi everyone. This is Jason here from Nathaniel. So in this lesson, I'd like to introduce you to a very interesting way to approach harmony. Traditionally, harmony works with triads, right? You take a minor chord or a major chord, occasional dominant 7s, diminished chords, and then you put them together in a chord progression. But what if I told you that you could get by and not only get by, come up with some very creative ideas with something actually very simple, which is simpler than playing an entire triad of three notes and then shifting from all those three notes to the next with inversions to learn and whatnot. All the problems which we as piano players tend to face, right? When you have a bunch of chords, shifting between them becomes a challenge. So I've developed this chord pattern primarily for the left hand. That means you're going to be playing in the deep end of the piano. And that's another reason why triads tend to not work in the left hand or the deep end of the piano. Because if you do play all the three notes of a triad, it can tend to sound quite muddy. So hopefully this technique can solve two purposes. One is to create a very unique sound and the other is to avoid clutter in the left hand. Okay, so let's get started right away. And by the end of this lesson, you're going to also learn a melody which I have come up with and also the harmony and the backing. So this entire thing is going to be learned. So stick around till the end of the video. And you also get a PDF to download. So once the whole melody comes with the chords and the rhythm pattern, you get a notation for those of you who read, if you don't read, it's fine, you can still follow along and I'll be teaching you. Okay, so let's get started. I'm going to start my music with two notes B flat and F. Okay, just two notes. However, we are going to add some rhythm to this to make it very interesting. Let's first deal with the rhythm pattern. And before we start off building the rhythm, it's good to know that this is the B flat fifth chord. It's a B flat with a perfect fifth F. And I've chosen the key of interest for me to be a minor scale. I've chosen the B flat minor scale, which is also derived from the relative major scale, which is D flat major. But because I'm starting with that B flat pivot at the low end, sounds a bit more melancholic. And this generally stuff which I like to compose in any case. So I'm going to start with a B flat fifth, let's build it B flat and F. This is how I'm playing it. And now to make this come to life, we need to definitely add rhythm. So this is the rhythm pattern, I'll play it and then I'll explain. So if I keep the pulse going with my mouth, right? So what we observe is that all the F's we play or all the fifth notes which we use are played at the up beats or at the off beats. So I go one and two and three and four and that's a nice way to count it. One and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two. This is your pattern and observe the pinky playing the root. The root will never be left. I'm holding the root for the entire bar. So you could think of this as a whole note or a semi-brief lasting four beats. See, two, three, four. But then with the excitement of the fifth playing at the off beat, the music starts getting built nicely. So everything played with the thumb, the fifth will be at the off beat. Let's get this again together and I'm going to play it a bit slower as well. Keep the pulse. Two, three, four, one and maybe a bit faster. Vary your volume. Soft, loud. Okay. And there's a hidden thing which I'm doing, hidden because the video camera can't see it, is my leg and my foot is always holding onto the pedal for the entire bar. So one and two and three. Okay. I'm holding it on for the entire four counts and that creates another nice layer, an interesting harmonic layer if you will, because it's allowing the notes to ring out and that ring is very pleasing, especially with the lower notes. But you have to be careful as we'll see later, we're going to move this stuff around. So then your pedal will have to keep doing a lifting job. So if you have a pedal, use it, it'll be awesome. If you don't have a pedal, it's still okay. It'll still sound nice. It'll just sound a bit plainer, I guess. So a pedal can help. This is with pedal. Okay. So let's recap. It's a B flat fifth chord. I'm holding the root B flat and then my fifth, which is played by the thumb F is played at all the upbeats and here's how it sounds again. One and two and three and four and okay. One and two and indicating the eighth note application or we are dividing the beat into two units. Okay. Now here's where we can start getting creative. You could take the pinky and start moving it around. You're going to generate all the chord tones you need for your music or all the harmonic pillars, if you will. So what I could suggest for you to get started is now we've begun with the sixth. The sixth is generally what we call as the tonic in theory. Feels a bit stable. Then we can go to the fourth. If you consider G flat or F sharp being the fourth from D flat, which I'm considering as the major tonic or the major root. So B flat going to G flat and then we go to A flat and that's pretty much it. We could repeat the A flat because it's the fifth. So we call it the dominant chord and that creates another interesting layer of excitement. So let's try that B flat, G flat, A flat. Stay there if you will. B flat, G flat, A flat. So actually speaking, this is actually giving you chords. If you think about it, this could end up being B flat minor, G flat major, A flat major. You're already playing chords, but you're playing it in a very interesting and subtle and a non-cluttered way because you're not playing all those notes. The other reason why I like this non-cluttered way and why I think it'll work is when you play your melody, especially for solo piano, I'm going to create a melody here thinking of inevitably the chord. So I will end up playing all the chord tones while composing my melody. So I don't have to play all the three notes of the triad in any case because my melody anyway will have those notes. That's how we compose. Melody and harmony work together. They are both part of the same scale. So you go B flat, G flat, A flat. Stay on A flat, B flat, G flat, A flat. And yeah, you can experiment a bit more. B flat, C flat, B flat. B is a bit weird because it's not part of the scale. So you can do stuff like A if you'd like, chromatic movement. You can do all sorts of stuff. You can start doing passing notes and go a bit out of the scale. So float your pinky finger or the lowest finger of the left hand. Build some little baselines. That's a bit tricky. You definitely need the pedal if you want to cross beyond your hand span like that. Right. And then back. So let's just simplify it to just B flat, G flat, A flat. Okay. It's pretty much it. And let's try and develop a nice melody to go with this because now my right hand's free. So this is what we do with the right hand. I'll just show you slowly and then I'll explain everything. Stay there. Something like that. And then I go come to that. Okay. Again, D flat, D flat, F F. Okay. I'm spicing it a bit more. I'm playing like a triad here on my right hand just for additional harmonic color if you want. I'm doing. So you can also add the D flat. I'll create a nice third layer. So in other words, the right hand's not just playing the melody. It can do more things. If you want to just play the melody, you can go ahead and do, you can just do that. You can even add some layers because this entire hand is free. So add that D flat layer. So with F sharp, you can do some two supporting notes, which is B flat and E flat. You can even come down to A flat and then play an F here. So what's giving this rhythmic movement is just this F being played at the offbeat. It's as simple as that. The offbeats make things groovy. So I'm just trying to develop my independence and develop everything around the fact that my pinky needs to move and play very simple music. But the thumb playing the fifth has to stay right there and always play those offbeat eighth notes. So let's try this out again, the whole equation with the melody. And then I'll teach you another part B section, which I've come up with. Let's do it slower. Of course, now I'm getting carried away with the technique, but you get the idea. Do check out the notation, which will be there in the description. It'll also help our channel grow if you can support us on Patreon. That'll be awesome. So now coming to a B section, which we can come up with. So my melody, which I've thought of would be something like... Just that. So little trill there, D flat to E flat, little on the offbeat. So when we do that, I can probably accompany that in the bass with the F sharp, A flat, and then a B flat. And as always, I get my F going or moving rhythmically. Getting this trill will be a little tricky for independence, but that's why I included it because this lesson is not if you're an absolute beginner to the piano. You should check out some of our beginner piano videos as well on our YouTube channel. So if you can play and if you're okay with chords, I think you should definitely do this exercise. So we have the A tune, with some right hand embellishments and the other section where I'm doing G flat, A flat, B flat. So there's a lot you can do with this technique. I've just come up with a very sort of pop sounding or very movie theme like sounding motif and moving forward, but what you could do is instead of moving around or floating your pinky, you can now do it the other way. You can start floating the thumb, keep the pinky fixed and then go, I love that phrase. Of course, we all love it. It's part of James Bond, but you can drift get a lot of ideas there. Right? The only challenge right now is the pinky is now stuck where it is. You're creating a more dronal kind of sound, right? Because your chord roots are not moving. But yeah, if you now start changing the pinky and the thumb, things can get really, really interesting very, very fast. So I'm going to leave it at that for this lesson. So we have a fifth chord to begin our journey. And you start with this rhythm, keeping a pulse, following the upbeat and then you float the pinky. This is what I was proposing with the melody I came up. Pretty much it. You could also change your thumb, right? But try to keep this rhythm one and and and and one and right. And then we looked at a melody which could go with this. Let's take it really slow, right? So I hope you got a hold of that melody and this accompaniment technique in the left hand. I think it's very clean. It's very deep because a lot of us on the piano always want to play deeper because it's important in music to really feel the bass. The bass actually gives us that emotion when it moves. It's not necessarily only the chords. It's also how your bass movement is that really defines and sets a hook for your song. So all the best with trying out this harmonic technique. And as always, this is Jason here from Nathaniel and we have a PDF notation. As I mentioned earlier, if you can do, do click the link and head over to our Patreon page. Do support us there. It'll be awesome. And don't forget to like the video, share the video, leave us a comment with something you'd like to learn in the future and subscribe to that YouTube channel of ours if you haven't already. Have a great one. Cheers.