Popular Music Lesson

Star Wars Main Theme

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Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph
Hoffman. Today we're learning how to add
chords in the left hand to the Star Wars
main theme, so set coordinates for your
piano and let's make the jump to
hyperspace.
Ok, young Jedi, first step today is we are
going to learn a new way to play the
melody which will free up the left hand
so it can do the chords. Now you'll
remember that when we learned the melody before your left hand was crossing over
to play this high G.
Well, today we're going to take care of
that high note with the right hand by
doing a little tricky fingering, so watch
from the beginning. Our left hand, once
again, is going to play the triplet on D,
trip-o-let, then right hand on G,
then D. Now this time instead of
stepping down with finger four we're
going to switch to finger three.
So we're going to just glide over a
little bit so finger four isn't going to
be used at all here, and we're going to
use fingers three, two, one, to play that
triplet, on C, B, A, that triplet will
now be played with finger three, two, one,
and that will help our finger five to
reach all the way up to this G.
You can either reach or you can just
glide up.
Ok, three, two, one, G. Now we're going to practice this
I'd say about 10 times. Put your finger
three on C with the right hand and go
three, two, one, and then
kind of go into to hyperspace to
get up to G really quickly. Three, two, one, G.
You want to land right on the G. Try not
to hit a crack.
Three, two, one, G.
Press pause and try that about 10 times, until you feel really comfortable with it.
Three, two, one, G.
Press play when you're ready to go on.
Ok, once you've done three, two, one, G, then your next note is this D, and you're going to
use finger one to play that D, and that's
very important.
Normally that wouldn't be the finger
that would naturally fall on D, but
it's important to use a one because then
to play the next triplet you're going to
have to slide finger three over finger
one like this.
Three, two, one, see how I did that?
So I'm going to rewind to the start of
measure two. We had this trip-o-let,
high G,
finger one on D, finger three crosses over,
three, two, one,
high G.
Back to the D with finger one and
then three, two, three, one.
I'm saying the finger numbers there, three, two, three, one, and that brings us to measure four.
Watch the whole thing from the beginning. we have trip-o-let, one two,
one two, now finger three, three, two, one, five
one, three, two, one, five, one, three, two, three, one.
Now press pause and try that five times
on your own,
so you're really comfortable with it,
then press play to go on.
Good work, young Jedi, you're growing
strong in the force.
Now it is time to add the chords in the
left hand.
Now that you can handle all of
that melody with just the right hand,
your left hand is going to be free to
add these chords starting in measure
one.
Let's give the right hand a little break
and just focus on the left hand. The left
hand begins with the triplet on D, trip-o-let,
then it has a quarter rest while
the right hand plays the first note of
the melody, and then we play a one chord, G, B, D,
these three notes, all in a block chord.
You have rest,
chord, rest, chord,
then on this next chord which is a half
note, two beats, you'll notice the bottom
note, G, stays the same, but these top two
notes move up a step,
so now I have G, C, E, and please use a finger two, that would be the correct fingering
for this chord, and that keeps finger
three
on the B. All you have to do is slide
your thumb up
for what's called the four chord.
Ok, so we have one chord, goes to the
four chord for two beats. and then
back to the one chord for two beats.
Ok, let's watch all of that so far. The
left hand goes trip-o-let, rest,
chord, rest, one chord, four chord,
then it goes to the four chord again,
and back to one.
Great, now press pause and try that three
times on your own. Press play when you're
ready to go on.
All right, young Jedi, it is time to test
your skills.
I will play the right hand and the left
hand.
I would like you to just play the left
hand. Make sure you count the beat.
We need to watch every rest, and when
there is a half note make sure you count
one two, one two.
My melody is going to be a different
rhythm than the chords so don't let the
melody distract you.
Focus. Use the Force. Here we go.
I'm going to count, one, two, three, and
then you play just the left hand while I
play both hands.
One, two, three, rest, tah, rest, tah
one two, one two, one two, one two.
Stop. How did you do?
Let's try it one more time together.
Left hand ready.
Same thing again. One, two, three, trip-o-let, rest, tah, rest, tah, one two, one two, one two, one two.
If you were successful, then let's
continue. If that was not successful then
pause, practice more on your own, then
rewind until you can show me that you
have mastered those chords. If you're
ready to continue
then let's look at measure four. At the
end of measure three we just played the one
chord,
then measure four we stepped down to the major 7 chord,
called the sub-tonic chord, major 7 chord,
it starts on F, A, C, we play that for one
beat, and then we shift the hand down to a
D major chord. F major chord, D major chord, it's a great John William sound there.
All right,
so let's practice that shift three times.Ppress pause and practice going from F
major to D major with D, F, A,
three times, then press play when you're
ready to go on.
Impressive, most impressive.
Now let's see how we can put the two
hands together. Now that you know all of
the chords that we're going to need,
you'll notice that the hands are mostly
out of sync from each other, like let's
look at measure one. We have this triplet
to get us started, trip-o-let then the right
hand plays on beat one, the left hand plays on beat two, right hand plays on beat three,
the left hand plays on beat four,
so they're staggered, right, left, right,
left,
then on the downbeat of measure two they
play together,
trip-o-let tah,
chord,
right hand.
So we're together, then right, left,
right.
That's going to be the tricky part I
think, so
watch this one more time. We have trip-o-let, right,
left, right, left, together, right, left, right,
together, right,
left, right, together, together.
Now press pause, practice that five times
on your own, then press play when you're
ready to hear me demonstrate the whole
thing,
hands together.
All right, if you feel ready you can try
playing along with me or you can simply
watch.
Here's the entire Star Wars main theme
played hands together with chords.
Excellent work, young Jedi, learning the
chords, but now you must complete your
training by practicing this every day.
Only by practicing every day can you
become strong in the Force and become a
true master.
May the force be with you.
This time I've got one for you scuba
All right.
When did Anakin's Jedi Masters
know he was leaning toward the dark side?
I don't know. When?
In the Sith grade.
Ha ha. Good one.
Ok now it's my turn. You'll appreciate
this one.
Oh, I always appreciate your jokes.
Well, thank you.
What do you call a potato that has
turned to the dark side?
I don't know.
Vader tots.
Ha ha. you know what this means, right?
Yep, let's go bake some Vader tots!
Yeah!
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