Chord Block Beneath The Right Hand Melody

Good morning again. This is Duane. Today we’re going to look at style number six, block chord, right hand technique number six, of what we can do to fill out the melody a little bit. The first technique was to simply play a single note but make it stand out over the left hand, make it sing in other words. We talked about some of the things you could do to do that. Then we talked about octaves. That gives it a bigger sound of course. It also gives us a possibility of doing this, offsetting the octaves by playing the thumb first and then the little finger. It gives a click on it. We can do that but we don’t want to do that all the time. Remember that? It gets sloppy if you do it all the time. Just do it on certain notes. You might play the same there and then when you get to the top note give it a little click by hitting your thumb before your little finger.

Then next I think we took up 3rds, put a 3rd under the melody. It sounds good up here too. We said we can’t use any style all the way through. We use it for a while, then use something else. Things don’t always work every place. Besides, you need some variety. Then after we learned single finger octaves and 3rds we combined octaves with thirds, didn’t we? We’re playing an octave note but we put a 3rd under the top note whenever possible. That gives a little more of a bell-like sound, little fuller. I guess we took up 6ths then, didn’t we? By the way, we said that anytime a 3rd doesn’t work, a 6th will work. We could do this. Let me do it an octave higher. Single notes, octaves, 3rds, octave 3rds, and 6ths. I think that’s where we left off.

The next style we’re going to put a full block chord under the melody. We’re not going to play an octave but we’re going to play a full chord. If the chord’s D minor 7th we’re going to put a D minor 7th chord under it. Then on the quick notes, not a note that you hold but … What you can do is freeze your fingers until you get to a long note again. Then you have to think about what the chord is. A frozen finger technique will work. Generally you want to have the chord notes under it but on the fast notes you can get away with just playing most any note under the melody. I’m going to play it all the way through and see how it goes. It wouldn’t work there.

By the way, I’ve never played the middle part, the bridge. It’s been years since I’ve played this song but let me see if I can figure out what it is. Something about love does not stand sharing, not if you care. That was approximately right. Let me do it again. I know the words. Love does not stand sharing, not if you care. I forgot the words here. Then back to the theme.

That’s the sixth possibility you can use in your right hand: single finger one, octaves two, thirds three, octave thirds four, 6ths are five, and then chords under the melody. That gives you six right hand styles you can use, but of course way more than that because you would never use just one of these techniques all the way through a song. And there’s more – stay tuned!

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