The Musicarta Canon Project

MODULE SEVEN

Accompaniment Patterns

Most pieces of music have a musical background which supports the melody. This background is usually put together from the notes of the chords in the chord sequence, played in a predictable rhythmic pattern. In piano playing, the left hand usual plays this ‘accompaniment pattern’. Being able to devise accompaniment patterns from chord symbols is essential for the successful modern keyboard player.

Here is the Module audio performance, which plays some of the treble patterns you’ve learnt previously over the accompaniment pattern you’ll be learning in this module.

In Module Six, you found and drilled the chord tones of the five Canon chords. In this module you learn to name them as root, third, fifth, octave and tenth, and practice finding them reliably by name so you can play this basic root, fifth, octave, tenth Canon accompaniment:

CPA_M7_06

Root, fifth, octave, tenth accompaniment patterns are universal in popular music and a time-honoured stand-by in solo piano textures from classical to jazz. Try it yourself!

Once you start playing proper two-handed Canon arrangements (or any other self-accompanied music) your accompaniment pattern has to be practically ‘automatic’. You have to know your accompaniment pattern chord tones for all six Canon chords ‘just like that'.

That’s why the Canon Project takes you back a step and introduces this universal accompaniment material two hands first. Musicarta’s tried-and-tested drills take you beyond copying and teach you this popular keyboard texture in a way that will enable you to remake it a dozen different ways down the line – an excellent up-front investment of your time and effort.

Playing duets with this accompaniment

If you know somebody else who is also working through the Musicarta Canon Project, or are working through the project with a teacher, you can use this module’s two-handed bass accompaniment pattern as the bass (‘secondo) part of a Canon duet. The other player (‘primo’ – the top part) can play any of the treble material from the previous modules. Sample duet music is included in the Canon Project download.

If you loop one of the backing tracks included in the download on Audacity (Musicarta’s recommended audio editor), you will be playing the module audio performance.

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