{"id":60,"date":"2017-10-10T11:20:00","date_gmt":"2017-10-10T18:20:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2023-01-13T10:48:56","modified_gmt":"2023-01-13T18:48:56","slug":"how-to-play-rock-piano","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/how-to-play-rock-piano\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Play Rock Piano Like It&#8217;s The 50&#8217;s"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The 50\u2019s was a big decade for music. Rock and Roll became the main genre in popular conciousness, and a whole new culture of music fans sprang up. The piano really took on a new life as well, with players like Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis bringing an explosive, percussive personality to the music.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" style=\"font-size:28px\"><strong>The Chord Progression<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The chord progression for the riff is built around the 12-bar blues, a classic progression in 50s rock and roll. In the key of C, that means you\u2019re going to play the <strong>C7, F7, and G7 chords<\/strong>. To make these chords, form your major triads and add a flat-7th note on top. &nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" style=\"font-size:28px\"><strong>The Left Hand Rhythm<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The left hand rhythm is an important part of 50s rock piano. It\u2019s what gives the sound its driving feel. The pattern is pretty simple, simply base each chord movement off of an open 5th interval on each triad and pop back and forth on the 5th and 6th intervals, finishing off the phrase by moving up to the flat-7th. One of the key distinguishing elements for rock piano is actually in how the 8th notes are played.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you\u2019ve played any blues piano, you might be tempted to play your 8th notes as <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">swung<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> rhythms. Resist this urge when you\u2019re playing this rock rhythm if you want to feel like the left hand is really driving. Instead, keep your left hand locked right onto the beat, and you\u2019ll be on your way to developing a left hand as powerful as Jerry Lee!<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<center><div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color:#fff;display:inline-block;font-family:Roboto,sans-serif;color:#a7a7a7;font-size:11px;width:100%;max-width:500px;\"><div style=\"padding:0;margin:0;text-align:left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.ca\/detail\/515351352\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" rel=\"noopener\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div><div style=\"overflow:hidden;position:relative;height:0;padding:118.799995% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/515351352?et=dhXTK0vrQrJ5G9UDyqKN0A&amp;tld=ca&amp;sig=VT0-5gVw_PAYemwTkeM1mYP7boVnThgfNvkA0eD_HjM=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"500\" height=\"594\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;margin:0;\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div><\/center>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong><em>Pianist Jerry Lee Lewis. One of the founding figures of rock&#8217;n roll.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" style=\"font-size:28px\"><strong>The Right Hand Riff<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The right hand riff for this little exercise is super fun to play, and easy to learn. It\u2019s based off of the major pentatonic scale, which only consists of five notes, so it\u2019s easy to develop and extrapolate on if you want to use it as a launching point for your own explorations!<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you play this riff in C, the notes are going to be an ascending pattern of <\/span><strong>Eb, E, G, A, <\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and<\/span><strong> C. <\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you break this pattern down as intervals, you\u2019re playing a <\/span><strong>minor 3rd, major 3rd, fifth, sixth, <\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><strong>octave. <\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s often easier to break a riff like this down into interval jumps rather than note names, as it allows you to easily transpose any given riff regardless of the key.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With that in mind, you can take this same pattern and apply it to the <\/span><strong>IV chord (F7) <\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and the <\/span><strong>V chord (G7). <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" style=\"font-size:28px\">The Mentality Of Rock Piano<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Although it my surprise some, the piano is a percussive instrument first and foremost. It\u2019s important to keep that in mind when playing rock piano. Listen to some of the greats in the genre and the power that they bring to their playing.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If your experience with the piano up to this point has been primarily classical based, I encourage yo to channel your own internal Little Richard and dig into those rock instincts that you know you have! So get your bum to the piano and don&#8217;t be afraid to just hammer away on the keys, I promise you the piano can handle it! <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<center><div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color:#fff;display:inline-block;font-family:Roboto,sans-serif;color:#a7a7a7;font-size:11px;width:100%;max-width:506px;\"><div style=\"padding:0;margin:0;text-align:left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.ca\/detail\/74288251\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" rel=\"noopener\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div><div style=\"overflow:hidden;position:relative;height:0;padding:117.3913% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/74288251?et=-i4CKslRScFXPoP_3fSXgg&amp;tld=ca&amp;sig=A5nekRv4Fjw5LJRPI_Y9bm6Af93OApWwj9NcDWH4UAU=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"506\" height=\"594\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;margin:0;\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div><\/center>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong><em>Little Richard. Another Of The Original Greats<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:10px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<iframe class=\"email-form-include-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/weekly-email\" frameborder=\"none\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:10px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 50\u2019s was a big decade for music. Rock and Roll became the main genre in popular conciousness, and a whole new culture of music fans sprang up. The piano really took on a new life as well, with players like Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis bringing an explosive, percussive personality to the music. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[524,509],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-styles","category-technique"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10880,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions\/10880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}