Love Somebody: Left Hand

Hello and welcome back.
I'm Joseph Hoffman.
Today we're learning how to play "Love Somebody" with chords in the left hand.
So let's take a look at how these chords are notated on the staff.
Since we'll be playing our chords in the left hand and it will be below middle C,
we're using a bass clef today.
Here's our key signature which tells us we'll be in the key of E major,
and let's review this note on the bass staff.
Remember if you're on the line between these two dots,
what note would this be?
If you said F you're correct,
and because we're in the key of E major,
it will actually be an F-sharp automatically because of the key signature,
because we'll be using the E major pentascale.

Now what if I go a step below F,
now can you tell me what note this would be?
If you said E you're correct,
and since we're in the key of E,
E is DO for us today.
Now our left hand will be playing chords,
and if we want to draw a I chord,
remember that a I chord is built on DO MI and SO.
It should look like this.
Remember that from DO to MI is a skip up.
If it were just a step up,
we'd be on this line. But when we skip up,
if we start on a space,
then it would go space skips up to another space,
and that gives us DO MI SO all played together at the same time since they're stacked.

When notes are stacked together right in a line like this,
that means to play them as a chord all at the same time.
Let's check out how to play this I chord on the piano.
If this is middle C, here's my bass F.
So E would be here, and the I chord would look like this.
Can you try playing a I chord on your piano?
It will have an E, G-sharp, B like this.
Now let's figure out how to draw a V7 chord.
When we want a V7 chord instead of using DO,
DO steps down a half-step to TI which in this case will be a D-sharp.
So DO moves down to TI, MI also steps up to FA,
and then a step above FA we have SO.

Now when two notes are just a step apart and played in a chord,
they will still touch kind of like they're kissing.
They can't totally stack, but they'll be diagonal from each other and touching,
so you can tell to play them together like this.
So this is what our V7 chord will look like.
Let's check out how to play that on the piano.

Now for the V7 chord remember,
DO moves down a half step to TI.
Half-step means the nearest possible note,
which in this case is this D-sharp, and MI moves up to FA.
So TI FA and SO together make the V7 chord.
So with your left hand you'll use fingers 5, 2 and 1, play backwards.
You try playing V7 chord with your left hand.

Great, so to review.
We've got our I chord and the V7 chord.
Now let's hunt for these two chords in the sheet music.
Can you point to all of the I chords on this first line?
If you're pointing here and here, you're correct.
Now if you'd like to download the sheet music from our website,
which you can get as part of the complete materials for this unit.
You can try this at home.
Take a blue colored pencil, or crown, or highlighter like I have.
We're going to circle all the I chords blue.
That will help us remember where those I chords are.

Now let's come down here to line 2.
Can you point out all the I chords here.?
If you're pointing here you're correct.
And again at home you can circle your I chords blue,
and that's right there's another one here.
You'll notice this one is a half note.
We've got it's empty inside with a stem so that gets 2 beats.
This I chord will only last 1 beat because it's a quarter note.
You also have a I chord here and here.

Super, now what does that leave us with?
That's right, it looks like everything else is going to be a V chord.
So let's take another color.
I'm going to use orange, you're welcome to use a different color if you like,
but I'm going to circle all of the V7 chords orange.
Very good. Now later on we'll learn why it's called a V7 chord.
It's a pretty complex music theory concept,
and we'll get to naming the chords later.
For now I chord, V7 chord. Super.

Now that we've found the chord,
let's try playing them on the piano.
So if this is middle C,
our left hand will come to the left of that into the bass clef area,
and let's find the E major pentascale.
Can we start off just playing each note of the E major pentascale and name them starting with E? Ready go.
E, F-sharp, G-sharp, A, B.
Great now can you play the I chord?
Good and now let's try the V7 chord.
So finger 5 moves to D-sharp.
It might feel most comfortable if finger 2 is coming up in between the black keys and then back to the I chord.

Good. No ...