Swing Bass Piano Styles – The Basis of “Swing Piano”

                       Good morning. This is Duane and now I’d like to take up the left-hand bass styles. We’ve been talking about right-hand styles playing a single melody like that or a third under the melody or a whole chord under the melody or an octave third or a stopped octave. We’ve done all those recently, those videos on each one of those styles. Now, I’d like to turn to the left hand and take up some of the swing bass piano styles that you can use for pop piano. By pop piano, I mean anything except classical. This applies to anything from ragtime to jazz, to rock, to pop songs, to gospel, whatever and you can do it in various styles. Today, I’d like to talk about the first basic left hand sound that’s called swing bass. Swing bass and the swing bass … Let me just play a little swing bass. That song like that but notice the left hand swings between a low note and a chord.

That’s why it’s called the swing bass because your left hand is swinging from a low note to a chord, okay? That way you get … If you just play chords like that, that’s fine and that’s a style too but you don’t get the low note in position so that’s why the swing was involved. Now there’s a lot of varieties to that. In the subsequent lessons, we’re going to take up the varieties but right now, I just like to focus on the swing bass and get that down. By the way, this series is for beginners. If you’re advance, you don’t need to know this because you already know it. I’m just taking it for beginners. Let’s take the C chord. Let’s say that you’re playing a C chord. What you would do if you have a C chord, you hit a low C with your little finger or an octave if you feel like it, if you hand is big enough. Some people play in octaves and that’s fine too and then you come up and play the chord.

Normally, I don’t play the chord in root position. I like to play it either at the first inversion or second inversion. It’s particular if you’re in octaves, you can hit that and then that. That’s easier than coming up with playing that because you see, that note is duplicated both in the octave and the chord. I hit a low note and then come up and hit the chord. Now, let me just make it a little simpler and not play the octave but just hit a simple low note. Do this with me if you’re just starting out, if you’re a beginner. Hit the low note and push your pedal down, your sustain pedal, the pedal on the right at the same time and then come up and play the chord. Now, let the pedal up before you hit the next note. We’ll say the next note is F. Hit a low F the come up and play the F chord.

Again, your pedal goes down as you play the low note and then after you play that chord, then you can let the pedal up. How long you hold the pedal is kind of up to you. Usually, your ear can decide how long you want that to hold and two, it depends on the context of the song. If you’re playing ragtime like I just did, you probably want to let it up right away but if you’re playing something like this, then you want to probably sustain that pedal longer, not let it up right away. It’s very simple. Use your little finger on the low note, if you’re not playing an octave that is. If you’re playing an octave, it’s the little finger and thumb obviously but use you use your little finger because that’s the shortest route up here, right, from here to here. If you play it with your thumb or something, you got a longer way to go so use your little finger and come up and play that.

Let’s take the F chord, G chord, C chord. Now, if you’re just a pure beginner, I would just focus on those three chords and get that down really well, the pedal and the chording pattern. Just go back and forth between those. Then if you know some other chords at this point then use those. If you know say, the A flat chord, then hit a low A flat, come up and play the chord. If you know the D flat chord, play it low D flat, come up and play the chord, whatever it is. By the way, this applies to minor too. For example, if you’re playing A minor, you hit the low A and then come up and play an A minor chord. If you’re D minor, you hit a low D, come up and play the D minor chord. Okay, so very simple swing bass. Tomorrow, we’re going to take up some varieties of the swing bass because that gets boring if you just do that so we’re going to take up some varieties to add a little interest to your swing bass, okay?

If  you like the idea of a swing bass, you might be interested in my course in Ragtime For Beginners at www.PlayPiano.com/Ragtime

That’s it for today. If you enjoyed this little piano tips, come on over to PlayPiano.com and sign up for our free piano tips. I think you’ll enjoy them so we’ll see you there. Bye-bye for now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5796KuNkTw&feature=youtu.be