A Piano Exercise That Will Brighten Up Your Practice

Looking for a beginner friendly piano exercise?  Let's get into this exercise that sounds good, will warm up your fingers, and  will brighten up your piano [Music] practice, I call this the "Soundtrack Exercise".  This is based on a course progression 6-4-1-5. This is a core progression that lots of composers  use in soundtrack, hence the soundtrack exercise. We're currently in the key of B flat major. So B  flat major chord 6 is G minor. So G, B flat and D. For this exercise, both of our hands

are always  playing the same notes. Okay, so we have G, B flat and D - that's our first one. Okay, our next chord  is an E flat Major chord but we're going to invert this. Okay, just to make the shifting of our hands  a little bit easier, so instead of going down here to E flat major. We're actually going to stay  around this area and move the D to the E flat. So just like that. And it gives us the rough  equivalent of E flat major. It's the inverted one. So this is the first inversion of E  fla

t major. Next we're going to move to B flat major. So we're going to have an F, B flat  and a D. Okay so this is also an inverted chord of B flat major. This is the second inversion  of B flat major. And finally we're going to end with F major. This is the root one, the root  chord of F major, F, A, C. Just to recap again, we have four chords 6 - 4 - 1 - 5. We start on  G minor, go to E flat major, go to B flat major, and end with F major. In this quick exercise  video tutorial, I want to share

with you three... three levels. So Level 1 is just playing them in  "Block Chords". So let's warm them up just like this and repeat. I love the sound. So Level 2 we're going to move on to  something a little bit hard. This is what I showed you at the start of the video. Now  we are going to play them in the arpeggio form. We're going to break these chords apart.  We're going to break them up, play them broken and we're going to do a bit of a contrary motion.  So we're going to start outside and

come in like this. Start outside and venture in next chord, And if you notice as well I'm  doing kind of a slight wrist movement just to release tension. As you progress in this exercise  and as it starts to get a little bit easier, try to then increase the speed as [Music] well. I love this exercise because it sounds  very epic. I'm actually using the pedal as well if you can't already tell. Uh I love  this level too because it really syncs up my hands together. To do this before I practice  pi

ano so.... What you're trying to do with this exercise is trying to really sync up so that  your right and left hand are playing exactly at the same time. So you might find as you  do this you might encounter a problem like this, not fully being synced up. So I want you to  really think about it right and left hand 1,000% together. Especially when you're playing fast this problem is going to be more prevalent.  We're moving on to Level 3. Now this is a slightly more advanced level of this exerci

se. This is  where I'm going to try to get you to do some IMPROVISING. This is for roughly more intermediate  and advanced pianists. But I do want you to try this, which is we're going to start on our  G minor chord but this time I want you to move to a new chord and decide for yourself what  chords you want to move to. As a very simple rule, you just need to change either 1 note or 2 notes  every time you change a chord. So, for example, let me just explain in the exercise I  had for you today

it started on G minor. And as I change the D to E flat, that changed the  chord. Okay, so a chord has 3 notes. Every time you change, even just one note, the entire chord  changes. So G minor to E flat major. Okay, I just changed one note to get to there. You can change  1 note or 2 notes if you want sometimes. You can change all 3 notes but just as a very simple rule.  Let's try to do an improvisational exercise where you start on G minor and just going to move  around. Okay so let me just give

you an idea of what to do, I'm going to start with G minor.  Maybe I change the middle one now, top two now, bottom top two. Try this exercise. It's a lot of fun. It's a lot  of experimenting. Part of the piano player's life is all about expanding your soundscape. In this  tutorial you learned four chords 6 - 4 -1 - 5, (G minor, E flat major, B flat major, F major) but  now in level 3 let's try to start on G minor and try to venture into other chords by yourself.  It's not so important to reall

y fully analyze what chords and what chords for now. But just  try to move one or two notes at a time and see where the sound takes you. For some of you  this improvisational exercise might give you a bit of anxiety to feel like oh there's no  structure. But try to go with it. Try to just see where the sound takes you. Experiment, try  to listen to what sounds good and later try to replay those chords and try to figure out  what chords those are. This is how I also got really good at piano chord

s. And learning  them by just having fun, experimenting moving into different chords and then with my own ears  and my own heart trying to listen to what sounds good. Hope you had fun with this soundtrack  exercise. Let me know in the comments how you went with it. I'll  catch you in the next piano tutorial.