Right-Hand Piano Technique #1 – Single-Finger Melody

Good morning! This is Duane and today I’d like to start our series on right-hand piano arranging technique – today on the single-finger melody technique. We did a series on left-hand piano techniques, if you recall, and we said we can do everything in a left hand from strumming the chord like that; to a swing bass that goes like this; an alternating bass; to an alberti bass; and to an arpeggio, intense like that; and a handover arpeggio.

We talked about six or seven different techniques we can use for the left hand and of course they can be mixed and matched. When you’re learning those techniques you would do well to take one at a time.

Today we’re going to take the most simple right-hand technique and that’s called the single-finger melody. Like I said, it’s a stand-alone technique. When you’re starting, you can use it as a stand-alone technique. When I say single-finger I don’t mean just playing using one finger. I mean you’re only playing one note at a time with the right hand.

Let me illustrate it. I might start off with a chord then … Here’s the bridge. What do you notice about that single-finger? I hope you notice that the melody is standing out. If you want a strong, identifiable melody that’s a good technique to use, but you should mix it with other styles, which we’ll take up gradually. You should mix it with chords. For example, when I start it out, I start out with a chord with my right hand and then the single-finger melody.

I also encourage you to be playful with the melody. You don’t have to just play it … but you can be playful like this. You notice I kind of slow up to that. I kind of slow up B flat to B and then up to C. You notice after I got the single-finger melody, I use the chords to help up up my left hand.

It’s not our subject to talk about what the chords are and all that. I presume that you have studied chords and if you haven’t you certainly need to do that, but we’re talking about a single-finger melody which is technique #1 in the right hand. I know it’s simple but we needed to start somewhere.

Then the next lesson will be on a different technique and we’ll go through about … I think we’ll have 10 or 12 right-hand techniques that we can use. Then when we go through with that then we can combine the left-hand techniques that we talked about such as swing bass or arpeggio or whatever with the right-hand techniques that we’re going to talk about. That’s when you get a cohesive style when you combine the right-hand techniques with the left-hand and you mix and match and that’s why every pianist has a different style. It’s a recognizable style because he or she mixes and matches different than any other pianist and that’s one of the things that make music interesting.

OK. That’s it for today. Come on over to PlayPiano.com and sign up for a free piano tips if you haven’t already so. We’ll see you there. Bye-bye for now.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK-MfCbwgB8&feature=youtu.be