This week’s IROCKU Piano Tip looks at 9th chords, in particular, Dominant 9th chords. Dominant 9th chords are extensions of dominant 7th chords that can help open up your playing. Dominant 9th chords are very common in blues and rock. In this video we show the Dominant 9th chord and we also teach the flatted 9th chord which is a useful passing chord when playing blues and rock. We also introduce the sharp 9th, AKA the Jimi Hendrix chord, which adds richness to your rock and blues playing. The video begins by teaching the dominant 9th chords in C, F, and G and then teaches the flat 9th and the sharp 9th chords. The flat 9th chord feels like a passing chord and works best in that context. The flat 9th without its root note is actually a diminished chord; and diminished chords are great …
IROCKU Piano Tip – Little Richard’s Rock Piano Techniques
In Don McLean’s song, “American Pie”, the lyric “when the music died” refers to the plane crash that killed early rockers Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens. Well we feel the music died again today, with the death of rock pioneer, Little Richard. Not only did Little Richard bring us straight up, four-to-the-floor rock and roll, as a poor black gay kid from Macon, Ga he broke every possible social and ethnic barrier you could imagine along the way. This IROCKU Tip celebrate’s Little Richard’s keyboard style with a twelve-bar blues progression using his straight eighth-note left hand pattern and explosive right hand rhythms. We begin the lesson with an overview of the 12 bar blues progression (in C) that was the foundation of so many Little Richard songs, such as "Lucille". We then introduce …
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IROCKU Piano Tips – ii-V-I Progression with Extended Chord Voicings
This week’s IROCKU Piano Tip looks at the ii-V-I chord progression with Extended Chord Voicings. The ii-V-I chord progression is one of the most common progressions in modern music, particularly jazz. This chord pattern is useful in turn-arounds or whenever you are looking to resolve to the I chord. In this video we highlight one specific ii-V-I piano pattern with Extended Chord Voicings that minimizes hand movements, making it useful for accompaniment. The video begins by teaching the diatonic chords related to the key (in this video we use the key of C) and shows how the ii-V-I triads are derived. We teach how to color the chords by extending the triads to include 7ths, 9ths, and 13ths in their root position. We then teach these three extended chords in different positions to …
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