Black. All important piano tutorials start with a black
screen, and a golden round logo that rolls
ominously off the screen.
Yep, that's the song we're going to learn today. It's about me.
You know, the guy with the huge pecs and the nine pack. Any questions? Didn't think so. Then let's get started.
Hello and welcome,
[cough] much better.
I'm deca-billionaire Joseph Hoffman and
today we're going to learn "Who's the
Batman" from the Lego Batman movie. Oh
Batman.
Mr. Hoffman, throat lozenge?
Thank you.
Actually they've never done me any good.
I look forward to learning your, I mean
my song.
Thank you, Batman.
Well let's come to the piano to get
started. Okay
the main, shall we say melodic part, of
this song is actually found in the bass
guitar part, so that's what we're going
to be focusing on today. In the intro for
"Who's the Batman" you hear this bass
guitar solo, and I'm going to be showing
you different levels of difficulty that
you can try. The easiest way would just
be to take either the right hand or the
left hand, but if you want to try both
hands playing this at the same time that
can sound cool too. Now for bass guitar
we definitely want to be in the low part of
your piano so here's my middle C. I'm
going to go down one, two D's and place my
left hand in the D minor pentascale
starting with finger five, or pinkie, on D.
My right hand is going to be on the same
five notes up here one octave higher,
okay, and the pattern goes like this.
Okay now let's break that down.
Basically it's playing D twice in a row
pretty quick D D, D D, D D, okay and it
does that four times in little spurts of
two notes in a row, one two, one two, one
two, one two, and you hear there's a very
slight pause in between each one.
Musically speaking technically it's an
eighth rest in between each one and all
of these are eighth notes, ba ba ba ba ba
ba bum, but all you got to think is, one
two one two one two one two, and it does
that four times. You're actually playing
eight D's in little groups of two. Okay?
So let's try that in slow motion once, so
either right hand or left hand, or if you
want to try both you can, ready go. D
D, D D, D D, D D. Good, let's
try that one more time.
Ready, go. One two, one two, one two, one two.
Good, so we've done that four times, then
the next part goes F F G F, so from D you
skip up to find F, so we were here on D,
you skip up, F F G F, okay? F F G F. So I'm using my
finger 3, or my middle finger for those F's
because I had thumb or pinky if you're
using left hand for those D's. Ok so let's
try the F F G F now in slow motion
ready go F F G F.
One more time go F F G F. Good, now you put
that together and you get this 1 2, 1 2, 1
2, 1 2, F F G F. Now press pause and try that
on your own a few times. Remember you've
got four groups of two on the D, and then F F
G F. Press pause and try that on your own
then press play when you're ready to
learn it a little more. Okay now for the
intro that pattern we just learned
happens three times, so we have, that was
one, here's two, three then on the fourth
time it starts off the same way but it
doesn't do the dah dah dah dah, okay? The music just
kind of makes some crazy guitar noise,
BIAOWWW, but you can't really do that on the
piano, so you could just wait there on
that fourth time, you just do the groups
of D's and then that's where Batman
starts singing, or growling, speaking his
his lines. Okay so let's try the whole
intro that far, here we go, starting with
the repeated D's. A one two three four
number two, three, four, wait wait
good, and then that's where Batman start
saying, in the darkest night, so because
he's not really singing it is just kind
of saying it, in the darkest night, you
could just go "In the darkest night" and just
play a bunch of D's there,
I'll make the bad guys fall, but if you
listen you'll hear that while Batman
singing that, you can call it singing,
the bass guitar is continuing to play
the same pattern we heard in the intro.
You kind of have two choices here, you
can kind of play along with what Batman
is singing, in the darkest night, or you
could just keep doing the bass guitar
part, which I think kind of sounds cool. So
again you've got a choice here how you
want to play it. Let's assume for now
that you want to play along with the
words that Batman singing here, so he's
going
"In the darkest night" and then you wait
"I make the bad guys fall" then "there's a
million heroes"
okay now here you'll hear some singers
come in kind of high, one octave higher
so instead of this D you might come up
here "tell them the best of them all," okay
and then after that, that's where the
bass guitar part kind of changes, and it
kind of is pretty cool so let's learn it.
There the bass guitar starts playing.
♫
Okay now let's break that down, so it
starts on a D
and then skips up to G then steps down
to F now here you're going to need an A
flat so you might need to shift your
hand towards those black keys to reach
that, goes A-flat G F D. So watch that again, it
goes, D G F A-flat G F D, and so my fingers I'm
going to use if I'm in my right hand
finger one on D finger two on E F G and
then my pinky or finger five is going to
be up on this A-flat like this so I can
do D G F A-flat G F D, and let's actually break it
down a little bit.
let's try D G F A-flat, just try those four
notes. Go. Good, and once you get up to
that A-flat it just comes back down G F D.
All together it's D G F A-flat G F D.
Now you try, and then faster it's D G F A-flat G F D. Now press
pause and try that pattern a few times
on your own, then press play when you're
ready to go on. Okay, then after you play
that pattern then it goes D F D F G, watch
that again, D F D F G, now you try.
Good, now we put those two patterns
together, so we have D G F A-flat G F D D F D F G. Watch that again.
♫
then that repeats, does it three times.
Good, now press pause and try that
pattern till you can do it really
confidently then press play when you're
ready to go on.
So this part that I just showed you, this
is what the
bass guitar's playing when Batman is
singing, "who has the coolest gadgets." I'm
going to do that with both hands and
that would look like this.
♫
That happened three times while
Batman sings "who has the coolest
gadgets? It's Batman. Who has the
tricked-out ride? Batman. Who does the
sickest back back flips? Batman." And then
we get this "Na na na na na na na na."
"na na." Okay so for that I move my right
hand up to this D, but you couldn't keep
it down on this D, and basically you go D,
D, then step up to E, E, and step up to F, F,
step up to G, G and that makes the na na na na na na
na na part. "Na na na na na na na na Batman." And it ends with two D's
on "Batman."
Okay, or if you want to make kind of this
extended ending I like to go "bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah Batman"
or you could just end with Batman. Okay
so I'm giving you some choices you can
have fun with this song and kind of make
it your own, so it will end with that. "Na na na na na na na na Batman."
Now let me show you a slightly more advanced
ending that you can do for fun. Instead
of just doing the "na na na na na na na na"
just once you can do it three times and
kind of let it build. There's one point
in the song where you actually hear that
na na na na part three times in a row and
then we'll end with "da da da da da da da da Batman." You
can come up one octave even higher to
this treble D, okay, so watch it. When we
get to the end we do three na na na na na na's
one, two, three, da da da da da da
Batman, and that would make a pretty
exciting ending. Okay, each na na na na na
can get a little louder, and then we do
four groups of the two, bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah Batman. Okay, now
let me show you what it would sound like
to put all of those parts together with
a little backing track. This is going to
go pretty fast so you can just listen if
you like or you can try and play along.
In your practicing as you're trying to
get the hang of it I recommend starting
at a slow speed then as you feel ready
you can gradually build up to this
performance speed.
♫
Thanks for learning "Who's the Batman"
with me. Enjoy your playing and see you
next time.
Who has the blackest piano? Batman! Who plays the coolest
songs? Batman! Who likes to wear a sweater?
Who wear's the coolest mask? Scuba! Who has the twirliest
dress? Princess!
Who has the craziest screams? Baby!
Na na na na na na na na
Na na na na na na na na
Na na na na na na na na
Batman!