Arranging Amazing Grace On The Piano

Good morning. This is Duane and today I’d like to talk about arranging Amazing Grace using triplets and octave walk-ups. I think we’ll do it in the key of F, I think it’s usually played in the key of F so we’ll do something like this. Now let me stop right there. You’ll notice in the right I was doing a lot of triplets, for example. Instead of Amazing … instead of eight notes I went … that’s a triplet. One, two, triplet … see that? I was playing a B flat cord and I went triplet, triplet, triplet, triplet … that’s a triplet, triplet, triplet, triplet. See I’m playing F cord, triplet, C seventh cord, triplet, F cord and the left hand I’m walking up from F to G to A and land to B flat and including the seventh.

If you don’t like that just leave it out. Sounds kind of bluesy and sometimes I use it and sometimes I don’t. If you like that sound … and notice like sometimes slide off the black key. There I did a little flip from F up to B flat and back to F. Take the top two notes of the F cord, move it up to B flat and D and then back down. That’s a triple then at the end I did a triplet down, triplet, hold okay. Now let’s take a look at the left hand walk-ups okay. I play like this. Amazing … Flat up to B flat. I’m walking up from F to B flat by way of octaves. F G A B flat and I’m going to walk up from G to C, G A B C. Triplet, triplet, triplet … see my right hand is pulling the triplet thing.

My left hand is walking up F G A to B flat. D minor, G triplet now F C seventh and then A flat and then triplet and hold to F. As I play B flat A G F for the left hand, I’m playing B flat cord F cord B flat cord F cord. It’s really an [inaudible 00:03:41] instead of amen, you just lock down the amen like [inaudible 00:03:50] amen walk down. Okay. Now you can do that in any key of course, let’s do it in G. Now I certainly don’t want to give the impression that that’s the only way to play Amazing Grace. I very solemn do it that way but I just thought you’d like to see how it’s possible to do it with octaves and triplets. Let me play it in a more traditional way.

There’s a zillion ways to play okay I just didn’t want you to get the impression that’s the only way to do it. I’m just teaching triplets and walk-ups. Hope that helps a little bit and we’ll see you tomorrow with another piano tip. If you haven’t signed up for my free newsletter please go down to the the bottom, under this video you’ll see my web address or just playpiano.com click on that and sign up for my free newsletter. Because there’s a ton of great things you can learn. There are a lot of videos and articles and so on. We’ll see you tomorrow with another idea. Thanks for being with me and bye bye for now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_LFNFgV7mM
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