Can any pianist offer some fundamental guidance?

[marcouk]

I'm a guitarist, of at best mediocre stature, but I'm trying to learn a bit of piano.

I'm not looking to be pointed to any tutorials here, would rather teach myself with some basic guidance.

So, I'm mucking around playing Trouble by Coldplay. The Intro chords are G, Em, Bm.

I'm playing the riff with my right hand, with the last note always being the B. The question is, what should I be hitting with my left hand? Just the chord root note (G, E, B)? Or should I be playing 2 notes here? Maybe thge full chord???

(I know enough piano chords for any piece of music, I just cannot figure out what each hand should be doing, and that has always hindered me)

Bit specific to this song, but Its more a generic question, as to left hand use.

Appreciate some comments from any pianists out there.

[bluedad]

sounds to me like he's playing those chords with his left and the riff with the right.

[VicDiesel]

If you're chording with the right hand, play just the root, or in octaves, with the left hand. Anything more and you'll muddy the sound.

Or you can play stride: root on 1 and 3, chord on 2 and 4. Depends on the song.

[mtyas]

The left hand in piano playing can do quite a few things. As bluedad said you can use it to do the chords (the lower you play them the more you want to widden up the gaps otherwise it will be muddy like TennesseeVic said)
Otherwise if you're playing the chords with your right hand, you use your left as a bass , so fondamentals (often played in octave) and 5ths are the most used notes, but like any bass line you can do what you want (depending if there is a bass player too) You can do walking basses, stride basses, arpegio basses, all kind of basses really.
But the big step in learning piano is the complementarity of each hand, it takes quite some time to get, but when you've got it, it's there for life.

[Amberience]

In the song book the last chord (Bm) is only ever played with the root and the fifth. The 3rd is missed out. The way I play Trouble is using my right thumb to play the last b in the riff and work the chords around it.

As for general playing, the Chordhouse website is very good for learning scales and chords.

www.looknohands.com

[marcouk]

But the big step in learning piano is the complementarity of each hand, it takes quite some time to get, but when you've got it, it's there for life.

Thanks for all the response here, much appreciated.

mtyas, do you know any basic exercioses for getting the
complementarity of each hand?

As I said, being pointed to chords and scales is not helping me. I know enough about that stuff, I just need to get some LH/RH co-ordination.

[Amberience]

Aphex Twin's Avril 14th is a good piece to learn for hand co-ordination.

[Rune]

The generic explanation on how to play melody, chords and bass on the piano is to use the left hand (LH) for bass notes and chords and melody in the right hand (RH), keeping the melody notes as the upmost notes in the RH. This is what you'll learn in basic piano courses and of course has tons of exceptions.

You should probably not play chords in the LH because lower notes has more harmonics than higher notes, thus playing chords in the lower register will sound "muddy". Of course, in a band situation, you will probably move your hands farther up on the keys and play chords with the LH and leave bass notes to the bassist.

I'm don't have much knowledge of Coldplay's music, and for what I got from the preview at Amazon, this is how I would play it: I hit the chord together with the last note in the riff, B, using my RH. In my LH I play octaves on the root note of the chords. I try to emphasize the melody/riff note in my RH when hitting chords.
http://stud.ntnu.no/~flobakk/temp/coldplay-trouble.mp3

[mtyas]

A simple way (even if most of the time you feel quite spastic doing them) is doing simple rythmic exercices with fondamental on left hand (in octaves is better) and chord on right hand. Then do kind of drummer exercices:
LH, RH, LH, RH ...
LH, LH, RH, RH ...
LH, RH, RH, LH ...
LH, RH, LH, LH, RH, LH, RH, RH ...
and do them the other way round too.
Then you can add some beats with both hands at the sametime.

An other way is just playing a easy right hand (like Dm - G) with kind of 4 beats on each chord, and then adding the left hand on the the first beat, (doing fondamentals) then adding a few notes on the left hand (try the 5th or notes near the chord you're going to. for example F# or G# before the G).
Don't hesitate in doing the exercices with and without swing.
If things aren't clear, I could always knock off a small mp3 example of things to do

[marcouk]

Thank you all so much.That's brilliant info.

Mtyas, have pm'd you.

[robenestobenz]

Complementarity? Do you mean being able to coordinate both hands independently of what the other is playing?

[mtyas]

Complementarity? Do you mean being able to coordinate both hands independently of what the other is playing?

Yes, that's a way to put it.

I'm no expert, but the independance in between both hands is probably where I spend most time (because it's where I need the most work)

I've done a small entry in my video blog to show you a few ways to play two chords with two hands.

I hope it can help some.

[Klemperer]

I've done a small entry in my video blog to show you a few ways to play two chords with two hands.

I hope it can help some.

nice video...

[mtyas]

nice video...

Thanks, I'll try and do a few more one of these days, with some other exercices