EASY MUSIC CHORDS

Left-hand-over Patterns

This is Lesson Two of The Pyramids Variations, a series of free graded online piano lessons from Musicarta.com. For an overview of the Pyramids Variations, visit the series covering page. To find out about more free piano lessons online from Musicarta.com, go to the Musicarta.com home page, or browse the tabs on the navigation bar (left).

In Pyramids Variations Lesson One, you learnt to play all the chords in the Pyramids chord sequence in the Basic Music-making Position. You put your left hand little finger (LH5) and right hand thumb (RH1) on the ‘name note’ (root), which the chord symbol tells you, and play the six notes from bottom to top, evenly, in six-eight time.

All the Pyramids chords except the E major (E* in the chord chart) are white-keys-only chords. You form an E major chord by using a black key G sharp for the middle note in each hand.

In Lesson Two, you are going to improve your performance by using ‘Left-hand-over Patterns’. Here is what your Lesson performance will sound like:

If you download and install MidiPiano - it's quick, easy and safe! - you can see what to play and use the application's slow-down, repeat and zoom features to help you learn more quickly.

Learning the left-hand-over pattern

In these two places, instead of just playing the six Basic Music-making Position (BMP) notes twice, we can make a more interesting twelve-note pattern called the ‘left-hand-over pattern’.

The left-hand-over pattern in A minor

This is what two ordinary bars of A minor BMP notes look like in written-out music:

In the left-hand-over pattern (which lasts the same amount of time) the left hand passes over the right hand to play just one note, and then you play back down again.

Here’s what that looks like in written music:

Here’s an illustration showing how to find the left-hand-over note in A minor.

In popular music, chords are our first priority. Along with the Basic Music-making Position, the LH-over pattern is one of the many useful chord shapes you will learn at Musicarta.com.

We are going to play two LH-over patterns in A minor as an added-on Introduction to our improved Pyramids Variations performance.

Here is the Introduction written out, with instructions following.

1. First play the six A minor BMP notes from the bottom (LH5) to the top (RH5). This fills the first bar.

2. For the first note of the next bar, bring the left hand over, leave two unused white keys and play the next ‘A’ key up.

3. To fill the second bar, play downwards from the top RH note (RH5), just five of the regular A-minor BMP notes. Because the left-hand-over note takes up space in the second bar, the LH-over pattern ends on the middle left hand note.

Remember to leave two unused white keys on the way down when you’re looking for where to put your left hand thumb.

Practice the pattern over and over. Notice any difficulties you have. Try to work out what your difficulty is and if any of the instructions or illustrations here can help you with it.

The left-hand-over pattern in E major

Bars 7 and 8 are both E major bars, so we can play a LH-over pattern in E major here. This will be just the same ‘shape’ as the A-minor LH-over pattern.

To build up a LH-over pattern in E, first play the six-note E major BMP chord a few times to remind yourself of the notes to use. The middle finger of each hand (finger 3) plays the black key G sharp.

Then find the next 'E' up - the LH-over note. Here is a keyboard diagram showing all the piano keys we use:

... and here's what the LH-over pattern in E major looks like in written-out music:

Follow the same instructions as before to play the LH-over pattern in E major.

1. Play the six E major BMP notes going up.

2. Bring your left hand over to play the LH-over note ‘E’.

3. Play five BMP notes downwards to fill the bar, leaving two unused white keys between your thumbs and finishing on the middle left hand, G sharp.

A left-hand-over ending

To finish, we want an A minor ending in bars 15 and 16 that uses the LH-over pattern. But if we play a full LH-over pattern, the last note will be C, the middle left hand note.

This is not a satisfactory ending. Note ‘A’ is a better note to end on.

There are two possible A notes we could finish on in the A minor LH-over pattern. The first is the LH-over A at the top of the pattern:

The other note A we could finish on is the RH thumb note, halfway back down the LH-over pattern:

Try both of these endings. Neither of them is a full 12-note LH-over pattern. Play whichever sounds best to you.

The LH-over Performance chord chart

Looking at the lesson performance

As you read it, find the part of the chord sequence that is being described in the chord chart (above) and the Pyramids with LH-over Patterns music you have just downloaded.

1. You play an Introduction of two full A minor LH-over patterns. Remember that the last note of the Introduction is a C (left hand, middle finger).

2. Then you play the first six chords in the chord sequence using six-note BMP patterns until you get to the two bars of E major at the end of the first half (bars 7 and 8).

3. For bars 7 and 8, you play one LH-over pattern in E major (black note – G sharp). Remember that the last note of this pattern is G sharp, the middle finger of the left hand.

4. Go back to playing six-note BMP patterns for six bars as shown in the chord sequence chart, bars 9 to 15.

5. For the last two bars you play the A minor LH-over ending you have chosen from the two alternatives given.

Now listen to the audio file of the Pyramids with LH-over Patterns performance (under the chord sequence, above) and read through the list at the same time, matching up each numbered feature. Try to play this new version from the chord chart only. Only three small parts are different to the simple version you played at the end of Lesson One. They are:

1. The Introduction.

2. The LH-over pattern in E at the end of the first half.

3. Your chosen LH-over ending in A minor.

Don't give up if you're not playing the music quite like it is in the audio clips. Use the combined Basic Music-making Position and left-hand-over patterns as a springboard to your own compositions. Remember that ‘getting lost is the music’ is part of the plan.

Or link back to the Musicarta home page and find more ways of getting creative at the keyboard.

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