 Hi guys, this is Jason here from Nathaniel and here is Shape of You by Ed Sheeran. I am going to play it on the piano of course and before we talk about the piano riff and that consistent hook which goes on throughout the song, we will first look at the chords of the entire piece of music which is basically one chord progression C sharp minor then F sharp minor, A major and B major and all these chords come from the key of E major where C sharp is the sixth minor, where F sharp is the two minor, where A is the four major and B is the five major. So one might also argue that it is in the relative minor, C sharp minor which is the relative minor. To get the relative minor, you just have to move a sixth from the major key. So that is about the chords. So if you are a guitar player, you can probably just play the chords in any rhythm you want because it is not really defined. The song does not have a lot of the real instruments, it is a lot of synths. So the underlying rhythm however in this entire song is basically a 3-3-2. So if you count 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2, you are pretty much done for the entire song. So you have 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2, 1-2-3, 1-2. So one might look at this as also eighth notes without the traditional accent, which is 1-2-3-4-and. This is something we are used to a lot in classical music. But in this groove which some may also call like the salsa groove, you are basically focusing a lot on the accents of the song. So that is 1-1-2-3-4-and. So one way to count it is write down all your eighth notes, 1-2-3-4-and and you will be playing at the 1, the AND of the 2 and the ON of the 4. So that is 1-2-3-4-and. So if you see the pattern, 1-2-3-4-and, 1-2-3-4-and, 1-2-3-4-and. So you can either count it with eighth notes which is of course traditionally done in the western world or you can just count it with numbers 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3-4-and, which a lot of songs are based on. 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3-4-and. However it is still a 4 beat per bar song if you think about it. One, two, three, four, you're basically still counting it as either slow four which would be one, two, three, four, then you're feeling this as sixteenth notes, one, two, three, one, two, one, two, one, little faster or you're feeling it as quicker four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, tongue tongue tongue tongue tongue tongue tongue tongue. So I think a good exercise to start off with is just sing sing the song and try and maintain a pulse with your hand tongue tongue tongue tongue tongue tongue tongue tongue tongue tongue faster pulse tongue tongue tongue tongue tongue tongue tongue tongue tongue tongue tongue because you want to get the foundation right before you even start playing your guitar or your piano. These sort of songs can be a little deceiving because it's just one chord progression and one pattern but it's good to just really nail it and get it 100% right rhythmically so that you can really feel the groove and then you can even improvise that further and definitely be a lot more confident when you're jamming it with other musicians like the drummer and the bass player right. So that's about the groove one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two. Now let's look at what's going on on the keyboard. It's basically like this marimba patch which he uses and that marimba patch is there in a lot of these dance EDM songs right it's I can't remember the song names but it's there in a lot of songs over the three three two and before I forget to mention this I have done a separate lesson called the three three two pop song exercise. I don't think I've called it correctly but we will put a link in the description for you guys to check out so that will be a more elaborate description of this three three two the mechanics of this three three two rhythm pattern and how popular and viral it's it's become you know it's used in almost every single pop and rock song right and it definitely creates a very groovy structure over which a lot of people can can add to okay. So now let's look at the piano part so the top section I've marked out in green here so that's the three three two one two three so the first three chords you're just basically gonna do right and the fourth time you either go ED sharp B or D sharp C sharp B that'll be the second time so let's try and do it sorry second line and of course you can add the bass which will be the root notes of the chords marked here C sharp F sharp A and B you can just basically play those roots in your left or in the bass. Now in the original song what happens is the two hands are playing basically together but as you saw in the the introduction performance which I did at the very beginning of this video you can rewind and check that out if you want I'm basically playing the pulse in my left hand and that I think is very important for the groove if you're looking at the piano as a groove instrument you have two hands so why not use this for the pulse and this for the three three two so that's two hits of each chord C sharp F sharp A B C sharp F sharp A B so one two three one two three one two and of course the first time he goes the second time and both those happen over the B chord okay there's one more note he adds in addition to this for each chord and I've written that down here first is G sharp and then A and then A again and then F sharp in the bass you can use if you're a keyboard player you can use your thumb for this let's repeat and then the ending and try to keep the left hand going as it was okay line two and what I like to do also is just add some additional notes just to be a little bit more percussive so I mean you can try that if you're perhaps a little intermediate player but try to feel the groove first before you do all these alterations another thing which you may want to try in the bass hand is to play at the off beat because the drummers anyway is going to play at the on beat right so try to play at the off beat and get a pattern like this one and two and so basically at every and now that tends to be a little tricky for most new comers so try to follow it in the progression so if you're a beginner I would expect you to at least play it like this okay let me slow this down but as you grow further try to play the pulse here and then at the off beat at these colors in the right hand right so those are just variations which I've come up with of course it can get a bit boring right if you're playing this live with a band for about what four minutes but in the track I'm sure is just a synth which is probably programmed so yeah it's good for the recording but I'd always encourage you to try and go beyond the recording try to watch a few live performances of the song as well you learn a lot I'm sure there could be different versions also on YouTube which you could learn from there could be a piano version there could be like a hard rock version I guess so try to find out different versions on the internet as well but however this is the core so in conclusion it's a 3 3 2 time feel or a rhythm pattern 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 the chords are C sharp minor F sharp minor A major B major and I've showed you that piano pattern right from the beginning of this lesson right so hope you found that lesson useful if you did do check out our other videos on the same playlist and also share the video around with your musician friends cheers don't forget to like subscribe hit that bell icon for notifications leave us a comment for any other video you'd like us to do next and don't forget to share the video with all your musician friends cheers