Great Left-Hand Accompaniment Patterns for the Piano or Keyboard - For Dummies

Great Left-Hand Accompaniment Patterns forthe Piano or Keyboard By Hal Leonard Corporation, Holly Day, Jerry Kovarksy, David Pearl, and Michael Pilhofer from Piano and Keyboard All-in-One For Dummies One of the most important tools for your piano playing bag of tricks is a good supply of left-hand accompaniment patterns. Any time you’re faced with playing straight chords or even playing melodies from a fake book (which pretty much just gives the chord names), you’re left to your own resources to supply an interesting-sounding bass line. It’s important to practice these patterns again and again to master the right notes and the way each pattern feels under your fingers. The more comfortable you are with the pattern, the more easily you can apply it to any key, any chord, and any scale. Fixed and broken chords The easiest left-hand accompaniment is chords, whether you play them as straight chords or arpeggios. Start with the basic chords and find inversions that work well for you without requiring your left hand to move all over the keyboard. Also, you should experiment with various rhythmic patterns. For example, try playing quarter-note chords instead of whole-note chords. Or try a dotted quarter and eighth-note pattern. Here, the left hand plays a simple chord progression with several different rhythmic patterns. Play these a few times and decide which rhythmic pattern works, sounds, and feels best to you. You can change the texture and add some variety with a constant arpeggiated pattern in the left hand. For every chord symbol, use the root, fifth, and octave notes of the chord’s scale to form an ” After you get the feel of this bouncy rhythmic pattern. play “Love Me Like You Used To. and a fifth interval. Most chords are made up of a root note. Play the root note on beat 1 and the top two notes together on beat 2. break a chord into two units: the root note and two top notes. You need to know these three elements to be a successful chord-picker. Your pinky will find the two alternating bass notes because they’re always the same distance from the root. you can apply this pattern to just about any song you like. do something a little different on beat 3: Play the fifth of the chord by itself but one octave Lower. To play this pattern. a third interval.” Chord picking Left-hand chord picking is a style well suited to country music. This pattern works for fast or slow songs. To make it sound even more impressive. Now try playing this pattern in the piece “Picking and Grinning. you won’t even need to look at your hands. But even if you aren’t a fan of that genre. To play a song using the left-hand accompaniment.up-and-down pattern throughout the song. . . keep your hand in octave position as you move directly to the next set of octaves.Octave hammering This easy (if tiring) left-handed groove is really fun and easy if your right hand is just playing chords. this pattern may not be a practical choice. But if you’re playing a melody or something more complicated than chords with your right hand. To hammer out some octaves. you simply prepare your left hand in an open octave position. with your pinky and thumb ready on the two notes. “Octaves in the Left” lets you roll out some octaves. You can play the octaves using any rhythm that sounds good to you — try whole notes. and make sure your wrist is loose enough to bounce a bit with the appropriate rhythm. When the chord changes. depending on the rhythmic character of the song. half notes. even eighth notes. You can create a great bass pattern using the octave. and you can apply the pattern to any major chord. the fifth. Bouncy rock patterns In addition to slamming octaves. a nice rock and roll-sounding bass pattern may use other intervals drawn from scale notes. . the octaves in “Jumping Octaves” move from the root note to the third interval note to the fifth interval note for each right-hand chord. After a few times through. your hands will know what to do.As you become more familiar with harmony. For example.or one-measure pattern in 4/4 meter. you can add to these left-hand octave patterns with octaves built on the notes of the chord.” You can modify the pattern to fit a two. Try this rockin’ accompaniment along with “Rockin’ Intervals. and the sixth intervals of each chord. Play them back and forth. Melodic bass lines Some left-hand patterns are so widely used that they’re better known than the melodies they accompany. It was only a matter of time before some trail-blazing pianist adapted this guitar pattern to the piano. the fifth. “Bum-ba-di-da” is one such pattern that was made famous by Roy Rogers in his show-closing song. . All you have to do is alternate between playing an open fifth and an open sixth on every beat. and the sixth. over and over.” All you need are three notes from each chord’s scale: the root.The great Chuck Berry made the locomotive-sounding pattern demonstrated in “Berry-Style Blues” very popular on the guitar. “Happy Trails. All rights reserved. sixth. This bass line uses notes from a major scale but lowers the seventh note of the scale a half step (also called a flatted seventh) to give you that bluesy sound. . Copyright © 2015 & Trademark by John Wiley & Sons.” Another melodic left-hand pattern played by every pianist from novice to pro is the “boogie- woogie” bass line. It doesn’t even need a melody. Inc. play “Country Riffin’. fifth. For each new chord in the boogie-woogie bass line. third. you play the following scale notes up the keys and then back down: root.To play a song with the bum-ba-di-da bass line. flatted seventh.