 Hi guys, this is Jason Zach here from the Nathaniel School of Music. In this lesson, I'm going to introduce you to a two-handed arpeggio pattern. Usually arpeggios are done with like one hand, right hand, left hand. I've done quite a few, right? And this two-handed arpeggio pattern can be used for anything which is like a modern, ballad or country feel or it could even be used for like a modern gospel, like a praise and worship kind of feel. You use this a lot to bring out stuff which is very inspiring and uplifting. The music could be very motivational and stuff like that, as you may have figured by the introduction video, right? It's for some nice ambient stuff or ballad stuff and it also allows the singer or the vocal line to go all over the place, right? And what I like about this approach which we have developed for this lesson would be it uses the same arpeggio pattern. It's just one pattern throughout the video which I'm going to teach you first and then we'll do the exploration from that one pattern. And when we explore it, the good thing about this video is there are not going to be any chords as such. I'm not going to give you a chord progression, but yet it's going to sound as though there are some serious chords going on. For example, you know, something like... So there's a technique we have for you which will allow you to actually create this harmonic content using a very popular rhythm. You can call it even maybe call it like a modern pop rhythm. You'll find this in almost all the ballads these days in the past decade or so. And I'll first walk you through the rhythm, then I'll be walking you through the actual scale which I'm using, the pattern which I'm using. I will break it finger by finger, thumb by thumb and everything else. And then we'll look at how we can explore this and use it as a great songwriting tool. That's the final goal of this exercise, to show you how you can build a song without even a chord really. Just a pattern, a scale and the piano. That's pretty much it. So I'm excited to share this with you. Let's get cracking before we do. Do consider subscribing to our YouTube channel, hitting the bell icon for notifications, leaving us a comment for something you'd like to learn in the future, like the video without fail. And also do consider heading over to our Patreon page where all these notes are laid out for you very neatly as a downloadable PDF for a very nominal subscription. You'd also be supporting our channel greatly. Let's get cracking. So you have this pattern. Let me first play you the pattern. So the first thing you'd like to note with this pattern is it's following a 3-3-2 feel or a counting feel. It's almost like you can go 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-1. Some people confuse this with a triplet. It's not a triplet. It's actually what we call as the thresio rhythm. Thre meaning three of something. So thresio. So we count it as 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3. You've heard so many songs like this, right? 3-1-2. That's why I chose this. So generally whenever people play arpeggios these days from the material I hear, especially the modern pop hits which are doing the rounds on Spotify, if any piano is doing mellow, ballad, arpeggiated stuff, it's generally on this rhythm, which is takita, takita, taka, takita, takita, taka, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3. Even though it is 3-meeting, 3-meeting, 2, the beat is not triplets. You're not saying 1 and a 2 and a 3 and a... You're not doing that because then the 3 and will go for a toss. So it's 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and so what I'm snapping is the accents which I want you to consider. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and takita, takita. So a lot of musicians will simplify it by just saying it out as 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2, but whilst doing this, you need to keep the pulse in mind. You could either observe the pulse as quarter notes, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. Or you could observe the pulse as slow half notes or minims, as we call it. That'll be 1 and 2 and 3 and 1 and tak, doom, doom, which is more common. Okay? So that was an overview of this particular time feel which I'm playing around with. Now let me teach you the pattern. So I've chosen E-flat major scale as my scale for the lesson. Some of you may be wondering, why have you not chosen C major? Well, I don't like it. So I'm going to do E-flat. It's a nice scale. Lot of our favourite artists use it, Simon and Garfunkel, not our Jones to name a few. So E-flat is the scale. Forget C major. Let's start. E-flat. It has 3 flats. E-flat, F-G, E-flat, B-flat, C-D, E-flat. So this entire pattern, the most important notes for this exercise will be obviously the root. E-flat. So I would first say, get into this hand hold, pinky on E-flat, thumb on E-flat and probably your ring finger or your middle finger on E-flat at the top end. Primarily because the black notes, generally we don't use our pinky, otherwise our hand will have to angle weirdly. So ring will be a great finger for the top. So get this basic shape first. E-flat, E-flat, E-flat, E-flat, E-flat. Okay. And then in the middle, we're going to start off with our thumb playing G. Okay, that's your shape. So perhaps you could start by whacking all the four together. We're just going to use four notes for this exercise for the most part. Okay. Okay. If you'd like, you can ignore this pinky E-flat for now and go that, but I think it's nicer to go all in. E-flat, E-flat, G-E-flat. That's your base. Now you build a pattern. As you can see, it's an arpeggio created with both hands. Okay. The two hands are working together for the same goal to make an arpeggio. What am I doing? Playing it slowly. So the first hit is actually struck by the root and the octave of my left pinky and thumb. And then you do thumb ring, thumb high. I'm just calling it as the high root, high E-flat. Let's get that first. Together, break it there. Together, break it there. That's your first three beats. Okay. Now we break up the left hand. Remember what we did earlier at the right hand area? G-E-flat that continues. So together, two, three, single. While this is going alone, this can be holding. Okay. That's important. That'll sound great. Then you end, you cap it off with your two thumbs. So I'm going to call it as root, thumb high, thumb, thumb high, thumb, thumb. You see, there's a lot going on with your thumbs inside the two hands, right? Because the left hand thumb will be inside. Right hand will also be inside when you're visualizing. This is outside. This is outside. So together again. Thumb, thumb. Thumb, thumb. So it ends with the two thumbs. And if you're very new to the instrument, maybe you're finding tricky to hold both these together. So even this would work great. May not give you that much depth, but it still sounds great to me. All following the thresio. So if you actually break it down, if you just consider what the left hand is doing. That's the thresio rhythm. And you're filling up the missing beats in your right. Thresio on the left. That's your right hand. So put it together again, guys. Play it with some serious dynamics if you can. Volume, that means. Soft. Get louder. Actually controlling my volume with just my breath. Just breathing in and out. There's a nice lesson on that which we'll put in the description for you guys to check out. So anyway, that's your base pattern which I think is already nice come to think of it. Very pop-ish and very usable for a variety of songs. So now we're going to look at a good number of variations to spice this exercise further. They're very quick variations, very easy, very simple approaches. Let's get cracking one by one. So the first thing I'd like to do is take this middle note, the G and take it to town. That means you just explore the scale rather than thinking, oh, which chord should I play? Not needed. You already have a nice foundation built with the E flat. So you're just trying to explore your scale which is in and around this G. So you go in the first cycle you do G, next cycle you can weave it around to A flat. Quite like that. So maybe let's do both together. E flat, A flat, G, A flat, G. Why not we try a couple of other things. F. A flat. Try to stick in the key. We don't want to do that A which is a tritone. I kind of like it but stick within the key of E flat then we are going more pop, folk, modern music. A flat, B flat, C flat, E flat. I just love that, really love that dissonance. It creates a very beautiful effect if you move it around, you know. As a great ear training challenge, isolate the moving note or the floating note and sing it. Use Swara as if you want. Speed it up. The flat 7 if you like that. Flat 6. If you want a minor vibe, why not. So that's the beauty of this environment. It's a bit scale independent as well because you are literally just playing the root, the tonic or the sa of the scale and maybe the fifth as well which we'll come to shortly. There's a lot of room for harmonic exploration as well as even changing scales. You can start a layer of the song or a section with the major vibe. So the isolation of that note, that middle note is very crucial for the music to actually compose itself or make it into a song. Otherwise you probably may just be stuck on the G. You may not know where you're going. Another nice thing would be to just compose a very short, easy to understand simple melody which you can do while doing the piano job. So something like it should work really well for a verse of a song and then you can actually release it in the chorus to create some nice harmonic movement. So that was the we started with the foundational finger movement over the thresio pattern. So we just floated around the thumb that was you could say our first variation and now the next variation which I'd like you to consider is to float your right hand movement you are initially floating the thumb note by playing all the other notes of the E flat major scale. Why not play it in thirds? So you could do things like first of all a recap on the thirds this would be E flat's third F's third G's third A flat's third B flat's third C with E flat so there I would suggest to go over a chart on Patreon you'll have this written down neatly. So you just basically look at diatonic thirds from the E flat major scale and instead of just doing single G you can do you can play the B flat along with the root either together with the G or but I prefer G its third along with the root. So obviously this is the E major E flat major chord but it doesn't have to just be E flat major you can do A flat with its third which is C with the same E flat with its third D and the same E flat Now in this region you have F with A flat G with B flat A flat with C B flat with D but now you're probably wondering I'm stuck because my wall is created with the E flat. Well it doesn't have to be a wall it can be what happened there I moved my top most note from E flat to B flat nothing wrong with that that's the fifth of the scale another very pivotal note so you go third pairs within the vicinity of this much E flat to E flat high love that when you want to access some higher notes pivot your B flat and use thirds as long as you use these third pairs you're good to go so a lot more harmonic flavour or harmonic colour than maybe just floating around one note so instead of floating one note we are floating thirds as opposed to the earlier variation where we did E flat B flat single still nice but a lot colourful with the thirds can inspire a melody as well so that was thirds guys so I have one more right hand variation for you before we just cap it off with some left hand improvisation so the next right hand variation would be using what I call a spread thirds where instead of playing E flat with the G up top that means it'll be closer right E flat to G you take the high G put it below the root and you get a spread effect you get E flat with it's third played below it get a more denser or a more bigger, wider deeper third so now if we take the same pattern of course this is exactly what we did in the very beginning of the lesson this is what I taught you in the beginning now what if we take the next third pair in the spread version which could be which could be A flat F normally A flat would have been on top there but I am bringing it down there and I am closing the harmony it's like the harmony is not you know random there is no chord the up top there and then a bass note really down I am kind of making the two hands and the arpeggio has literally as I told you at the beginning of the lesson is just one arpeggio with two hands so you go what are my pairs spread thirds another one B flat G C A flat D B flat E flat C F D flat D G flat so you could literally build your scale with the pattern and I have a nice trick what I do with these thirds will be the very last hit don't do hit one of them hit both because you don't have an extra beat you don't have 1 2 3 1 2 you are not doing endless triplets so at the end of it all one triplet or rather 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 at the last 1 2 you want to hit them together let's see how it goes don't think that oh this is all very happy folk music all the time that's only because of the scale what if I do that's your minor there we go the emotion changes so it's not the pattern which is causing the emotion it's the scales minor or major so major would be more like a folk song you know minor well maybe for like a movie theme tension if you want depending on what you are doing but then don't go non-diatonic initially think of the scale stick within the scale then see how it goes last thing I'd like to add well I have to add this because right now the right hand was going all over the place but the left hand was droning it was just droning with E flat so you are probably wondering if the right hand was able to explore so much why can't the left hand do the same exploration well that's exactly what's going to happen now so let me demonstrate that's E flat C B flat so you maintain the same pattern let's just show you this with C you see it's still the same thresio B flat E flat thresio C B flat E flat with the right hand that's my pattern you are doing spread third movements there you are doing base movements there but you are keeping the pattern still which is 3 3 2 right that didn't change so far so a good way to practice base movement would be maybe keep it simple in the right hand move the left slowly move the right hand thumb this one and then do your other stuff in the right hand which I taught you spread in the right hand right so what I wanted to touch on lastly would be how you can use the exact same rhythm the same arpeggio build sections of a song you do not want to just stop with it as an exercise or something which helps you build one small bit of a piece of music why not use it for the whole song so a great approach would be use combos of them like you could go spread thirds with a static root for your verse maybe a simple chilled out melody like the next part could be with a changing bass C spread voicing in the right right also different dynamics you play something super soft or explode it in the chorus dynamics will help you build sections and of course a great way to build sections would always be use your voice your voice is completely free so think maybe in one assortment or with one variation you want to sing this kind of a melody with the next variation you want to do a different melody with maybe some kinds of change some kinds of well variations I have given you quite a few variations so far three in the right hand one just floating the thumb the other with thirds closed thirds with the same root on the top or else the fifth on the top then we have looked at spread third in the right and then to cap it off we just float around our left hand and at the end of the day it is still the same thresio same old same thing over and over again so the whole purpose of this lesson is to give you that modern day pop ballad rhythm which is essentially like a thresio rhythm going on for us and to use it hopefully also as a song writing tool use it as a nice combo tool usually we look at arpeggios with one hand and the left hand doesn't do much or the right hand doesn't do much here both hands are working together for the same outcome to create an arpeggio but harmonically very interesting and very dense and the other hopefully interesting part of this lesson was we didn't have a chord progression so this is one of the few lessons at least on this channel where we are building harmony we are building progressions without chords well they are chords but we are not imagining it that way we are just stacking up the root the fifth bringing in a couple of notes of course playing the modern pop pattern which is iconic in nature you could build a song with this I hope so I hope you have fun with the exercise I hope you get creative we have an instagram channel for my account which is jasonzak or our school instagram which is Nathaniel school so what you could do is you could reach out and get me to hear what you are up to and what you are doing by recording something over this exercise and I would request you to tag me I will go through it, I will check it out and I will probably reshare it as well which will be quite cool so record yourself playing it and you can actually get me to hear this otherwise I don't know how I am going to listen to you people through a youtube forum only we will have to figure out another way so instagram becomes a great tool for now record it, put it up there and also do consider heading over our patreon page and getting all these notes neatly assorted for you to practice in a very organized way like the video, share the video leave us a comment with something you would like to learn as always this is jason here from Nathaniel, see you in the next one cheers