Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hi, and welcome back to
Knightsbridge Music, and this continues the
fundamentals of music course. And with this course, we're
going to learn the song, Hey, dude by the Beatles.
It's a great song. Last week, we looked a
little bit at Lett B. Again, a great Beatles classic. If you're new to
playing the piano, don't worry, because this
course is designed for you. I'm going to show you
with an overhead camera exactly how to find the
chords on the piano. And I hope that's
going to be helpful to players of all abilities. If you want a bit
more challenge, I'm also going to show
you that, as well. Check out our other courses that we've put
together where we've taught about how to read
music on the score. But for this course,
don't worry. You don't need it. I'm going
to walk you through it. EgendH it this song was written by Paul McCartney
for John Lennon's son, Julian, otherwise known as Jude. It's got quite a sad
message in there, but actually the
chorus is really uplifting and really hopeful. So I hope you enjoy
playing it and welcome back and
enjoy the course.
2. Major chords: So this song is actually
surprisingly simple. You've only got seven
different chords. In fact, the chorus, you could
walk away from here today, being able to play the chorus
with just three chords, and these are the
primary chords in music. They're the chord of
C, the chord of F, and the chord of G. And these
chords are major chords, as in they have a sort of happiness to them
in the tonality. Funny that the song and the lyrics suggest
something different. But actually, I'm
going to show you now how to play each
of these chords. And each of the chords
we're going to play has a minimum of three notes in. So in music, a chord is
effectively when we're playing more than one note at
the same time. Okay. So the first chord
we're going to find and starts the song is
the chord of C major. So I'm going to
put my thumb on C. I'm going to put my
third finger on E and my fifth finger on G.
This is how the song starts, and this is the
chord of C major. And this is the sort of root
chord of the piece, okay? So we've got to start
really confident, really strong with that. In fact, that's how
the tune starts. Now, once we've got
a lovely cord of C, we're going to find
the next cord, which is the ord of G. So
we've got a C E and G, and we're going to
move our bottom two notes down one to create
the ord of G. Here we go. And that gives us the
chord of G, okay? B, D, and G. So if we do that in the context, forgive my singing voice. I'm not a singer. My assistant over there is a much
better singer than me, but for today, I'm going to
have to bear with me, really? Hey, J. Don't Make it Bad. And that gives us our first
little section of the song. Funny, isn't it? When you play
these chords on their own, you think, What song is
that? I don't recognize it. But as soon as you
start repeating them, we get the sense of the song. So C major, G to G major. Now, we've got a slightly
different G now. We add one extra note to the
chord to spice it up a bit, and the note we're going
to add is the note F, and this makes it into the
cord of G seven, right? So we've got our
B, D, and our G, and then we're going to add
our F to spice it up a bit. Now we call that chord a
dominant seventh or a G seven. That's a really important chord, what that does in the music, it creates a real, like, sense of pull back
to our first chord, back to C. In fact, every piece of music
ever written uses that dominant chord in to
create a bit of tension. That's what we need there,
right? So we've got G going to G seven, going to C. That's actually the only chords that you actually
need in the chorus. I lie. There's one more chord, but we'll cover it in a minute. Ready? Let's play the start
of the song. Here we go. Hey, Ju to make it bad. Take a side. Make it better. Uh huh. You get the
idea. So we've got C. We got G. We got G seven, and we got C. Now we've got one final cord which is
gonna complete our chorus. And we're going for this cord, we go up from C. The top
two notes move up one. So we got C, F, and A. That gives us our
cord of C. Now, you notice some of the
cords are what we call, like in their root position like CEG if we played F in its root position, it
would sound a bit funky. I'll show you. Sounds a bit
dare I say at primary school. You know what I mean? Were you go. So
instead of doing that, we're just gonna take the
top two notes and move them, but keep the bottom one the
same, I'll demonstrate. He's still playing
the chord of F, but now you've got it
in a slightly more like professional way, okay? Just be careful when you're
moving chords around like this 'cause it can sound
a little bit blocky. Yeah, so you've got
your cord of F. Going back to C. And you
move to the ord of F on the word remember Rem
to let her into your heart. And that's when we do
it. And if you find the lyric sheet that's
just printed down there, that's going to show you
where all of the chords move. In fact, the words
that are colored, that's when you're gonna
move chord there, right? So, for instance, Hey, Jude, you see the
word Jude is green. That's where you're
gonna play your C chord. So that is actually you've
pretty much learned the whole of the chorus,
okay? It's amazing. I'm gonna play it all
the way through so you can hear how those chords sound. Just the chorus. Ready? I'm
not gonna sing. Don't worry. Here we go. You sing. One, two, three. Then that happens again.
Hey, don't be afraid. You were made. And then we got more words. But that's
pretty much it. Slow this video down, use the resource as you
want to practice it. There's no, right way
to learn this music. You've got to use these courses
to kind of adapt to you. Use a combination of the
lyrics sheet as well, but go really slowly through. I suggest if you got one of these little toys, and
in the next segment, we're going to talk
about the use of this because this is really all
she's she's broken free. We're gonna talk about
that and how that can help you to practice
your right hand. Folks, as ever, you're amazing. Keep going. Great.
3. Minor chords: So we've looked at the major
chords there in the chorus. We've now got two minor chords
to look at in the verses. Now, traditionally, the minor chords are the
kind of more sad chords. They sound a bit
more sort of creepy, whereas the major chords
are really super happy. So, the two minor chords
we've got to look at are A minor and D minor. Here's how they sound.
A minor. And D minor. And they just put that little
element of so the words, anytime you feel the pain, Hey ju Bifran I suppose it's McCartney sort of wanting to get that little darkness
across in the song there. So let's have a
little go at them. So A minor, you're going
to put your thumb on E, your third finger on A,
and your little finger on C. And that gives you
the chord of A minor. Now, to find the D minor, we're actually going
to keep that middle note exactly the same. And we're going to just
move the outer note, the thumb and the
fifth finger up one. So we get that chord.
So you're going from A minor? To D minor. Now for the music theory geeks out there, I'm sure
there are some. I'm certainly one. You've
got this A minor chords, and it's what we call
second inversion, right? First inversion? Root
position, right? It's got second
inversion A minor. Now we're going up to D minor in its first inversion FA and D. R. So that's really,
really impressive there. So we've got the two
chords, A minor. Now we've got D minor.
That's fantastic. So let's just have
a little play and how they work in the song there. So we start with our C. The play. Yeah, and that gives us
our little link there. And those minor chords
just sort of affecting a little bit of sadness in the
middle of the verse there. Whereas the chorus, we
have those primary chords, C, F, and G, there's really, you know,
sort of super happy chords. We've then just
got a little kind of sad link in the middle. Now, at this moment,
we're going to work over onto the metronome, and we're going to use that
to practice our chords, okay? So we're going to start with
the minor chords, okay? So find that A minor chord, E A and C. Then we're gonna
step up to the D minor. And I'm going to
do each one twice. Ready with matmeT, four. Amazing. Now, let's
see how that works in the actual part of
the chorus, right? So we on the chorus, we're starting on
the chord of C. I need time. Feel the pain. Uh So you've actually got three pretty quick
changes there in succession. We go from C major to F
major to A minor to D minor. And you can see in the
words where the chords are kind of getting closer and
closer and closer together. And that means that they're changing pretty quickly
within the songs. So you've just got to
kind of have your wits about you when you hit the
start of the chorus there. You notice at the
end of the verse, just before we get into
this nice minor section, we've got three chords like in little brackets Cjor seven. And what that's doing is kind of a link between
the verse and the chorus. So But the note that's important there to
add is the B flat, okay? So C major. And we're adding a B flat to make
that C major seven. Yeah. You remember the cord that we learned
at the beginning, we were a G seven cord,
which had the FN. This is slightly different.
It adds the B flat. Yeah. And that creates that
little bit of tension there before we link up into the
chorus. That's really good. You've learned two minor chords, A minor, D minor. Now, you notice in the chorus, we're actually using
some of the chords that we learned earlier. We're
using the chord of F. We're using the
chord of G major, and we call it using
the chord of C major. And when chords
are written down, they're written down like if it's just the capital letter, that means major chord. And if it's the capital
letter followed by little M, that means little minus. So that means a minor chord. So major chords always are
written as a kind of capital. So if you see C,
it's always C major. If you saw C with a little M, that'll be a C minor chord. So that's how we're identifying. What I suggest to you
before you try and play the whole song is just have a go at every single
chord going through C, F, G, A minor, D minor, and then try your
two seventh chords, try your G with your seven, and then try your
C with your seven. So just quickly do that now as the final section
in this video. So C major Fmjor
Let's try G major. And then we're going
to go back to C major. Let's just try a
two minor chord. So we've got A minor, D minor. Ready? A minor? And D minor. That's fantastic. So those actually the
only chords you need, but just remember those
seventh chords, the G. We add the F and the
C. We add the B flat. Just to create that extra
little bit of yearning, little bit attention
in the song. Really good effort, guys. You've learned
your major chords. You learned your minor chords. You got your verse, you've got your chorus.
That's brilliant. So we'll go on to
look at playing the piece as a whole in a
minute. Great work. Well done.
4. All Chord Recap: So you smashed out
your major chords there in the chorus.
That's amazing work. Put a little recording
of yourself down below, it'd be lovely to hear
some of you guys playing. And we can try and offer a bit
of feedback along the way, just to keep you sort of
motivated with your journey. Remember that these chords
don't come overnight. They're going to take
a little bit of time. But what I'm going
to do now, I'm going to look at
the minor chords. I'm just going to have a
little look at the piano, and we're going to cover two
of the minor chords, right? A minor and D minor. And we're gonna play
A minor like this. Ready? Thumb on E, third finger on A. And little finger,
the pinky up on C. That's your A minor, right? A minor chord. Now, if you want, at this point, with
your left hand, you can put a little
A in the base, right? Yeah, to kind of make
that chord richer, fill it out a little bit.
You got your A minor? Now, to find D, the A stays exactly the
same in the middle. But either side, the thumb and the little pinky finger are
gonna move up on like this. Yeah, magic. That's
really, really good. So we go from here up to here. Not how the song goes,
but it's kind of fun when you're learning chords to
try different rhythms. Yeah. This is where the matronme comes in. Stick
your matronme, Mom. Two on each. Click.
Ready? Two, three, four. So, magic, when you're
learning new chords, the way to do it is you want to keep the movements as
small as possible. I see people, like, leaping around all over the
piano, but actually, keep the fingers just like
hovering above the keys there as you're playing
those two chords. That's really
impressive stuff, okay? So you've got your two minors. There's only funnily enough
for a song that talks about the pain and carrying the world
upon your shoulders. Isn't it funny that
there's only two kind of minor chords in it? The actual, like, the harmony behind the song is really
happy and uplifting, whereas the words to the song
are really kind of emotive. And that's, you know,
kind of funny feature. So look, we've got our A
minor and we got our D minor. And at this point, I'm
just going to run through every single cord
that we've learned today in their
correct positions. So start with Cord one, C. The next chord we're
going to go to is G. Now we're going
to have G seven. Now we're going to have F. Now we're going
to go back to C. Remember, those three chords, you can play the entirety of that first section of the
song. That's brilliant. Now, let's look at the
chords in the chorus. I'm gonna play you exactly
as the chorus goes. We got C seven with
the B flat like this. Go to F. And now our two new chords
are minor chords, A minor. And D minor. Suggest you just rewind. Watch those cords again, C G G seven, F, A minor, D minor. And right in the
middle, there are a tiny bit C seven
with the B flat in. Learn the positions
of those cords, commit them to memory. And what is actually
really fun to do is get little
bits of card, right? Just write C F, G, G seven, all the separate cords on a little bit of card,
put them in a hat. And then pull out
a chord and see how quickly you can
play them, okay? So I want you to be able
to play these chords, kind of like Like super speed. Yeah, you should have
them at the tip of your fingers because these
will make you a better player, okay, to be able to play those chords really,
really quickly. Guys, you're doing
amazingly, you've got the major chords, you've
got the minor chords. You pretty much got
the whole song there. So just practice
different combinations, how quickly you can
now find those chords. Amazing progress. Well done.
5. It's all about the bass: All about that bass,
that bass, no worry. Now, we're going to
look at the bassline. The left hand is
the most important here to give you a
piece a bit of rhythm. You got to imagine
as a piano player. If you're playing
with no instruments, no guitar, no rhythm guitar, no kit, no vocalist, you are basically the
entire music, yes. You got to give your left hand a little bit
of punch there. So let's just look at some of the kind of
options that you can do. I kind of like octaves
in the left hand. So, for instance, rather than just playing
like one C on its own, Oh, sad lonely C. No, no, put it into
an octave like this. Sounds more weighty, gives you a bit of a kind of
lower baseline. So, for instance,
at the beginning, Now, in the song, you
notice at moments, things like a tambourine
coming halfway through or like a
high hat, yeah. So that is quite difficult
to do on the piano. Although the funny thing
about the piano is actually a percussion instrument
like inside a real piano, the hammers are
hitting the strings, so you've got quite a lot
of rhythm going on anyway. But rather than with your
left hand, you know, just playing one kind
of repeating note, try different rhythms like this. Now, on your score on your
music there with the notes, the note you're gonna play is
the key note of the chord. So, for instance,
when we see C major, you're going to find your C to the left of the two black keys, and preferably with an octave. So if you can
stretch that octave, that's great from
the little finger right up to the thumb,
that's brilliant. And work on playing those different rhythms to create that little
bit of interest. Other things that you can do, you can have call up, you know, a few of your
chums and try a little jam. There's nothing better
than trying to play along the piano
with a guitarist, as well, and having
a little jam off. The only thing to say is I've actually changed the
key of this song. We're doing it a little
bit lower so that more people can kind of
join in and can sing along. The original song was actually written up here in F major. Yeah, this is quite
a long way away, but we're actually
down low in C. So if you're singing,
the starting note is G. Yeah. So just a kind of more
friendly key to singers. But if you do turn up with a guitarist, you
know, they're like, I normally play this in F.
They might need to adjust their tuning a little bit to fit in with your
version of the song. Okay, that's really,
really good. So we've done a little
bit on a bassline. Be creative with your rhythms. Use this metronome to give
you, like, a strong pulse. If you haven't got a kind of rhythm or drum kit going there, you can actually get
a really good app called Pro metronome. And that will just do exactly
the same job as this. We're here at night Spoog music. We're very old fashioned. We
like the old fashioned one. Actually get this thing to
work, you got to turn it. It's like an old fashioned
grandfather clock. I mean, goodness me. And then to make it quicker,
you slide this thing down. That makes it super
quick. Listen to this. Yeah. So maybe that's a little
bit too quick. Who knows? But anyway, look, enjoy that bass line because it's the
most important part. Remember, as the pianist, you are literally on your
own performing this piece. You haven't got a lose
rhythm section with you, so you got to be both
the rhythmic energy and play the chords
at the same time. It's a tough job. Why
would anybody do it? I know because this
is great music. You've got this. Well done. Keep going.
6. Right hand then left hand: So here we go. I'm
just going to show you a slower tempo version of this song with the
right hand from above. Magic. That was the
right hand from above. Now gonna do the same
with a bit of left hand. And we're gonna go right
the way through the song, Here is the left hand on that nice slow
tempo. Here we go. That's it. You got
right hand from above, left hand from above, little practice tracks to
try along with. And I hope that helps you in putting the whole
piece together. As before, any clips that you've got so far, stick
them down below. And remember, it
doesn't come overnight, you know, playing pieces. I go to take a bit
of time just to get those chords in your
head. Great start. Well,
7. Whole piece: Music is best shared. And now it's your turn to play along. So I'm gonna play the
whole way through the song with a bit
of a tune, as well. And if you'd like to
join in, that's great. You could do this in a variety of ways. You could
play your chords. You could sing along, or you could just listen
entirely up to you. That's the beauty
of music. You can interpret it as you
will. So here we go. Hey, dude.
8. Concluding thoughts: Thank you so much
for joining us on this fundamentals
of music series. And today, we've been
learning, Hey, dude. We've got future Beatles
episodes coming up. If you want to know a bit more
about the theory of music, then do check out the video
on reading sheet music because it takes
you right through about what all the symbols mean. And I think that's
essentially why we're putting this course
together because we want you to be able to go
away and teach yourself new music without kind of having to be led with a
camera overhead, although it's great to learn
new tunes in different ways. Actually, I'd love you to be able to go out into the world, pick a piece of music,
your favorite song, and just be able to learn that. On your own. And that would mean, you
know, so much to me. It's lovely to have people
kind of watching new videos. But also, I want to, you know, impart just a little bit of that knowledge enough to enable you to access loads of different chords and
loads of different songs. So just a couple
of kind of leaving thoughts about how you go
about learning pieces. Try to learn those chords, the major chords
like in isolation, or your C major, your
G major, your F major. Practice how those
chord positions feel. Remember we did the video from the camera above
where we were just like, right, there's C,
there's F, there's G, practice those chords, put your little chord
names in a hat, remember, and then
pull them out and practice a random chord next. You could even actually
take away the piece, hey dude and try and play
your own piece without, you know, make up your own
kind of chord sequence. You find that a lot of
pieces of music are made of just very simple
combinations of chords. In music, we call the chords C chord one, cord F, chord four, and called G chord five, like the musical
alphabt CDEF, G. Yeah, and you find like 90% of kind
of music written like after 1950 uses those
three chords C F and G. And that's what makes
it kind of special. But once you've actually
learned these chords, you're going to be
able to apply them to loads and loads
of other pieces. So if this is your kind of
first time on the piano, don't panic and
think, Oh, is this such a long song? How
am I going to play? Just walk away from this with
that kind of comfort and that knowledge that you've got those chords kind
of locked down there. Look, this is really,
really good progress. You're doing so well. We'd love to have some
comments down below. An pieces that you
really want to learn, you know, anything
we can improve. Every week, we're
improving our technology. We've got the COVID mask now to tie on our overhead camera. You know, COVID does have a use, and we're proving it today in our infrastructure
here in Knightsbridge. Anyway, we've been
Knightsbridge music, Paul Dempsey helping me record. I'm Ben Lewis Smith. As ever
it's an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for joining.
See you again next time.
Ben Lewis-Smith, Musician
