Melody for Left Hand - Part 2

Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman.

Today I'll show you how to add in the right hand to "Melody for Left Hand" by Schytte.

Let's take a look at the score to get started.

I love analyzing music before I play it, because then I find I learn it and play it faster.

And I'm more likely to get the notes right.

So, can you analyze for me this first chord that you see the right hand play?

Take a look at the notes and see if you can figure out what chord that is and tell me its name.

If you said a G major chord or a I chord, you're correct.

Since we're in the key of G major for this song,

it's very common and not unexpected at all that we we start with a G major chord, our I chord.

Now how long does that one chord continue?

It continues for the first two measures and then in measure three we get a new chord.

Now can you analyze that chord for me and tell me what you see?

Now, you'll notice that those top two notes shifted up a step.

So now we have this chord which is called a IV chord.

Remember, the IV chord really is named that because it's the built on the note that's four steps above the I chord. We have

G as one, two, three, four, so here's our IV chord, but

to make it more easy to play, we take

this G on top and put it on the bottom so that's

so it's a more comfortable way to play the IV chord.

And how you'll do that with your right hand, is you'll shift

All of your fingers except for your finger 1 up a note.

So your fingers 3 and 5 can reach C and E.

So 3 and 5 are on B and D, then they shift up a step but your thumb stays put.

So let's practice that can you try a I chord with me on your piano in the G position?

And then shift to the IV chord. Keep your thumb on G and the other finger shift up. Good.

Now let's try to play this first line. You have 1-& 2-&, 1-& 2-&, shift, 1-& 2-&, 1-& 2-&.

Can you try that with me? Ready, go.

1-& 2-&, 1-& 2-, shift, 1-& 2-&, 1-& 2-&.

Great! Now pause if you need to go back and practice that a little bit more, otherwise let's keep going.

What do you see on this next line? What chord?

If you said a I chord or G major chord, you're correct. It goes back to our I chord,

then here we have a chord we haven't seen for a long time, so I'm going to help you with it.

This is called a Gsus4 chord.

That 'sus' stands for suspension, and it's a really cool chord called a suspension because sometimes this note

is it's called suspended because it wants to get back down to that note.

It sounds like it's suspended in the air, but that's called a Gsus4 chord.

So why don't you try that. You'll use fingers 1 4 and 5 on G, C, and D.

Okay, try that out. 1-& 2-&, now look at the next measure and tell me what happens on this chord.

There's one note that changes from the measure before. That's this bottom note goes down a step.

So is this this correct?

No, because of our key signature we don't have an F, right? What do all F's become?

They become F-sharp, automatically because of our key signature.

So, does this chord look familiar to you?

You might recognize this as the V7 chord of G major.

Remember, if this is our I chord, to get the V7 chord we move DO down to TI, MI up to FA, and boom: V7 chord.

When we play that with our right hand, because our finger 1's a little bit short, you're going to want to slide forward up in the keys

and play it like this, okay? So let me show you the whole line. We'll have 1-& 2-&, 1-& 2-&, then Gsus4 then V7.

Now press pause and try that line on your own, then press play when you're ready to try it with me.

Okay, let's try to play these chords. Ready, go.

I chord, 2-& 1-&, now Gsus4, 1-& 2, and then V7, 2-&.

Good!

Now let's check out line three.

What do you notice about these chords?

1-& 2-&, 1-& 2-&, 1-& 2-&, 1-& 2-&, yeah they're the same as line one.

Now, tell me what we get on line four. What's this first chord?

If you said I chord, you're correct. We have a I chord, then what's this next chord?

It's a V7 chord, so we have four V7 chord, then back to I chord and then we stop. Good.

Now remember from our website you can download and print this music. I'd like you to press pause,

practice all the chords all the way through, and then we'll try playing it together when you're ...