Left hand chords

[Nils Salthe Helberg]

Have been playing piano for ten-fiftheen years and keyboards/synths for five. but have never been good at (or learned to) using the left hand for chords with more than two notes.

 

I really miss playing nice chords with the left hand because i want to get deeper into using the right hand on lead stuff and playing the "upper keyboard" simultanously with the pads "downstairs".

 

is anybody having any learning tips for a guy with poor "lefthandchords" skills?

[Mr Pianoman]

One thing I think is rather overlooked with lefthand chord voicings is to play chords with no colortones....like simple triads.

Like E-major and C# minor.

chords that are used in pop/rock etc..

 

Most books covering lefthandchords goes directly on jazztype chords with alot of colortones in it.

 

you can check out mark levine´s book Jazz piano....if you want to learn about jazzy type of left hand chords....

[cnegrad]

I'm afraid there are no shortcuts; just practice, practice, practice. It's going to feel awkward at first, as your left hand gets used to playing "shapes" that it's never played before. Pick a favorite song and force yourself to learn it with only melody in the right hand, and only chords in the left. When you've got that down, then sequence a bass and drum track and practice along with that. Or alternatively you could buy pre-prepared rhythm section tracks from companies like Jamie Aebersold.

[Hammodel AV]

I have quite the reverse problem. My original instruction in organ playing was on spinet organs and chords were ONLY played with the left hand. I did not learn the left hand techniques of most piano players. I am equally able to chord left or right hand. I have now, thru practice, learned to play left hand bass notes, once I got a true Hammond console organ. Still haven't learned to sight read as a pianist, however. I refer to my left hand as being 'dumb' relative to sight reading, whereas my right hand can sight read and chord ...

 

Brian.

[konaboy]

The trouble is with chords in the left hand is that they sound really strange at first, especislly if you do not have the root note at the bottom (for example for a F minor you might be playing Ab C F).

 

If you lean over with your right hand and play a F in the bass then it sounds great but on it's own it sounds really lost.

 

I found that the program BIAB really helped me here. You just enter the chord progresssions and the program will play bass and drums for you whilst you comp with your left and solo with your right. Having the bass notes there really helps and you can transpose up and down to practise in different keys.

 

After a few weeks of this you won't need to hear the bass notes any more and everything will seem easy.

[burningbusch]

What style of music are you playing? What is the "instrument" that your left hand is playing (piano, EP, bass, etc.)? What to do with your left hand has everything to do with what you're trying to accomplish musically.

 

Busch.

[cnegrad]

If you lean over with your right hand and play a F in the bass then it sounds great but on it's own it sounds really lost.

Kona brings up a good point. Part of this learning process involves training your ear as well. Now that I've been playing left hand chords for years, my ear naturally "hears" the bass note as if it were actually being played. It takes some getting used to.

[Nils Salthe Helberg]

Originally posted by burningbusch:

What style of music are you playing? What is the "instrument" that your left hand is playing (piano, EP, bass, etc.)? What to do with your left hand has everything to do with what you're trying to accomplish musically.

 

Busch.

I play in a worship band in church. Playing a lot of pads, some wurlitzer-sounds and a touch of organ. My Novation synth has given me an oppurtunity to put som crazy sounds into our sound and thats kind of cool.

 

I want to have a pad in bottom while i do some leads and perhaps working on some special effects as well. (winds and stuff) Perhaps for intros and stuff like that.

 

Been trying out using a midicable between the keyboards as well. but there is a problem when i want to play leads from the top synth on the top synth while doing the pads as usual on the korg. But I guess thats my main goals into being a better keyboardplayer.

[Mr. Nightime]

Expanding on konaboy's point just a little. If, as you say, you're in a band situation, there will be someone, usually the bass player, playing the root of the chord. This frees you up to NOT have the root at the bottom. You'll find that in many cases if you play the root at the chord bottom it can clash with the bass player, especially if your tones are similar. In order to clean up the clash, slide up to a different inversion.

Also, as you get lower in pitch, it helps to widen the intervals in the chord. If you're playing a major second in the chord at a low pitch, it will muddy up. Either raise the pitch, or separate the close interval.

[sleepwalk]

I learned playing left hand chord and right hand melody. When i started writing tunes, and singing tunes, I started to play bass notes in left hand, and chords in the right. it's a much fuller sound when you can play the bass notes. but like said above, if you are playing with a bass player, you don't need to.

 

the only way to learn is to just play some songs that require you to do it, and just keep practicing. it felt alittle weird to me playing bass in left hand and chords in the right at first, but i got used to it. i'm no master, but it gets easier as you keep playing.

[JeffLearman]

As an uneducated player, I over use double bass left hand (though, I do pay lots of attention to the bass player, and take care to cooperate/complement).

 

I agree with konaboy and midnight: it won't sound right without the root (until you learn to mentally add that, as cnegard says). So, BIAB would be the ideal training wheels.

 

About those color notes: in jazz, I believe it's considered good style to avoid 3rds and 5ths and play the other color notes, to leave more room for the soloist to play altered tones in those neighborhoods. I have never got the hang of that, though (on guitar or piano). But I do hear good jazzers doing it a lot. (I think it's a bit more complex than just avoiding 3 & 5, frankly. I think it's about WHEN to avoid 3 & 5, as well as 9's which are fun to flat or sharp on the fly. As well as when there's a diminished chord lurking in the background ... not to mention tritone substitions which is where my mental gears clank to a dead stop, spanner firmly caught in the works.)

[humannoyed]

Originally posted by Nils Salthe Helberg:

Have been playing piano for ten-fiftheen years and keyboards/synths for five. but have never been good at (or learned to) using the left hand for chords with more than two notes.

 

I really miss playing nice chords with the left hand because i want to get deeper into using the right hand on lead stuff and playing the "upper keyboard" simultanously with the pads "downstairs".

 

is anybody having any learning tips for a guy with poor "lefthandchords" skills?

If you are now playing 2 note chords, then I agree with Mr Pianoman - the next step is to graduate to triads. To learn them well in all keys I would suggest a systematic approach of playing scale tone chords first in root position - like Cma, Dmi, Emi, Fma... up an octave and them back down. Work chromatically upward until you have done all 12 keys. Now start over doing the same exercise with 1st inversion chords...then 2nd inversion chords.

When you are confident with your triads, graduate to scale tone seventh chords - Cma7, Dmi7, Emi7.... first in root position, then in all 3 inversions.

Although 2 note "shells" using 7ths and 3rds are easy to do for a jazz voicing, you really need to know the whole seventh chord in all its inversions to understand the shell concept well.

...besides 4 note chords in the left hand just sound so much better sometimes.

... but then other times anything more than just a triad sounds needlessly excessive

 

 

Day

[b3kys]

Try these voicings

 

CMA9

E-A-D, A-D-G, and B-E-A all work for any chord that's derived from the Ionian mode of C.

 

Cm9

 

Eb-G-Bb-D

Bb-D-Eb-G

 

G-C-F

A-D-Eb-G work well for minor chords

Bb-D-Eb-A

 

C9

 

E-G-Bb-D

E-A-D

E-A-Bb-D

Bb-E-A work well for the mixolydian mode

 

C Diminished

Eb-A-D

Gb-A-C-Eb work well for the diminished mode

 

C-7b5

C-Eb-Gb-Bb

Gb-Bb-C-Eb work well for a Minor 7b5

[JMcS]

Originally posted by Nils Salthe Helberg:

is anybody having any learning tips for a guy with poor "lefthandchords" skills?

You may find that if you keep your hand between 2 F's you can play an inversion of just about any chord without having to move your hand very much to play the next chord inversion.

 

Good Luck.

[Dave Horne]

Try this as an excercise - make a list of chords that only go only as far as a 7th - no 9th, no 11th, just m7, M7, m7b5, augmented chords, diminished 7th chords.

 

The chords do not have to have any relationship with each other, just a bunch of chords that have four notes. Start with the first chord and then play the second chord using any inversion of that second chord to keep it in the same area of the keyboard as the first. You want to keep your hand in the same area of the keyboard.

 

Keep it simple, master the basics.