That truly was an epic lesson. Information packed and fantastically delivered. Thanks so much. Seriously well done.

just started learning piano last june but had a background of piano theory...and im on my 20s... this is a good video Step 1 1:50 Step 2 4:48 Step 3 10:08 Step 4 16:01 Step 5 17:50

Thanks for the video, this is perfect for my kind-of-understand-music-theory-but-also-not-really level

Thank you breaking down the steps! At an even more rudimentary level, here are just three main steps I figured out and personally used to learn how to play songs & melodies on the fly, extemporaneously, and by ear presented in my 55-word poem titled “I Can Jive in 55!” To play song by ear end song on note C to make learning easy by avoiding black keys. To add chords to song play root BELOW melody on main down beats at intervals 1, 5, or 3. Now play each chord by following the root with notes 5, 8, 10 then add notes to suit. **The one thing that made it all suddenly click for me was focusing on the root-melody note intervals with the realization that the root note is either 1, 3, or 5 note intervals BELOW the melodic notes played on the main down beats (or immediately after the down beats following a passing note). This enabled me to find the chords just by mirroring whatever notes are played on the right hand and suddenly enabling me to play a song in any key.

I am a beginner pianist and your channel is one of the most useful channels in KZfaq, especially technically. I rarely comment but this time I would just like to share what I love from this channel: it is the topic and the explanation you give is always so much detailed, complex and lengthy. The downside of it is of course they can be pretty boring to watch sometimes and many technical jargons you say make me unable to digest your lesson right away hahaha, I always need to replay twice or more to fully grasp it. But (and it's a big but ;) if somehow I can tolerate or pass them through, your complicated lessons can eventually be very rich and insightful. As I grow up to be more familiar with your fast and sophisticated explanation, I came to find that your contents gave me so many stuffs I cannot get in other channels. And just for that, I need to say "thank you very much". Keep sharing your knowledges, please. -a beginner pianist from Indonesia

thank you so much Bill Hilton! I'm going to play piano accompaniment (for the first time) in sunday school in 2 weeks time. your videos are so helpful

This is one of the best tutorial i have ever listened to, i actually learned so much thank you

This is by far the best video I have ever seen! I can pick the melody by ear but always wonder how chords work. This video is definitely going to help me. Thank You so much Sir !!

THANK you for your wonderful videos! I am coming back to piano, 20 years after childhood lessons. You make playing SO much more fun and easy than I remember it being.

Thank you for posting this video. Might be helpful to start by presenting an overview of the main steps or idea. When you put it all in a nut shell, one can find the chords by playing with left hand pinky the notes at 1, 3, or 5 note intervals (+1 octave) BELOW the melodic note played on down beats or immediately after the down beat following a PASSING note in the melody (as in the song hap-py-BIRTH-day).

Thanks Bill. I was directed to this video from your video on "3 Left Hand Chord Patterns", which by the way is an excellent video. This video really cleared up a lot of things for me concerning playing the melody with the proper chord on the BEAT. as always your videos are right on point.

Finally someone plainly mentions that Chord progression is not objective or fixed for a given melody. I have not seen anyone remotely suggesting that since they are too dumb and amateur to even understand these fundamental basics. We can improvise and change chords, however it should be under those definite canonical ways. This is the best tutorial of Chords on YT.

Brilliantly simplified Bill. Thanks. Appreciate your efforts to pull a complete understanding together into developmental steps. A great reference piece to keep coming back to as Chord accompanyment develops. Schaun.

Hi Bill. As a self learner, I had not appreciated that I need to learn major and minor chord scales specific for every key to ensure that every note in all the chords belong to the key. I mistakenly thought that chord progressions simply meant applying the progression number for the key to identify a standard major or standard minor root chord which meant notes in the chord not necessarily belonging to the key.

This is so helpful, thank you!

Bill thank you so much I absolutely love your Channel. I feel like you're answering all the questions I ever had about music but never knew where to look. I feel invigorated and ready to learn you're an amazing teacher. I look very forward to all your videos and I'm going to take a look at your book. Awesome Channel

Excellent tutorial. I would be very interested to know more about how to use sus 4 or sus 2 chords and how they resolve to their natural chords in a chord progression. If two chords side by side in a progression share the same root note but are different chords then you are resolving to a basic minor or major chord and not resolving to the tonic. It's harder for me to work out chord progression in those situations. What I mean is when you go from a C sus 4 followed by a C major chord or alternatively when you go from a C7 to a C chord. I think you touched on that in part 5.

Excellent tutorial. Its very useful lesson for learners.

Excellent teacher. It’s really helping me to enjoy piano practice again. Thanks Bill

Really helpful, provides a lot of useful tips and insights into working out the chords. I really hope you will do more of this type of lessons, for more advanced songs (popular ones) and to figure it out by ear. Solfege / singing has helped me a bit, but maybe you can give new insights. And will you do lessons about how to play keys in a band, I'd greatly appreciate that! I bought your 7 studies book.

Exactly what I was looking for - great tutorial!

Hi I just wanted to say that your lessons are really well explained and it explains things without going overboard!! Very well done

What a thorough explanation sir. Thank you very much, I appreciate it! You should be very proud of this video.

Great lesson! The method behind the madness is a lot clearer now, thanks.

Really love this video. Great breakdown.

Thank you so much! Your videos are so clear and informative

Bill, wow, another Class A video, Sir! I must share with you that I have studied around six other videos on this topic and they never worked for me. BILL this video works for me!!!!!!!!! I am going to study, memorize and apply it, first learningvit in sections and then eventually putting it all together during my daily piano practice a little by little to really make it my own and I never could have done it withoyt you, Bill! I am so excited to finally have an open doorway to walk through into enhancing my pianism in the realm of this critical musical skill-thank you a million times, thank you😁 May I please ask you a question and just answer at your own convenience. What do you honestly think, please?: Frequently, when playing Albumblatt (Fur Elise) in the key of A minor, my fingers without my mind's direction improvises right into Beethoven's famous piece of his romance gone wrong and I think it could be so much fun for me to listen to what is coming forth from my fingers, without even thinking about it. FIRST, is it disrespectful to Beethoven to improvise into His famous works? That is why I always stop myself from doing so and I never allow myself to enjoy it for not desiring to be disrespectful. Bill is it okay and possibly even educational to allow myself to listen to my fingers production into His famous works? Take care, Friend-Thank you and May God Bless you and yours😁

Very passionate video! Thank you very much

One of the best tutorials I've found. Thanks Bill!

Awesome! Learned a lot here!

your book cover designs are great!

I have a song which I wrote years ago.... I figured out the piano intro for the song, However I stopped after the lyrics started, didn't know which keys to press to make it suitable for the song

Brilliant. As usual 😀 thank you, keep doing the great job

Your videos are so great!! Thank you so much for your generosity with sharing them with us!

Thanks so much! I started learning piano yesterday and this helps a lot. 🙂

Thank you so much Bill for your detailed and clearly explained video!!

Hey Bill, another great tutorial, I always love learning basic music theory from you that is actually really useful. I understand that what you've got going is a bit more music theory, and buildup of skills, but as you say in this video, playing songs is a great way to gain experience, so I was wondering if you ever considered doing a tutorial on a song or two. I know that the types of tutorials you do now are difficult, and are much appreciated. While I'm sure that teaching a song is also difficult, and might not be the thing you're going for, perhaps it would free you from considering what subject to next cover, and how to boil it down to a practical level, and allow you to simply help with a song or two. Just a thought, likely an unoriginal one as well, and I've no idea how one goes about this, but obviously I already love the videos you're putting out now. Thanks. Always looking forward to your videos. Nate

Hi Bill, nice lesson on harmonisation. For a subsequent tutorial, would you maybe consider doing something about voicing seventh chords in a given chord progression to accompany a melody (possibly a Christmas tune at this time of year)? Thanks and looking forwrd to the next vid.

Your videos are amazing . Thank you so much for helping me learn all this !

Love your lessons!! Thank you Bill.

thank u very much sir

Brilliant work, as usual. Thanks.

This video only made me more confused. I'm trying to figure out the chords of the intro of Uprooted by The Antlers. I have the melody figured out E3, E3-D2, D2-G#3, F#3-E3-C#4 E3-G#3, E3, E3-D#3 But it doesn't sound right at all when I follow this tutorial

you are simply amazing. thank you

Great stuff... Many thanks.

Great video !

These are excellent videos :) Thanks for posting !

Brilliant tutorial. Thanks for sharing

thanks a lot, it's really well done

Thanks Bill, great lessons👍👍👍

thank you!!!!

Is it just me or do 7th chords almost always sound nicer than their triad counterparts.

How would you apply this to Moon River, which appears to be a simple melody but uses chords that are not obvious? For example, in two measures where the melody note on the first beat is B but the chord is F.

Great lesson - thanks for your efforts on this video. Helpful!

I haven't understand anything even i watch whole video😅 Btw nice playing and you have an awesome voice😊👍 Well subscribed

Great stuff

Thank you very much for sharing this

That was so interesting, thanks.

Wow, what an explanation. Very interesting video.

I have a number of full score arrangements for easy piano. I would like to fatten them up a bit by adding additional notes to the right handed melody notes, and maybe adding the 9th to the left hand etc. The problem is that there are no written chord symbols to guide me. Is there an easy way to work out the chords in the arrangement ?

jups, thank you very very much!👍

After watching I tried to work out 'Inside of me' by Madonna but I was not able to do it. Then I cheated and looked up the first page of the score. It is in Bb minor, and surprisingly the song never goes to the tonic, at least on the first page !!! There is Gbmaj7 (the VI), Ebm9 (the IV), and Fm7(4) (the V), but it does not resolve to Bbm (the I), and when I hear the song, it apparently continues like that. This was really bad luck, and I assume that this situation is rare in pop songs.

Thank you! This was a huge help. Excellent tutorial!!!!👍🏽

Bill you're My Hero. You make learning how to play the piano a feast! Thx. Will order your book right away

How would you know what's the on beat for different time signatures? Like 3/4 for example?

Sir very nicely explained I really want to learn how to play instrumental music will I be able to learn it just by learning chords Plzzzz help in guiding me sir I don't have any tutor. Love💓 from INDIA 🇮🇳

Bought your book yay

Wow I love playing the 🎹 piano BC of this video 😍😍😍😍😍

Great, thanks!

Actually so helpful wow

yes I like your way how you do it .. I do it similary .. but not so profesional like you :) but is great to whatch it form somebody who know how to do it :)

Another excellent tutorial! The methods shown here are golden that's for sure. Thanks so much. Ben --- a personal question here ---- do you have the 'perfect pitch/absolute pitch' attribute? ! As in - do you have that ability of absolute/perfect pitch?

Thanks a lot sir! 🙏

I bought your book and find it valuable for reference, dipping in and "cherry picking". As regards finding chords, this video is very helpful - but I find that I can chord the significant notes in a melody by playing a triad with the left hand keeping the melody note in the middle of the triad (sometimes improving the sound with slight alterations of the 1 and 5 note). What's up with that?

Maestro! Gracias!

Nice

Do you have any video course?....I love your teaching style, and I'm looking for some online course that is step by step, and will also have exercises for being fluent in keyboard.

So good teacher

Many thanks Bill! Do u have a tutorial on using slash chords when arranging traditional songs!

When to use diminished chords?

what happens if the chords are played in a syncopated rhythm, will the melody correspond to the beats? or the syncopated chords when you say on beats and off beats?

Hey :) Really love your tutorials! Which piano do you have?

Great!

hi bill,can i ask a question..this is for my left hand piano playing..if i am playing octave on left hand(thumb and pinky),for example im in F(octave) and the next note to be played is A(octave),my question is should i look on my pinky OR thumb finger when switching another note?thanks bill.do you know what i mean?thanks

Hello

can u plz tell how to find the most perfect chord progression easily in a stage programme for an unknown song

Mr Hilton,I would like to draw your attention on this,am from Ghana and I am really in need of your Book "how to really play the piano" but can't find one here to purchase,do you have a distribution outlet here in Ghana?

thanks Bill, your tutorials are really helpful but still I find it difficult to figure out notes of song by ear will you please help me to find them out

This was just what I was looking for 😂

can you explain what you did with Am to Em and tgen made Emaj chord or like Adding Eb to C scale

Hi.what is the name of that keyboard??

Nice song please help me to play step by step instructions for me urgently

Thank you so much for creating these videos. It's really helpful, and I learned more about chord and music than the traditional classical music training.

🙏 thank u

What if probability is wrong and the first chord is not how we predict it to be. What do we do then?

Please help me how to play hymnal songs

Hi

Thx, really helpfull!!

What if a song sounds neither major or minor? Trying to transcribe dragon age inquisition theme, but having trouble determining if it's major or minor. Thoughts?

Glad you didn't mention that every song can be played in any key lol that throws a curve ball in things