How To
Dress Up “Naked Music” On The Piano
What in the world is “naked
music?”
You know it when you hear it,
but the words that describe it sound strange, don’t
they? We’ve all heard of popular music and rock music
and gospel music and jazz music, but naked music?
Naked music is simply the
notes on a piece of sheet music. It’s “naked” – not
dressed up or arranged at all. No fills, no slurs, none
of the ingredients that make a song come to life.
Not a single professional
musician plays the music exactly as it appears on a
piece of sheet music. Instead, they use the written
music as a map, or an outline, and then proceed to
do their own thing with it. They twist it, bend it, add
to it, subtract from it, put fills in it, change the
key, change the words, change some of the melody notes,
and on and on.
So when you hear your favorite
artist perform a piece of music, if you look at the
written sheet music while they are performing it, you
will see it is MUCH different and MUCH better than the
plain old “naked music!”
So how can the average
musician dress up naked music? There are many ways, but
here are seven of my favorites:
- Change the chords slightly by
adding color tones. What are color tones? Color
tones are notes added to the basic chord, usually
expressed as 6ths, 7ths, 9ths, etc. For example,
instead of playing just a straight C chord as it is
written – C, E, G – try adding a color tone to it,
such as a 6th (A) or a 7th (Bb)
or a major 7th (B) or a 9th (D).
In fact, try adding a couple together, like a 6th
and a 9th. So instead of being a plain
vanilla chord made up of C, E, and G, you’ve made it a
tasty variation adding A and D to the equation.
- During the pause between
phrases, add a counter melody. How? Take the
given melody notes and turn them upside down or inside
out, or change the rhythm slightly so the tune is
still recognizable, but different.
- Add chord substitutions.
Instead of always using the chords that are written,
ask yourself this question: “Into what other chord
will this melody note fit?” For example, if the melody
is G and the chord is C, what other chords contain the
note G in them? There are several answers to that
question. G is not only in the C chord, but it is also
in the Em chord, the Eb major chord, the G chord, the
Gm chord, etc. Try one of those alternate chords until
you like the sound combination, then use it instead of
the C chord. It will add an originality and freshness
to your playing almost immediately.
- Add fills and runs between
phrases. How do you do that? Simply break up the
chord that is in force at the moment, and run it up
the keyboard as a broken chord – one note at a time.
Or start at the top of the keyboard and come down. Or
play with the chord a bit by playing 2 of the 3 notes
instead of the entire 3 note chord.
- Use melodic echos. After
you have played the melody, echo it by playing it an
octave higher, or two octaves higher, or an octave
lower.
- Use half-step slides. If
the chord progression is from D7 to G7, instead of
going to G7 directly, “slide into it” by playing the
chord that is one-half step above – namely, Ab7, then
quickly sliding off Ab7 to G7.
- Use “blue notes.” Blue
notes are created by sliding off a black key onto a
white key quickly. For example, if the melody is E,
slide off Eb to E quickly using the same finger.
This is just a tiny sampling
of what you can do to dress up your music. There are
literally hundreds of other techniques, from
pseudo-modulations to inside blues moves to deceptive
cadences to tremolos to twangs to crunches to straddles
to 3-1 breakups to walk-downs and walk-ups and on and
on.
By simply adding a few of
these techniques to your playing you can easily double
and triple the excitement created by your piano playing
as you “dress up naked music!”
Click
here or on the photo below to learn the whole story.
