How To Play “Oh Danny Boy” (also known as “Londonderry Air”)

Today we are going to learn how to play “Oh Danny Boy” with block chords to make the melody stand out.

Good morning. This is Duane. We’ve been doing a series of videos called “Good Stuff You Really Ought to Know About Music,” particularly related to piano playing. It’s music theory related to piano playing basically. One thing you really ought to know about music as a piano player is that if you want to make the melody stand out, there’s several ways to do it, but one way to do it is to use block chords on the melody. Now block chords is where you play the chord in the right hand and the melody in the left hand. Actually, you play the melody in both hands.

I could take any tune, but let me take “Danny Boy,” or “Londonderry Air.” Instead of playing just one note, it’s so much stronger if you play it in octaves like that. Under the right hand octave what you do is you put in the chord notes. If the chord is G 7th, you put in the notes to the G 7th chord under the melody. Then you make your left hand stand out by playing it a little louder. Or what I’m doing there is I’m sliding up to B like so. You see that? Let me do it again. And so on.

You mix in other styles with it, but what I wanted to show you is to make the melody itself stand out you can use that block chord style, which again involves playing the chord in the right hand and the melody in both hands. Then you can experiment with the chords. That’s all G 7th. Since the melody is C, I’m going to change it to F briefly and then back to G 7th or G 9th or G with a flat 9th. You can experiment with the chords. The main thing is make that left hand stronger than the left hand so you got that shimmering overtone from your right hand chord. Then as I said, mix in other things.

For example, you can’t just use block chords all the time. There’s an opportunity for a fill like a run. Any kind of fill like that will work. There I’m not using block chords as a contrast, then back to it there. You see that. Mix it up. That’s all that you need to know really about how to make block chords. You simply play the melody in both hands with the chord under the right hand melody, and make that left hand stand out. If you enjoy these little tips, come on over to playpiano.com and sign up for our series of free piano tips. I hope to see you there. Bye bye for now.

***For lots more good stuff on piano playing come on over to my website at https://www.playpiano.com and sign up for our free piano tips – “Exciting Piano Chords & Sizzling Chord Progressions!”

Here’s a great little book on chords and chord progressions on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Piano-Chords-Chord-Progressions-Exciting-ebook/dp/B0076OUGDE/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404158669&sr=1-1&keywords=piano+chords+duane+shinn

Here is the video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2sW9bJdW8k&feature=youtu.be