Simply Music

From Elizabeth Gaikwad

Elizabeth Gaikwad is the creator of the very popular Songs For Children 1 program, as well as the forthcoming Duets 1 and Songs for Children 2.  Just for the festive season, she has put together a version of Silent Night, which can be learned on multiple levels.  Firstly, it can be used as a simple accompaniment for anyone who has experienced the first few steps of the Simply Music Accompaniment program.  
Elizabeth has also put together a more developed variation of the accompaniment, with more sophisticated chords and a graceful bass line.
She steps you through both versions in an audio tutorial, which will have you playing in no time.
Players who are at the music-reading level can also teach themselves the variation from the notation version or perhaps read the melody and play the chords in the left hand.

Download the song sheet here

Listen to Elizabeth’s tutorial using the player below

Some of the most memorable songs have been among the simplest – a single voice accompanied by just a strummed guitar or simple chords on a piano can concentrate the attention on the way the melody interacts with the chords.  This song is a case in point.

The piano part is a simple accompaniment with a small number of chords, and broken up the same way right through.

If you’ve been through the Accompaniment 1 program, you could play the chords in root position and break each one up ‘bottom, middle, top, middle’ four times each measure and it would sound great.  But it takes very little extra effort to make the piano part sound almost exactly like the original.

Firstly, go to http://www.simplymusic.com/PrintSheetMusic and purchase your copy of the song using the link on the main page.

Although I name a lot of notes in this guide, the idea is definitely not to memorise every note.  We are going to process the song by looking at what happens from one chord to the next, and reduce this down to a series of clues.  I recommend you get pretty confident with each section before moving on to the next.

Let’s start with the verses (the first couple of pages).  Don’t worry about breaking up the chords just yet.  It’s best to handle one thing at a time, and playing the chords as simple block chords will help you focus on what’s happening from one to the next.  The first chord is A major, which if you’ve begun Accompaniment 1 you’ll know is a triangle shape with the thumb on A (if you don’t know that much, just play the notes A, C# and E).  For the next chord keep the top two fingers in place and bring the bottom finger down a half-step to the next black key, G#.  For the next chord you’ll do a stretch out from the middle – keep your middle note in place (it’s best to use finger 2 for this note) and bring the bottom note down and top note up, to F# in both cases.  F# is the bottom note of the group of three black keys.  Finally, keep the top note in place and move the bottom back to the A where it started, and the middle note up a half-step to D.

Do this again, taking note of how the chords shift: triangle, bottom down, stretch out, bottom two up.  Say it as you go.  You’ll have it memorised in no time.  When you’re ready, break up the chords bottom, middle, top, middle four times each and you’re done.

The left hand is just four notes: A, G#, F#, D. Did you notice that the first three are the same as the bottom notes of the right hand?

On page 3 we then have a little bridge with three chords: the first is the bottom two black keys of the group of three (F# and G#) with an E on top.  For the second just move the middle note up a half-step to A.  For the third, bring the top note down one white key to D.  So only one note changes each time.  Left hand is just E, F# and D.  Timing-wise, there’s a small change: the first two chords are played twice each instead of four times.

Play this pattern twice.  If you want it to be even closer to the original, the second time you play, play the third chord twice instead of four times and then (as Adele sings “over”) go back to the first chord two times, but keep your left hand on the D.

Then we go to the chorus, which, according to the chord symbols is almost the same as the verses, and could be played that way, but the original is played differently. Firstly, the chords are played twice each instead of four times.  The first chord is played as A, C#, and the next A up – a large, odd-shaped triangle.  For the next chord everything comes down, to G#, B and G#.  A great way to remember this is that the colours (and the triangle) are reversed from the previous chord – black, white, black.  For chord three, even though the chord symbol is different, you’ll play the right hand exactly the same as chord one.  Finally, for the fourth chord, just bring the middle note up a half-step to D.

Repeat the pattern, observing and saying the changes.  The left hand is A, E, F# and D.

On page 5 we have another short bridging passage: Start with G#, B and E, move them all up to A, C# and F#, keep the bottom note in place and stretch the other two up to D and A (an octave from top to bottom).  Then move all up to the next white keys, then squeeze in to C#, E and A.  In the final measure of this passage (on page 6) keep the A on top and bring the others up to D and F#, then finally keep the shape and bring all up to E, G# and B.  So the clues might sound like “black on the bottom, all up, stretch up, all up, squeeze in, bottom two up, all up”, but if you see other clues – colour combinations, shapes, common notes – use them.

The first three chords are played four times, the remainder are played twice.  The left hand plays B, C#, D, B, C#, D.

We then return to the chorus, but again the chords are played a little differently.  We start with C#, E & A, pivot down to B, E and G#, all down to A, C# & F# (my clue for this is two whites to two blacks) and bring just the middle note up to D.  Left hand is A, G#, F# & D.

We finish off with a little coda: D, F#, A all below middle C, top two up to G# and B, up again to A & C# top note only up to D.  The last chord is played four times, the others are played twice.  The left hand is held on D.  Finally, we close off with an A chord played low.

There are a few details that I haven’t covered, but after mastering as much as I’ve described, you can go to your Simply Music Teacher and have them show you more.  If needed, he or she can also help you with repeats of the different sections, but if you have a recorded version of the song, you should be able to work it out.

From Gordon Harvey

For this month’s sheet music feature, rather than discussing a particular song, we thought we’d talk a little about how to get the most value from our Sheet Music Download service.  This service offers a dramatically better range of popular music than you’re likely to find in a music store, usually at considerable savings, without leaving home.  And it’s easy to use once you know how.

Before you can begin exploring sheet music online, you’ll need to download the free Scorch plug-in, which allows you to view and hear your song before you choose to buy.  For instructions on installing Scorch, go to  http://www.simplymusic.com/GettingStarted.

We’ve found it to be a good idea to close your browser and restart your computer before using Scorch for the first time.  When you’ve done so, go to http://www.simplymusic.com/PrintSheetMusic to begin.  This page features a small selection of popular titles.  You can click on any of these to display a song, but let’s click on the Sheet Music Search link go to the Search page.

Our service accesses the vast library of Hal Leonard, the world’s largest music publisher.  Depending on what you’re looking for, your selection may bring up a large number of choices, so refining your search can be helpful.  Let’s look at each field:Title is an obvious place to start searching.  Artist is also helpful, but if you can’t find what you want under the artist name, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.  For example, “Everytime You Go Away” was recorded both by Hall & Oates and Paul Young, but is only listed under Paul Young.

The Style drop-down selection is best used when you’d like to browse a particular style of music.  But be prepared – often the results will number in the thousands.

The Format drop-down is worth understanding.  Often a song may be presented in various ways that may or may not suit your needs.  Let’s talk about a few of these:

Big Note is a large format with easy to read notes.  It sometimes includes chord symbols.

Tab is a special format for guitar and bass guitar, using a diagram that represents the strings.  Regular notation is usually also included.

Choral is for music to be sung, usually by multiple vocalists, such as bass, tenor, alto and soprano, plus piano accompaniment.

Choral/Instrumental Pak separates each instrument for playing in orchestras and other ensembles.

Easy Guitar includes diagrams for playing the chords on guitar, and sometimes tab notation as well.

Easy Piano is as you would expect.  It may or may not include chords, but when it does, the chords will be fairly simple.

Fake Book is beloved of buskers, session players and jazz musicians.  It features just the melody in standard notation (which can be played by any appropriate instrument) and chords.  You can use it to play the chords on the piano or guitar and sing the melody, play it on another instrument, or create an arrangement by combining the chords and melody however you choose.

Piano/Vocal/Guitar is the format that’s the most versatile and useful for most of us.  It includes chord symbols, guitar chord diagrams, the melody in standard notation, and an arrangement for piano.  You can identify the piano arrangement by the curly bracket joining two staves.  Depending on the arrangement, the piano score may include the melody.  If you read notation, you can identify this by the RH notes whose stems point up where other notes point down.

Here’s an example of a Piano/Vocal/Guitar arrangement.

From Gordon Harvey

They like to make jokes about pop songs getting away with having only three chords, but that didn’t stop Bruno Mars from winning a Grammy with this one.  In fact, this song is even simpler than that as an accompaniment, because, if you know a little bit about chords, you’ll discover that you can see the right hand as just a single chord through the entire song while the left hand cycles through three notes.

Accompaniment

You can play an accompaniment for this song using these chords: an F, an F with a D in the left hand, an F with Bb (top of the three black keys) in the left, and then back to the F.  So really we just have an F chord in the RH, and F, D, Bb and F in the left.  The ratio is 1:2 played twice.

So that’s the accompaniment dealt with in a flash.  You could take that on after having done a little of the Simply Music Accompaniment program.  But there’s more we can do with the song.  There’s a catchy piano theme that’s repeated right through the song, and although it may not be written exactly the same way on the page, we can learn a simple pattern and have it sound pretty authentic.  Working this out using note-reading would normally not be possible until you were pretty experienced, but if you follow the steps below carefully, you can learn it even if you’re a relative beginner.

Theme

The key is a pattern we’ll learn in the right hand, to which we can add a very simple left hand, which we can develop a little further later.

Right Hand Position

As always, we’ll handle one thought process at a time, starting with the notes of the right hand, leaving the rhythm aside.  Put RH fingers 1, 3 & 5 on (from the bottom up) the notes A, C and F.  Hold them all down like a chord, so you can see them clearly, and start to feel comfortable with that little stretch between fingers 3 & 5.  Stretch finger 2 out to reach Bb – the black key.  These are all the notes you need, so keep the hand in place with the fingers over their notes the whole time and you won’t have to think about finding notes.

Right Hand Pattern

Play the top finger twice, next finger twice, then fingers 2, 1, 2 & 3.  Play along with a recording to start to get the rhythm. Whenever you play with a recording, make sure it’s nice and loud so you can hear it over your own playing.

Left Hand

The left hand plays F, D, Bb and back to F.  For those with some experience of the Accompaniment program, you’ll see they are the notes of a Bb Major chord.  Remember that the sequence both begins and ends on F.

Both Hands

When you’re confident with the RH, just play the first LH note and hold it down through the RH pattern, then repeat with the next LH note, and so on.

Developing the LH

In the original, the left hand is a bit busier.  Even then, it’s not hard, but putting the two hands together is a significant leap in difficulty.  If you think you’re ready to try this next level, there’s a particular way we can tackle it.

We’ll use a diagram which, if you follow carefully and very slowly, should allow the rhythm of both hands to emerge naturally.  Because this involves a new thought process, we will set notes and fingers aside and just tap out the rhythm with our hands, away from the keyboard.  We don’t want to be distracted by notes and fingers just now.

The numbers down the middle of the diagram are for you to count.  If you’ve learned songs like Alma Mater Blues, you’ll know that at this stage the count is not about being even and rhythmical, it’s just a guide to help us understand how the hands fit together.  The dots down the left hand side show where the left hand plays, and the dots on the other side show the right hand.

LH New Rhythm

The LH dots show the new, more developed LH rhythm.  Spend a little time just tapping this hand while counting aloud.  Tap as you say the first “1″, then again when you say “+”, then on the “3″ and so on.  Don’t rush the process by trying to go too fast.  We always want our ear to tell us that it’s correct, but trying to get to that point too soon will actually slow us down.  Also, you don’t have to be perfect at this exercise.  Just repeat the process, slowly getting a little faster until you start to get a sense of the feel.

Once you’ve been tapping this for a while, you can play it on the keyboard.  This should be pretty straightforward.

Tapping out BH

We now need to start co-ordinating the hands, incorporating the new LH rhythm.  As we did with the LH in the last step, we will tap both hands, following the diagram, away from the keyboard.  Two things are vital here: we must speak the count ALOUD; and we must CONTROL THE EVENTS.  Controlling the events simply means going through step by step, making sure we’re clear about each step, super-slowly, stopping whenever we need to.  The evenness of our rhythm is not our concern here – we simply need to fit the hands correctly with the count.  Again, in your own time, you can slowly build up the speed until you start to get the sense of how it goes.  You might eventually dispense with the count.

As you start to feel comfortable, slowly increasing the speed, a good trick is to tap the hands on different surfaces, such as LH on lap and RH on the body of your piano. The object is to start to hear the hands separately while still tapping both.  My favourite is to tap the RH on my head, where it can resonate through my body.  As my head is pretty empty, it resonates well!

Playing BH

Once we’ve spent some time tapping out the rhythm in both hands, we can begin to actually play hands together.  Check that your hands are spread over their positions and fingers are in place.  Again, since we’re layering more thought processes, we’ll go back to Controlling the Events.  Make sure you’ve switched off your rhythm and are not concerned with hearing that it ‘sounds right’.  Follow the diagram at the keyboard, super-slowly, stopping whenever you need to and making 100% sure you know what you’re doing.  It’ll feel like a backward step, but trust the process!

The most common stumbling block is losing track of which note you’re up to in the RH.  For example, we can forget that the first two fingers are each played twice.

If you get lost or tangled, that’s simply telling you that you’re going too fast!  Just be patient, go back to controlling the events, and let it take as long as it takes.  Your natural rhythmicality will allow the song to emerge.

If you feel like you’re not getting something, no problem – put it aside and pick it up again later.  Your Simply Music teacher might help, too.

To make the most of the song, you wouldn’t just play the theme or the accompaniment right through.  You might begin with the theme, go to the accompaniment during the verses, then back to the theme for the chorus.  Or for the chorus, you can play the theme in the RH and the chords F, Dm, Bb and F in the LH.  They are just a simple variation on the original chords which are easy to play and fill out the sound.

And as always, sing out loud in your most Grammy-winning style!

The lyrics and sung melody are on the sheet music, available here

Download the song on iTunes

The Glee phenomenon has been one of the biggest musical stories of recent times. This runaway television success has spearheaded a rediscovery of songs you can really sing, and has reminded many people that a memorable melody and well-sung harmonies can be one of the most uplifting listening experiences you can have.

The simplicity of the chord progressions in many of these songs gives us the opportunity to lay down a piano accompaniment without too much effort. Maybe you could get together with some friends and be the musical director of your own glee club.

Don’t Stop Believin’ was originally a top ten hit for Journey in 1981. The Glee arrangement adds rich harmonies, but the tune remains the same and sounds fine sung by one person. You will find the sheet music at http://www.simplymusic.com/PrintSheetMusic.

Rhythmically, you can play the whole song with a simple 1:2 ratio.

To play the chords, you’ll use the shape-based approach you’ve learned with your Simply Music teacher, starting with G major (straight line) and D major (triangle). The next chord, E minor7, is easily found by starting with the E Major’s triangle shape and bringing the middle note down by a half-step and the bottom note down by a whole step. The next chords are C major (straight line) and G and D again. The B minor is just the B major (curve or boomerang shape) with the middle note down a half-step. The cycle finishes on a C major, and we just repeat that cycle another four times.

On page 4 is the B section or bridge, which uses split or slash chords. For those who haven’t yet learned about split chords, they are chords where the left hand plays a different note than the right hand chord. Oddly, the left hand is written to the right of the slash, and the right hand to the left. You’ll get used to it, but be prepared to sometimes get it round the wrong way for the first little while.

The pattern for this section turns out to be very straightforward. The first four chords are just D, C, D, G with a C in the left hand. Then it’s D, G, D, G with a G in the left. Play these four times, then at the top of page 5 the section ends with a little tailpiece. The only trap here is that in the second measure there are three chords where you’d usually play two. just play the first two (D & G) once each and the C with the usual 1:2 ratio and you’re cool.

Then you’re back to lots of repeats of the A section, giving you a chance to sing your heart out!

Once you’ve mastered the basic accompaniment, there’s plenty you can do to make it more fun. You can make it more like the original by breaking up the chords in the right hand. Play the top two notes and then the bottom note.

If you’re a bit more ambitious, you could use the left hand to play a version of what the low voices sing. Essentially, they are just singing the bottom note of each chord, and finding a way of travelling up or down to the next. I’ll give you the first few moves, and you can work the rest out by ear.

From the G to the D, play A, B and D – really, you’re just moving up through the notes of a G chord, but passing through an A. From D to Em7, play E, F# (the bottom of the three black keys) and back to E. From Em7 to C, play F#, G, C. Remember that these are not the only notes you can play – if you want to play something different, or if you can’t work out exactly what the notes are on the recording, no problem, just play what sounds good to you. You’ll be in safe territory if you stick to white keys, with one exception – play the F# instead of F.

For the B section, it’s nice to really emphasize the difference by changing the rhythm. If you’re a Simply Music student, you might have learned the Arrangement for Ode to Joy. The same rhythm (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +) is used here in the right hand. Meanwhile, the left hand can play its note 8 times per measure. It’s a great effect. Finally, for this section, here’s another way of playing the G chord which sounds better: from the D chord, just move the top two notes up to the next two white keys, so you’re playing (from the bottom) D, G and B.

I recommend you play along with the recording, to help make that rhythm slot easily into place.

It was a tribute to the life-changing power of music (as well as the wonders of the internet) when the world was charmed by the story and the voice of Susan Boyle when she sang this song on Britain’s Got Talent and showed us that everyday people can genuinely offer the world surprising and wonderful gifts. Of course, it helps to have a fabulous voice, but the rest of us can still find great joy in playing this powerful song as a simple Accompaniment.

You’ll find this song at the Simply Music website by clicking on Sheet Music Search and entering I Dreamed a Dream in the Title field. The search may reveal several titles. I recommend you choose the version with Artist listed as Les Miserables and format Piano/Vocal/Guitar. This format is very versatile and can be used as a reading-based piano arrangement, a lead sheet you can use to create your own arrangement, and an accompaniment which allows others to sing or play the melody on another instrument.

With our printable sheet music you can change the key to fit your voice, but if you don’t need to, keep it in the original key (three flats). That way you could even play along with a recording of Susan. If you don’t even know what a key is, no problem – using our Accompaniment strategies, you don’t need to know about key signatures at all.

We’ll see that this song is just a small number of related chords, with a LH that travels downward.

Starting from where the singing begins, our first chord is an Eb Major, which you’ll know from your lessons is an upside down triangle shape. Play it slowly with a 1:2 ratio.

Next chord is the same in the RH, but the LH comes down to D. We know this by the slash symbol. Remember not to get confused – the LH note is written to the right of the slash. It comes down again to a C, but now the RH has changed to a C minor. If you don’t know how to make a C minor, here’s how: play a normal C Major, then move the middle note down a half step to the black key. You’ll see it’s a triangle shape. Very simple.

But there’s an even handier trick in this instance: if you get the Eb Major chord, and move the top note (Bb) up to C, you’ll be playing another version of the C minor chord. You only have to move one note! That’s extra handy when you see the next chord is back to the Eb Major. How can this different-looking chord still be C minor? It’s what’s known as an inversion of the chord, but again, you don’t need to know that, just know that it’s okay.

Next chord is an Ab Major, another upside down triangle, then, like earlier, we stay there in the RH while the LH continues its downward path.

Now for another handy trick: the next chord (F minor 7) is a little more advanced, but if you just keep the RH right there on the Ab Major and move the LH down to F, guess what? You’re playing F minor 7! How can this be? Again, just know that it’s correct. The theory can come later.

Next chord is Bb Major, a curve shape (as an Australian, I see this as a boomerang shape). The LH has finally finished its descent, and comes up to Bb. Then we’re simply back to the beginning again, and repeating the process.

This time, there are a couple of small changes to the chords. The first chord on page 2 is C minor 7 instead of C minor, but this is actually easier! Just like our F minor 7, if we keep the existing chord in the RH and just move the LH, we magically have the correct chord. The cycle repeats again with no change until the last line of page 2, where you have a Bb6 chord. If you’ve already learned how to find a 6th chord, great, but otherwise a plain Bb major will do fine.

Line 2 of page 3 introduces a brief different passage. The LH doesn’t have quite the same clear descending pattern, but you can still spend some useful time uncovering the path it takes, and distinguishing it as a pattern. This section includes an F minor. Like C minor, and Eb minor a little further on, you can find it by playing the Major and bringing the middle note down a half step. Then there is C7, which, if you don’t already know, you can find by moving the bottom note down a whole step.

The last two pages are in a new key, which turns out to mean simply that you’re playing the same sequence of chords a whole step higher, and the same tricks apply. For the second last chord, C9, just play C7 and add a D with finger 2.

Make sure you sing while you play. Have fun!