"An overview covering the piano lessons technique of Rhythmic Patterns, part 1"

Partial transcript below:

In the next 10 minutes of this online piano lessons video, we'll go through the five step process of learning to play any song on the piano or the keyboard by ear using the revolutionary technique of Rhythmic Patterns.

We'll start with the very beginning foundations of music, but within the first few minutes of this video we'll use the technique of Rhythmic Patterns to play our first simple song by ear on the piano. By the end we'll have gone through the process of stringing together many advanced Rhythmic Patterns to play an advanced version of the same song again by ear. This is a fascinating process!

The first step is to learn to find any chord on the piano...

Chords like E minor or A minor or B major...

Considering that there are 24 major and minor triads or three note chords on the piano this can seem like a pretty daunting task. But the good news is that all of these piano chords are based on one simple pattern. You'll learn that pattern within the first few minutes of the piano lessons course titled Pattern Piano and Keyboard.

Just being able to find any chord is a huge step musically. The sad part is that this is the point in piano lessons where most people stop. One person will say, "I play piano by ear", and they play a few chords... but they're frustrated. There's so much more but most piano lesson students don't know how to get to the point of playing piano by ear, apart from sheet music. Maybe that's you - let's go on.

The second step in learning to play any song on the piano or the keyboard by ear involves learning to stretch all these chords out, or play them in what's called an "open voicing" position so that they sound rich and full and fantastic on the piano.

Take a look at one of these chords E minor - now as you know there are lots of E's on the piano, lots of G's and lots of B's - but now look at this: if we play any combination of EBG , we have an E minor chord. We can play anything. We still have E's right? We still have am E, a G and a B, but the chord sounds radically different.

This is called voicing a piano chord

It's an open voicing and it's so much richer than just the standard closed position piano chord that pianists usually play. These open voicings give standard piano chords brand new life.

At the beginning of this piano lessons video I played three chords for you: E minor, A minor and B major. Now let's apply that open voicing technique to these piano chords. Here's E minor, A minor in B major... Isn't it amazing how those same simple chords can be opened up and have brand new life? They're rich and full on the piano. One super important thing - did you notice that even though I'm playing different chords my hands remain in the same position or shape over each chord? This fact makes this technique so easy to play. 

Let's go on - the third step in learning to play any song on the piano or the keyboard by ear is to take all of these chords that we've changed into open voicings and then break them up into what's called Rhythmic Patterns.

There's really an infinite number of ways that you can break an open voiced piano chord into a Rhythmic Pattern. Here is one option...

Do you notice how I'm playing exactly the same notes? However, now I've just broke that chord into an open voicing and in turn, broke that open voicing into a Rhythmic Pattern. All of a sudden there is some rhythm and some movement in the music!

Now I said this before but it's really worth repeating notice again - although I'm playing different chords, my hands are making the exact same movements. This is why this technique is so easy to learn and easy to play.

Things are still pretty simple at this point. You'd be amazed how many piano lesson students, when they get here they say, "You know what? I can see where we're going! I finally have the confidence to say I know I'll be able to express myself musically on the piano!"

Let's go on - So far we've gone over three of the five simple steps in learning to play any song on the piano by ear using the technique of Rhythmic Patterns. In the next piano lesson video, we're going to use everything we've learned so far to play a simple song.

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