Black Snake: Left Hand

Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman. Today we are learning how to play the left hand of "Black Snake."
Let's get started by taking a look at the score.
Let's analyze the left hand part.
It looks like we start with a chord.
We've got these notes stacked together which tells me we play them all together. Can you tell me the letter name of this bottom note?
If you said D you're correct, and then what's this middle note?
You can see that we skip up to the next line which would be F, but there's a sharp symbol in front of it. It's important to notice, what does this sharp line up with?
You look through the line that goes through the center of the sharp and it's lined up with this note head. So you know the sharp belongs with the F.
We have a D, F-sharp, and on top, what letter on top?
If you said A, you're correct.
And since we're in the key of D major, that's our I chord. DO MI SO Let's try to play it on the piano. Okay let's place our left hand in the D major pentascale,
and we're going to play the I chord using DO MI and SO
two times and you'll notice it's marked staccato. So remember to give a nice lift with your wrist.
Two I chords, one, two. Now you try.
Great, let's come back to the sheet music.
Now let's go through our score and hunt for all the I chords, and in your own music at home I'd like you to mark maybe choose a color, and I'm using green, and
mark all of the I chords. This one doesn't have the F-sharp. Remember, when we're in the same measure that sharp
continues on so this F is also sharp, so here's another I chord.
Looking down line one can you find any other I chords?
Point to them.
If you're pointing over here you're correct. So in your own music, mark these with a roman numeral I.
Which is a capital I.
That's how the Romans wrote the number one. And now on line two can you find any more I chords?
If you're pointing here and here, you're correct. So let's mark those as well. Pause the music if you need to,
sorry, pause the video if you need some time to mark these in your own music.
Otherwise let's go on and check out this next chord.
Now, what I like to do when I have two chords in a row and the next chord is different, I look at
how each individual note moves. Like I may notice that this bottom note
stays the same as I go from this chord to this chord, and that's a useful clue. So I know that that D didn't change,
but then I see that this middle note, the F-sharp steps up, and this top note the A also steps up. So what does that give us?
See how those top two notes step up, the bottom notes stayed the same. So that's the I chord, and we go to the IV chord.
Let's try to play that chord progression on the piano. All right, make sure you still have your left hand in the D major pentascale.
For the IV chord, we're going to need these three notes. Remember the F-sharp and the G, sorry the F-sharp and the A stepped up to G and B.
How we'll do that is we'll use finger 2 to play G, and our finger 1 will slide over to B. Like this, so we'll have two I chords, then thumb finger 1 slides up and then two IV chords.
Now can you try playing two IV chords with a nice staccato wrist lift? You try.
Good, now let's put two I chords together with two IV chords. So we'll have I, I, IV, IV. Now you try.
Good, now let's come back to the score.
Okay, now I'm taking a different color and you can do this yourself at home,
and I'm going to mark where all of the IV chords are, and remember the Romans had a special way of writing numbers.
They used IV and they like to put these
funny lines over and under their letters. I guess they thought it made it look fancy. So this is a Roman numeral IV.
IV chord, IV chord can you find any other IV chords on this line?
Point to them.
If you're pointing over here, you're correct.
So in your own music you can use any color you want, but try and find all the IV chords.
Do you see any more IV chords?
Let's look down on line two. Do you see any down here?
Hopefully you found here and here, so let's mark those as well.
Pause the video if you need a little extra time to mark those in your music,
otherwise let's go on and figure out this chord.
Can you tell me the letter name of the bottom note?
If you said D you're correct. Once again our bottom note hasn't moved.
But this time these next two notes have changed quite a bit.
It looks like we're just a step away for this next note what's the letter name?
A step above D that would be E, and then what's the letter name for this top note of the chord?
If you said G, you're correct so we have a D E, and G all in the same chord. That's a new kind of chord
that's called a ii7 chord.
Let's try to play it on the piano.
All right, make sure your left hand's still in the D major pentascale.
The ii7 chord is made up of these three notes: D E and G ...