 Hi everyone this is Jason here from Nathaniel School of Music. In this lesson we are going to look at rhythmic chords and how you can practice rhythmic chords. So what is a rhythmic chord? Well a chord which is moving in a rhythmic pattern. So there will be a rhythm pattern, there will be a chord progression, there will be a way of playing the chord and then your hands are going to come together to achieve a common goal which I guess is to make people feel something, feel a mood, feel a theme and also dance at the same time. That's what chords can do. They can give you emotions and then they can also give you a theme and get you to move like... So we never just hold chords like that and expect things to happen. We need to play them in a rhythm pattern and there are many ways of playing the chords on the piano but you need to know that whenever there is a chord or an inner chord progression there needs to be some kind of a rhythm movement which serves the mood or the goal of the song or the theme or the composition the best. So how we are going to approach this lesson will be through two rhythmic bars. There will be two bars of music. You will be having a rhythm pattern so you're going to definitely improve your skill of reading music at least the rhythmic aspects of music. Then we are going to take four chords, play them together in a very good inversion combo. Then we are going to build different rhythm patterns based on the different pieces of notation which I have printed for you. Then we are going to look at improving our inversions, our voicing also different ways of chord comping. You can either play the chords as blocks and play them as arpeggios and play them in like a left hand, right hand, interactive or what I call as a percussive way like that. You could also break up the chords instead of taking it just like that. You could play it up, down or take a few notes there, one note there and so on. Another interesting thing is how you voice the chords. Instead of playing let's say a C minor like this you could play it like this they call as spread voicing. So lots of chord comping patterns, a lot of chord comping styles rather a lot of inversion theory, how to put things together with chords and a ton of rhythm patterns. In this video just to keep it as concise as possible, I have a lot more rhythm patterns waiting for you on our Patreon page. They have been notated so do consider heading over to Patreon right after this lesson or during the lesson. Get yourselves a copy of the notes follow along and even after the lesson there'll be 10 rhythm patterns waiting for you if I'm not mistaken. You have 10 rhythm patterns which are all very nice. I jammed on them and I think they sound really cool. So on Patreon you'll find all of this stuff waiting for you with my hand written notation. Right guys without any delay let's get cracking. Before we do it'll be awesome if you could subscribe to our channel, hit that bell icon for regular notifications, give the video a like if possible, a share would be great and leave us a comment with something you'd like to learn in the future and also what you thought about this lesson. Right guys so let's get cracking. First of all let me look at the chord progression. The chord progression I've chosen for this lesson is C minor then I'm going A flat major then I'm going G minor then I'm going B flat major. So C minor could first play each chord maybe four times but before you do write down the chords. Write down as you see in the chart. Write down all the available chords. C minor is a relative minor of E flat major. So I figured let's just write down the chords of E flat major where C minor would be the six. E flat F G A flat B flat C. C is the six so this entire chord progression would be like a six C minor a four A flat major then a three G minor with respect to E flat major it's a three and then A five which is B flat major. So that's the chord progression but it's not going to be very efficient for you to play it this way C minor and then bring your hand all the way and then play A flat major G minor B flat C. So the root positions as we call them of chords which are which start with the root in the in the bottom and then build up are not preferred all the time especially in the right hand in this area because it's not going to sound smooth for the listener as well you don't want to play C minor and then A flat just like that it may startle or shock the listener and distract them from the actual melody of the song right chords and the rhythm is generally there to serve and support the melody. So try to learn your positions I've put down the inversion chart where I've we've mapped each chord to each chord in the most efficient manner so if you start with C E flat G you can go to A flat major like this because C is common and then B flat D G and then B flat D F and then slides back it's easier when and it sounds also a lot smoother right. So the other way is you could start from E flat G C and then of course from G C E flat okay those are your chords so whichever shape you prefer go for that I'm going with this could also do let's just keep whatever works so the chord in the right hand and in general we play the roots of the chord in the left hand what's the root of C minor well C root of A flat major now don't get confused just because you're playing C E flat A flat in the right doesn't mean you go and play C here you should be playing A flat there and then G minor has G in the base even though there's like a B flat there B flat B flat so don't let the right hand influence what you're doing in the left hand the left hand holds its ground plays the roots of all the chords so I hope the inversions and the theory behind what we are doing in this lesson is clear C minor A flat major G minor B flat major back to C okay so what's going to happen now is we are going to make these chords come to life we're not just going to hold them we're going to play them in a rhythmic framework so first let's study the rhythm which you see on your screen right now I have divided the beat into two units so good way to know when a unit is divided by two is look at the quavers beam together you see at beat two there is a two and and beat one is just a crotchet or a quarter note that's just one beat two will be two and two hits for beat two then three no division just hit the crotchet beat four just hit the quarter note so one two three four bar one one two three four so that's how you're gonna whack your chord one two three and bar two is very similar to bar one it goes one two three hold hold to the four because it's a half note also known as a minimum so one two three four one two three hold do that with me two three four one two holding four and repeat two three four one two three and hold okay so now that you've got that rhythm pattern internalize so now we take the same chords with that rhythm pattern which we mapped out earlier and now try to play the hit points what we used to clap and say on the piano with those chords so let's just do it only with C minor now you want to change it the challenge in this exercise is change it every bar so bar one bar two you could stay on a flat come back to C minor if you wanted to do one bar one chord over two bars fine then upgrade your skills to two chords over two bars C minor A flat then you could repeat the same two bars rhythmically but then play the other two chords which are G minor and B flat major so that goes pam pam pam pam A flat G minor B flat major and back loop A flat G minor B flat major and same so you're reading the two rhythmic bars reading those rhythms whacking the chords at the hit points and that's pretty much it playing the same inversions as earlier no so now on the left hand you could just hold the roots initially as maybe semi-brieves whole notes so start in that build up so just the roots of the chords semi-brieve in the left whole notes now minims half notes do the pulse so I leave that to you you could do whatever pattern works for you in the left hand semi-brieves whole notes or you could even do like a we will rock you what I like about we will rock you is you could break it up as kick kick snare kick kick snare just like the original we will rock you right that's why we say we will rock you then another pattern you could try is more modern pop you could call it the soca clave or thresio one and two and three and four and one and three and four lot of videos on thresio on our youtube channel so do give it a search with so what are the patterns again whole notes in the left then half notes then pulse toggle that pulse between your pinky and thumb we will rock you finally the thresio that's it so the first strategy of playing chords was blocks right but you can also play the same set of chords as arpeggios so what is an arpeggio compared to a block a block is you just hit all the chords together with the arpeggio you go the same hit points but one by one notes you could make up your pattern if you'd like if you'd like to start the phrase from the pinky or the high note feel free or you could start it from the bottom i'm currently doing low middle high low middle so sounds very catchy it almost is it feels like the arpeggio is now rememberable and the reason why people remember this song is because of that because of that phrase right so could also maybe make it a wider chord with an arpeggio could add the pinky to play from the c you could add add copy the c on top and get a more interesting arpeggio another thing i like to do apart from blocks and arpeggios is see how you can distribute the pattern the rhythm pattern between the two hands so maybe it could be left right right left right left right right left left right right left right left left right left left right right left right left right right left again think i did what i just said left right right left right left right right left i like to move my head so i know okay this is left side and that is right side sometimes some of us are directionally challenged so one two three four one two three four you can stop at the four because there's a minimum one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four okay left right right left right right left left right right left right left right right left see the the same pattern is now evolving it was blocks then it became arpeggios and now it's turned into a very drum like approach if you ask me that's why i call this syncopation or the hand comping when you never copy your two hands you just compliment them it's more like your drumming or playing a percussion instrument so that's one more thing you could do over the progression another thing i like to do with my chords is again take the same rhythm hit pattern but break your chords up so not fully broken that's an arpeggio you just sort of semi broken you can do that could even combine broken with arpeggio i did a nice arpeggio there at the very end or just do only broken let's not forget that the left hand could also do this pattern why should the left hand not have the fun which the right hand just had so maybe do well you could do arpeggios or you could just do the roots of the chords and just octave them to taste this creates a baseline and maybe the right hand can go to doing what the left hand used to do which maybe could play the pulse doom is the low root and th is like the octave that's what i've coined up right now so and right same rhythm pattern but expressed in the left hand okay now the left hand could also do like a chord voicing you could play like a c minor spread out or higher okay or it could do normal triad and you could play a melody line in the right hand this will take some practice so just take a simple melody i will quite like that so it's a gradual process slowly bring in fragments of a melody and then improvise further okay so there's so many things you can do with the same rhythm pattern what have we done so far we've done block chords we've done arpeggios we've done broken chords so blocks arpeggios broken then what else have we done then we've kind of done a a chat between the two hands left right right left then we even looked at the only the left hand playing the rhythm pattern as a bass groove with just maybe root and octave or taking the the whole chord system in the left arpeggiating and playing a melody line in the right hand right so so many possibilities guys so what i mainly wanted to share with you in this lesson is one rhythm pattern spanning two bars and then a couple of chords or in this case four chords can entertain you can inspire you can give you compositional ideas and be an insanely good piano practice or piano workout for about an hour so you could consider what i try to do on on our youtube channel whenever i give you a video is the intention would be that you practice and you become a better pianist and add this to your routine so if you have an hour you can always say okay this is an option for me over the hour yes there are other things you'll be doing but consider this and then try to expand on it try to make it your own exercise as though you made it you know and make a song out of this try and be creative as much as possible and as i tell students put a stamp on these exercises whenever you're given a job to do by a teacher like me don't just do what i told you to do in the in the lesson make it your own own the exercise that is very very important the exercise needs to transition to something you will eventually create so practice like that practice with that intensity practice with musicality so i have three more rhythms which i just want to tap out and help you count and what's going to happen is there are 10 more rhythms along with these three and the one i taught you so you can say about 14 or 15 rhythms waiting for you on patreon they have been notated hand written by me it's taken me a fair amount of time so it'll be great if all of you watching this could actually go and get yourselves a copy it'll also support our channel and help the ecosystem okay so do consider heading over to patreon and i'll just leave you with three new rhythms just to clap it out and just jam along with that same old chords c minor a flat g minor b flat you could spice it up by maybe changing the inversions of the chords maybe changing the pattern changing the shapes and so on the next rhythm pattern you see there would be also wrapping it out meaning not trying to be a rapper but just imagining it from different perspectives so give it different pitch permutations with your voice you can add lyrics if you like rapping as well i don't know how to write lyrics that well and i don't rap so i don't want to try either right now so i will just do and the next rhythm so because it's a minimum it lasts longer and now the next one daba daba daba daba daba daba daba daba daba daba daba daba meaning minimum for two so one and two and three and four and one two three four okay those are the rhythms and the general way i like to practice reading and executing my rhythms on the body especially when i'm clapping would be something like if you take the earlier rhythm which i showed you one and two and three and four and so when the the note is holding on i want your hands also to hold on so one and two because there's a rest at two take your hand up because that's what you will simulate for the piano as well one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and the next one one and two and three and four and wait and two and three hold why because there was a tie there right let's do that again one and two and three and four and hold two three four close a little faster so you see you need to do it with a combination of physical ways with your voice doing some silly stuff with your hand doing you know these clapping movements this can really help you play do never do these things in a schooled or a serious approach if you think serious you're wrong that's not the way to practice you need to think in a very childlike manner in a like i'll do whatever i want to get this right manner and not care about anyone or anything around you you it's for you to get better so figure out a natural strategy an organic strategy to vibe with the rhythm okay the last one was and now you're going to practice all of that on the piano and play the four chords of the past c minor a flat major g minor b flat major in those rhythms so if i do arpeggios all of the ways or the methods or the comping styles which i talked about with that first rhythm you can do with the other rhythms and there are more patterns waiting for you on patreon do consider heading over and checking that out so that was the lesson guys it's about two rhythms you need to read those two rhythms i thought two is better than one usually people read one and be happy no two is nice so two rhythms four chords you could even do two chords c minor a flat is also fine but then we did c minor a flat g minor b flat we started the lesson off with the foundational aspects of the chords how to form it how to invert do the inversions very well write it down see the notes then after that the rhythm pattern it was all about that one rhythm pattern right we just took that one rhythm pattern and did all sorts of chord comping strategies over that rhythm pattern blocks arpeggios syncopation percussive grooving between the two hands then some bass lines and finally we looked at chords in the left or the pattern with the chords in the left and a melody in the right hand that'll be ultimate right guys thanks a ton for watching this video thanks for everything you're doing to our youtube channel do consider giving the video a like a share a comment what you'd like to learn in the past what you thought about this lesson you could also share your recordings whenever you're enjoying them or proud of them on your instagram and tag me jason zack or tag the school nathaniel school we'll be happy to interact with you share your video understand who we are talking to on on the youtube page which would be really cool so instagram is a nice way to connect with us and if you want something more structured more long-term more organized with an array of teaching from technique to theory to ear training to composing do consider our music method course which is a flagship course we offer at our school we do quite a few instruments it's all on our website nathanielschool.com it's all neatly laid out there there are forms you could fill up and stuff like that there are video courses there are online courses there are offline curriculum and so on and so forth have a great day cheers and see you in the next one