Here’s how to play one type of Block Chord style…

Good morning. This is Duane. There’s actually two or three styles of block chords and so it’s easy to get confused about, when I speak of block chords, it’s easy to be misunderstood, but I want to explain the difference here. There’s a block chord style that I’m going to talk about. It was made famous by George Shearing where you play the melody in both hands an octave apart, but you emphasize the left hand melody sometimes by sliding up to a left hand note. You put whatever the chords are, put them in your right hand under the melody. That’s called the Shearing block style chord.

I don’t know if you can hear that, but the left hand has predominance over the right hand. That melody is supposed to stand out. Let me do it again. And then on with the song. A block chord style needs to be mixed in with other things. You can’t play a song all the way through with blocked chords unless you have, like what George Shearing had, a quintet. In his quintet, he played, like I just demonstrated, but a whole lot better of course, but he also had a vibe player that played the melody too, the sound, and he had bass and drummers of course that were taking care of the rhythm and so on. Between the five of them, they got that unified sound that’s so wonderful and that he made famous and that people have imitated through the years.

You can use it, but you’ve got to use it sparingly because when you’re playing solo piano or even in a trio, you have to mix it in with other things. For example, when I was playing, that’s about as far as you can do it without doing something else. You’ve got to set the table for the next melody sequence by doing something like this. You see that by setting the table, you’ve got to lay the foundation chords that prepare the next frame. Otherwise, it doesn’t stand alone. Now, there’s another kind of block chord style where you play both hands at once, but your right hand is playing an octave usually with the fifth or a fourth in between the right hand octave, and your left hand plays the chords at the very same time.

Let me set the table here. When you play the melody and the chords at the same time, that’s a block chord style too. I started out the song that way. Then I had to set the table with some chords and then go onto something else. In other words, my point is you have to mix up the blocked chord style with other styles. Otherwise, it makes no sense. For example, if I was playing Misty, I wouldn’t start with a blocked chord style. I’d do something like this. I’m creating the rhythm of the chords in the left hand and melody in the right hand. I probably wouldn’t use a blocked chord style until the middle, until the bridge. I’d probably use it right there for a little bit and then I’d go back to the other style, so you’ve got to mix it up.

Let’s take another song. I used it at the start. That worked. You’re going to set the table and then use some other style. This style, this phrase, that’s just not suitable to use a block chord style there. It’s not that you couldn’t, you could, but I don’t think it would sound very good. My point is mix up the block chord style with other styles as well to make a cohesive whole. That way you have a lot of variety and you’re keeping the interest of the listener that way too. That’s my tip for the day, so if you enjoy this kind of thing, come on over to playpiano.com and sign up for our free piano tips. We have something like this for you most every day, so hope you do that. Thanks. Bye, bye for now.

Here is the video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm_iM31_X3o&feature=youtu.be
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