Chip Chick
This insight was all it took to play my jams from Folklore. I put my three fingers on the same keys as those with the black dots.
But, just the chord wouldn’t be enough. Then I remembered that most of the simple piano songs I knew had an easy left hand part, usually just one note at a time. And this note was typically the one that the right hand’s chord was named after!
So, if I were trying to play an A chord on the right hand, I would play the three notes with black dots on the page—A, C sharp, and E—and then hit a lower A key with my left hand.
And there it was! The beautiful, full chord that Taylor jammed out on the guitar!
How do you make it sound more interesting than just four notes at a time?
Trade back and forth between left and right hand, playing low, then high in a syncopated rhythm that matches the song.
Experiment with each key in your chord, going up and down the keys with the right or left hand.
And if you hit a wrong note, no worries. You’ll know what sounds good. Then, do it again and again. You might even memorize the chord by accident! Though, thankfully, they’re already right in front of us on Ultimate Guitar.
That’s it?
Yup! That’s the simple trick I figured out to play almost any song I wanted. But there are also tons of other techniques and methods for learning piano, including Youtube tutorials, articles, or even that friend who took piano between 3rd and 5th grade. So go forth, and play on!
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