What to do with my left hand

[David]

Hi everyone,
One of my greatest difficulties is what to do with my left hand when playing ballads .. it seems there are many possibilities but can anyone recommend a basic rule of thumb for a relative beginner to make a song sound reasonable .

Its one thing to play out of time by just playing a chord or a root. but how do you put in left hand rhythm notes to make a song swing.

Another few questions hopefully some of you may be able to answer.....

.!. what is meant by comping and how do you do it?

2..What is a slash cord and what is its function.?

3 usually the melody note is at the top but could the base note be at the top sometimes?

$ what are the functions of diminished and half diminished chords

6 if you are playing a minor blues say in Cminor would you still use the C blues scale

If anyone can shed any light on any of these questions i would be very grateful

Cheers to you all

David

[Carolina]

Hi David, When I first started playing ballds (and even now) I do a lot of arpeggio and broken chords on my left hand.
So for example if the chord was C major/minor, then I'd play C-G-C on my left hand. If it was a G7, I'd play G-D-F.

And regarding diminished chords I actually use it to substitute dominant chords. So instead of playing G7 or G13, I'd play F diminshed on my right hand (A flat - B - D - F) with a G on the base.

Hope this helps

[Josh]

Hi everyone,
One of my greatest difficulties is what to do with my left hand when playing ballads .. it seems there are many possibilities but can anyone recommend a basic rule of thumb for a relative beginner to make a song sound reasonable .

Its one thing to play out of time by just playing a chord or a root. but how do you put in left hand rhythm notes to make a song swing.

Another few questions hopefully some of you may be able to answer.....

.!. what is meant by comping and how do you do it?

2..What is a slash cord and what is its function.?

3 usually the melody note is at the top but could the base note be at the top sometimes?

$ what are the functions of diminished and half diminished chords

6 if you are playing a minor blues say in Cminor would you still use the C blues scale

If anyone can shed any light on any of these questions i would be very grateful

Cheers to you all

David

Hi David,

You've asked some pretty extensive questions!

1) Comping is short for accompanying. There is no specific way to comp, but certain rhythms are more relevant to certain styles. Have a read of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comping

2) Slash chords are an easy one. If you have Cm7/F, you simply play a C minor 7th chord in the right hand, however the F is the bass note, not C. Slash chords can be represented by:

chord that you play in the right hand/lowest note in the bass

In a band scenario, if the chart had C/G, the pianist and guitarist would play a C major chord, but the bassist would play a G instead of a C as they cover the lowest note of the ensemble.

3) Best to have the melody always at the top. Whatever the highest note you play in the right hand will generally be considered the melody, so if you play a higher note or lower note than the melody, that new note will sound like the melody. You can however, have the melody in the left hand, but this needs to be brought out (i.e. played louder) so you can distinguish the melody. Have a listen to this example of "No Surprises", a radiohead tune performed by classical pianist Christopher O'Riley. He puts the melody in the bass/left hand:



$) Diminished chords as mentioned by Carolina earlier generally have two different functions. They can be used in a dominant chord to create a flat nine.

e.g.

G7b9 =

G B D F Ab
1 3 5 7 b9

It just so happens that the 3 5 7 and b9 of this chord form a diminished 7th chord.

Diminished 7th chords are built on minor thirds and are completely symmetrical. There are only thre different diminished 7th chords:

1) C Eb F# A
2) C# E G Bb
3) D F Ab B

if you kept on going up chromatically you would get:

4) Eb F# A C

which are the same notes as the first diminished 7th chord.

Diminished chords can also be used as passing chords between chords:

| Cmaj7 here | Dm7 G7 | Cmaj7 ||

You could use a C#dim7 chord above to pass chromatically between Cmaj7 and Dm7. Funnily enough, if you play C#dim7 in the right hand and A in the left hand, in this instance it creates an A7b9 chord which we know always likes to resolve to the one chord which in this example is Dm7 (despite it being minor).

More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminished_seventh_chord

--

The half-dimished chord functions slightly differently. Another name for a half-diminished chord is a minor 7th, flat 5 chord.

e.g.

Cm7b5 (or CØ = same thing)...

you take the original C minor 7th chord which is C Eb G Bb and flatten the 5th, so you get C Eb Gb Bb.

This is used predominantly over the minor ii-V-i progression and functions as the ii chord in this instance.

Wiki entry here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-dimin ... enth_chord

The diminished and half-diminished chords are quite tricky to get your head around, so please quiz me if you have any more questions..

6) You can still use the C blues scale over a minor blues. The blues scale is merely one of many options that you can use over a variety of chords.

Hope this helps David and if anyone needs any further assistance on any of these topics, please reply to this thread as David's asked some really heavy questions!

Cheers,

Josh

[David]

Thanks Carolina and Josh for your very clear explanations of these questions

I do have another issue that has me perplexed in relation to soloing
I know there are no rules only guidelines One way of approaching a solo
Is to recognize the key center by reference to the dominant chord and playing in the major
scale of that key center ie in C major for a 251 for Dm7 G7 CM7
How would you approach a solo where there are a series of dominant chords such as
happens on some songs For example in the bridgefor hoagy charmichaels heart and soul the following sequence occurs
Bb7 A7 , D7G7C7 F7E7 C7 for the words
Oh but your lips were thril ling , much to thrilling
Never before were mine so strange ly will Ing
So my question is..... how do you approach a solo where there are a number of
Dominant chords in sequence every couple of beats and therefor having frequent key center changes
Thanks again for your help with my initial queries
Cheers
David

[Josh]

Hi David,

Probably best to use chord tones to help you through it, but I'd like to see you concentrate on more fundamentals than these complicated progressions.

Hope this helps mate.

Cheers,

Josh

[David]

Thanks for your help Josh

Cheers. Mate