Transcription
Welcome to Joseph's Piano Academy! Here now. You might know what you like to do with that left hand of yours first thing in the morning, but I might have some ideas for you in this video.
A few months ago, I released a video called "The Perfect Kind of Practice Morning Routine." Just some exercises to roll out of bed, go over to that piano, and do some muscle work. You know, you don't have to think about anything. It's like going to the gym and lifting weights. But all of those exercises were focused on the right hand, and boy, did you let me know about it in the comments!
Now, I'm sure most of you realize that those exercises can be done in the left as well, but it did get me thinking about putting some exercises together that would focus on some left-hand skills that are useful for you when you move into playing some real music, which is what we all want to do. When we sit up and we want to play some real music. So, first, I'll show you some exercises, and then we'll go over some ideas for a bit of a routine.
So, the first exercise is all about the humble power chord, moving between the power chord positions. Now, if you've been with me for a while, you'll know that I enjoy teaching this because it can be a really nice way into accompanying yourself with the left. It's relatively straightforward, and it sounds pretty good. So, we're going to move between this position here, see this position here, the C power chord position, the G power chord position, the A power chord position, and the F power chord position. So that's C and G, G and D, A and E, and F and C. Okay, four very common chords put into a very common chord sequence. No harm in that, you know. Just whatever it is, what it is. So, we're going to cycle around those chords. You can set a metronome, or if you want, but really, you want to go on to speed challenges. Okay?
Now, when you get used to that, you can do a variation on that, which is just playing those positions. We can even add in a low chord down here, and we can try and enter into a bit of a flow with this and just play those positions at random. So, I can just try not to think about it, but just move to any position I want without thinking, you know, without predicting what's going on. I'm just entering into a bit of a flow state with it. That's collectively exercise one. It's about moving that left hand.
Now, exercise two is using a normal triad and moving between two positions which I think sound really nice. So, something like this. Bonus points if you know what that is, comment down below. So, we've got using two different chord positions. This is a perfect little position for you. C, E, G, like this. I'm gonna use the fifth, the third, and the first, and just alternate between those three like this. Okay? I'm gonna move between these three, which is a C major chord, and then these three, the C, F, and G, which is a C sus four chord. And you know, it's relatively straightforward, sounds really nice itself. Hints at a one-four chord progression here, and I've actually put a different video on that showing you how I pick those chords can sound. So, I'll put a link in the cards for you. Check that out if you want. So, C to C sus four. So that's exercise two.
Exercise three, the blues chop. So, in the previous video, we went over the blues scale, right? So, if you've gone over the previous video, "The Perfect Dependable Practice Morning Routine," and you've got to grips with that blues scale, then this is the perfect accompaniment for that. This is called the left-hand boogie-woogie chop. It's still power chord based, so moving back to our power chords here, and we're going to move between these two. So, we can have two variations of this. We can either keep it straight like this, so our two strikes on each. Okay? So that's the C and the G, and that's the C and the A. You can do it here if you want. Blues is blues is about being dirty. This is a little bit clean and nice down here. We've got some humble, we've got some grit there. We can keep two on each like this, so that's one variation. And then you can give it a shuffle, the typical left-hand boogie-woogie chop shuffle. So, like this. And you can also move this between the three chord positions and the twelve-bar blues as well. So, we've got the C position, and we've got the F position. So that's F and C, F and D, and then the G position here. So, that's exercise three, moving around that shuffle.
Onto exercise four, and this is about the beginnings of a really, really useful left-hand accompaniment technique. And we're going to spread, spread out the power chord like this, but we're going to alternate between the C at the bottom, the G, and then the octave at the top. Okay? Now, this is a really useful technique. You know, you can get things like whatever. So, you get the idea. It's really useful if you can, if this can become second nature to you, and you can just use that left hand to accompany yourself. This is a really good go-to technique. So, we'll go between C, G, C, G, just alternate between those. Now, if you find an octave difficult, you can roll between them like this, which is what you can do whilst you're getting used to that spread. Okay? So, what we'll do is go one count for of them like this, and then move up to the F position and count four of those like this. Three, four. And back to the C. You can do this with or without the pedal, okay? Sounds better with the pedal, but you don't need to use it. In fact, you can have a variation of the exercise with and without the pedal if you want. So that's moving between the mic button. Okay, again, remember speed that you're comfortable with, making sure that you are on the edge of your comfort zone.
So that's four exercises so far, looking at some really useful left-hand techniques. Now, I want to push the plot out a little bit more, and this is a, this should be a little bit more of a challenge, but I think it sounds really good. And you know me, I cannot help introducing a bit of melody in here because I, you know, it's just so much more inspirational, even first thing on a morning, it'll wake you up. So, watch this. So that's exercise five. Okay, really good little movement of the thumb there. Now, start off C, G, C, G, B, G. Okay, one, two, three, four, five, six. And then we're going to move to the D at the top. So, it's the same, but instead of moving to the B, we move to the D. So, we've got different spread moving up this way instead of down. C, G, C, G, D, G. Okay? And you play that twice. And then we're going to shift that position up to the F. And exactly the same thing. We're moving that thumb between the F and the E in the F G. Three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two. So, you know, you can see how useful that can be if you get used to it. So, those are five pretty useful exercises.
So, let's look at how we can put that into a piano practice morning routine. But first, for today's video sponsor, which is of course myself, I have a premium piano course, "Creative Practice Routines," perfect if you like this kind of stuff, but also it's going to give you lifetime skills for transforming that piano practice, getting the most out of it. And also, a perfect starting point, "Melodies by an Inspirational Style" for absolute beginners. More information in the cards up there, or check out the link in the information box down below. And also, for you find fingered themes, if you put in the code "youtube10," check out, you can grab 10% off.
So, how do we put these exercises into a bit of a practical routine? Well, as I already explored in the previous video, this is about just rolling out of bed, going to that piano, no time to think about stuff. So, maybe we want to do five minutes, maybe we want to do 10 minutes. It's entirely up to you, and you can structure these exercises really however you want. But one really good way to do it is to take five minutes and just do 50 seconds on one exercise, give yourself 10 seconds rest, and just, you know, rest. Don't look at what's coming next. Get yourself ready. 50 seconds on an exercise, 10 seconds rest, all the way up to five minutes. That's five exercises, five minutes, job done.
So, maybe I want to start off by just moving between these, these power chords here. Okay? Maybe do 50 seconds on that. And then I want to do 50 seconds on the spontaneous version of that. So, I'm training the skill in a specific way, and then instantly I'm switching between a different area of my brain which is required to be in flow and not think about things. I'm going at random, I'm being creative, spontaneous. So, you're flicking between those two skills, which is really good for the brain, you know, flicking between one and one and the other. Maybe the third exercise then I would go on to. Okay, so I've done my power chords. I'll stick with the power chord theme. I'll play my 12-bar blues, just move between those, whatever I want, those three positions. And then sticking with the power chords, access a nice three, stiffing with the power chord theme again. I'll move between this and then this one. That's exercise four. What could I do for exercise five to finish off my five-minute routine? Oh, oh, right. My last one, I'll go between these two. So, in that five minutes, I've gone over moving my power chords, I've engaged my creative muscle, I've engaged my creative muscle again, just moving spontaneous, pinning this to these three positions, and the blues. I've trained my power chord position like this, and I've also got to move my fingers on this triad and move between these, these chords here.
So, within five minutes, which of course does not replace your main practice session of the day, and I will stress that this is not a replacement for some real good, honest piano practice. It's just what it is. It's going to the gym. If you do this every morning for five minutes, over time, you'll see some real improvements. You'll feel some real improvements. All of a sudden, your fingers will start to feel a bit more fluid. You'll move between your left-hand chords a bit easier. You know, you'll feel it, trust me. Just do it every single morning, five minutes, ten minutes, whatever you want. Maybe you want to create a whole routine out of this octave spread and really get in that. And maybe I want to introduce the metronome. So, I'll set the metronome off, maybe it's a hundred, and I'll just go like this. And then I'll forget about the metronome. So, that's exercise. Well, forget about the metronome, and I'll just go as fast as I possibly can. And it might be like awful, it might, it might be disjointed and all over the place, but who cares? Yeah, it's just an experiment. It's playing between them. So, I've got to exercise that one with the metronome, one without. And then for exercise three, you know, I'll set the metronome off again, and maybe I'll try getting this one here. And maybe I'm not at the right position yet where I can move between chords. So, I'll just stick with the C. And this is exercise three. And then I'll move to the F for exercise four, 50 seconds on this. And then for the fifth exercise, stick it together.
So, what I'm trying to get across here is I've just made those up completely off the top of my head. I am planning those. But what you can do is grab yourself a pen and paper and just generally outline the kind of exercises you want to do to fill up five exercises for five minutes of practice. So, you're not fumbling around, you're not wasting time thinking what you're doing. It's all written for you. You know, think, you think you time, you can just stick it up on your piano. Off you go. Moving for a week, doing for a month, and stick at it religiously every day, just five minutes. See how you feel at the end of it, and let me know in the comments box down below.
Guide sheet for this video is available on patreon.com/creativeken or Akademi. I'll put the sheet music in there as well as some ideas to take the exercises further. Etc. Section here, you know how it works by now. Over on Patreon, there's more guide sheets over there, as well as lots to be happy to go out. So, if you want to support me over there, thank you so much. I'm back and raring to go with more videos. So, make sure you smash that subscribe button down below. Click that little notification bell so you know when I upload new videos, and I will see you, I will see you in the next video. Peace.