ADDED WEEKLY AS WE GO.
AN EVER-EXPANDING COMPENDIUM OF PIANO ACCOMPANIMENT PATTERNS
FOR A MORE MUSICAL HOME AND LIFE.
There are infinite ways to creatively play musical patterns, and one of the best ways to expand your skill is to listen to and examine how great composers and improvisors you love have done it. There is enough in Chopin's catalogue alone to give us a lifetime of exploration! Not to mention, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Joplin, Gershwin, Bill Evans, all popular music of ALL times, Broadway & film music... We've heard the most masterful and creative musicians doing this our whole lives, but when we take time to sit at the piano and notice and explore with our own hands how they practically and logistically worked out how they wanted to play the notes of the chords on the piano in a way that most expressed their musical intention, we can internalize and master these building blocks and their possibilities for creativity in much more meaningful ways.
Again, no matter what key the piece is in, equating each part of the pattern to the scale degree number is what will make it become yours.
Having said that, each week, we will practice a few patterns and then you will find them collected here.
These will be what I would consider many common patterns, and aim to present them in a way that shows how they are really variations of one another, and open to any development and expansion your ear can imagine and the music you are playing asks for.
Take these and make them your own! Simple progressions will be used here as examples, but can be applied to any progression.
LEFT HAND PIANO PATTERNS
THE LEFT HAND IS THE BAND!
For the most part--Unless you are actually playing in a band, and then you will probably NOT play these patterns as presented here. You'll need another plan for that (with little to no left hand activity)!
The Left Hand Piano Patterns presented here can be a resource to help you explore and master how to distribute the notes in harmonic progressions (the chords!) in the left hand on piano when accompanying chords or a melody in the right hand.
LEFT HAND ROOTS/5th/OCTAVES
To start, check out sort of overview video in which you can see and hear 19 Duple Meter & 4 Triple Meter Left Hand Rhythm Patterns using ONLY Roots and 5ths, accompanying a simple melody played in the Oboe (so that it is easier to distinguish it aurally from the piano part.).
Observe how the mood and the texture changes with each pattern. If you get sick of this melody--no problem! Make your own to play along with your LH as it runs these!
TWO-HAND PIANO PATTERNS
Fresh Every Week!
LH: BASS LINE | RH: BLOCKED CHORDS
Utilizing the ubiquitous yet still profound opening verse of Let It Be, check out these examples of the basic blocked chord
LH: BASS LINE | RH: BROKEN CHORDS
