What to play with the left hand

So your left hand is playing the bass notes and you're cycling through them repeatedly. Well that's nice, but that isn't a  very developed song. Your right hand is where the real magic happens. 

What the heck do I play on my right hand so that it doesn't sound like a toddler is playing for me?

First of all, toddlers can be very good musicians: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omuYi2Vhgjo

Secondly, there are two easy formulas:

• Trial and error

• enabled keys

Trial and error is easy and can be a lot of fun.  When playing your bass note with your left hand - well say "A", try hitting different keys with your right hand.  For instance, depending on the context of the song, playing a "B" would not sound that great, so try to avoid the "B" for a while.  However, playing a "C" with an "A" almost always gives a nice rich sound.  Keep working your way up with different keys and eventually you'll find a formula of good sounding notes for your left (bass) hand.

"Enabled keys" is simply a term I use when I try to teach other students the concept of what to play and when to play it.  If I hit the "A" key with my left hand, and I want my song to sound sad, then I know that I can play the following notes with my left hand: A,C,E.  In this sense, the bass "A" has enabled my right hand to play these notes.  The better you become, the more notes you'll discover and in which context they fit.

Give it a go and let me know how it turns out. 

Also, check out my YouTube page at  see some of my tutorials, songs, and people's 4 letter songs at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdv4rKPoJ6qj13eyo1cloIwhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdv4rKPoJ6qj13eyo1cloIw

There's no way it's that easy... is it?

Last week we asked ourselves what art truly was, if whether or not it needs to be complicated to be appreciated, and if anyone could be an artist. For those who didn't read the previous posts, the answers were: Anything, no, and yes.

This week I will try to reinforce the notion that composing/playing music is A LOT easier than it seems. That being said, this post will be full of videos demonstrating the similarity between songs, and the facility to write one's own music.

Take the "Axis of Awesome" for instance: They take four chords and demonstrate how many songs can be played with just those. Check out the video here.

Other perfect examples are the DJ Earworm mash-ups (and similar compilations from other artists), in which multiple songs are fused together to make up a single song. One comes to quickly realize that there are common themes in the music and that once its discovered, it is not difficult to follow suit. On the bright side, figuring out the formula to creating good music is actually rather simple and explained clearly by YouTube Brett Domino. Check it out.

Finally, check out Rob Paravonian's comedy sketch about Pachelbel' Canon, a classical masterpiece written in the 17th century, and how modern music follows with similar chords.

All of this goes to show that most of today's music is fairly simple and that (almost) anyone can compose/play something similar.

Next week we'll start writing our own song and we'll add both a creative spin and generic feature to it so that I can demonstrate music's simplicity.