Master The 1 4 And 5 Chords Of Every Key With This Simple Exercise 

You're welcome, Jim - I appreciate the kind words!

You're welcome, James - funnily enough, I often watch guitar tutorials for the same reason (despite being the world's worst guitarist 😂). Anyhow, thanks for the kind words!

I'm a piano Noobie and Bill's channel is always a great resource. I love his teaching style. I also listen to other instruments since music is music. I've learned a lot from a guitarist and especially a saxophone player. I'm going to see if my video about exercises and self-treatment for piano players (and other musicians, LOL) will be edited soon. I might set up my own channel. I'm a Chiropractor that had to adapt my techniques because of a major shoulder injury. But the nice thing was that I developed techniques for the shoulder, and the whole arm. Great for finger strength. Stay tuned.

You're welcome, Kevin - I'm really glad it helped!

Thank you - really glad it helped!

You're welcome, Jimmy - keep working away, and shout if you have any questions!

You're welcome Adam!

You're welcome, Jen - give me a shout if you have any questions or get stuck anywhere!

You’re welcome! I’m currently working on a tutorial on the 1564 chord progression that you might find useful, too, so watch out for that. And any questions you happen to have, just give me a yell in the comments - always happy to help if I can! 🙌

Thanks John - glad you liked it!

That's interesting, Lawrence - I've often thought about making a tutorial about avoiding and dealing with injury. Problem is I'm a piano player rather than a doctor or a physiotherapist, so everything would have to be hedged around with "remember to get professional advice because I'm just a guy who plays" etc etc etc

Really glad it helped! As a drummer you should find that hand coordination comes relatively easy to you (by "relatively" I mean "easier than it does for most people"!). Give me a shout if you have any questions about anything as you keep moving forward.

Glad it was helpful, Reuben. If you need anything explaining in more detail, or have any questions at any point, just let me know. I sometimes take a while to reply (I get a lot of messages!) but I always do!

Excellent - glad you like it! It's certainly supposed to be enjoyable and satisfying, but remember to keep challenging yourself, too: it should feel enjoyable in the way a good workout is enjoyable, if you see what I mean!

I do try to bury little Easter eggs in these things sometimes (the previous tutorial had a bit of Radiohead…) but in this case that wasn't planned at all. I don't even know the song, so I'm going to go and listen to it now…!

@@BillHilton In 1978, when I was what Brits call a "radio presenter," the Styx album was very popular...so much so that my ear connected those chord sounds immediately. I am certain you will recognize it!

@@arthouston7361 I did!

Thanks for the kind words, Pradeep - yes, I can understand you getting more out of that old video if harmonisation is what you're interested in. This one is much more aimed at people trying to develop strong foundations for piano improvisation skills. Do let me know if you have any ideas or requests for future tutorials: I have quite a long backlog at the moment but stuff that I know is in demand often gets bumped up the list :)

You're welcome, Christine, and thanks for the support on Patreon!

You're welcome - if you have any questions, feel free to ask!

You're welcome!

Thanks Bill, glad you liked it!

My pleasure!

You're welcome!

You're welcome - glad to have helped!

You're welcome! It kind of varies by style. C, F and G (and their relative minors, Am, Dm and Em) are universally common. Then pop and rock tend to use a lot of "sharp" keys like A, D and E (because they're guitar-friendly) whereas in jazzier stuff flat keys are more common (because they're more comfortable on a lot of wind instruments, and indeed on the piano), so that's things like Bb and Eb - plus all the relative minors. Does that help?

@@BillHilton That helps a lot, thanks very much.

Welcome back! Yes, I've kept going, and with a bit of luck there's more to come...!

De rien!

Aha, yes - all those black note with a few white ones just to make things stretchy and difficult! It'll do you good though!

That's a great suggestion, Jino! Unfortunately October is now pretty planned out, but I might try to sneak something in somewhere...

Thanks for the kind words, Brian! The "keyboard on screen" thing is something I've played about with over the years, but I've yet to find a way of doing it that I really like. I also think there's something to be said for making viewers do a little bit of work to figure out which notes are being played (I know it seems cruel, but bear with me...!) because it sends them to the keyboard quicker and makes them use their ears. I may be wrong and I may change my mind about that, so watch this space...!

Bill Hilton thanks Bill for the prompt reply, and yes you are absolutely correct...I am too lazy to replay the video at a slower speed and see what your playing.. sometimes cruel can be kind :-)...take care now ..

@@brianwallington9744 And you, Brian - let me know if you have any more questions!

And from #Yorkshire!

@@BillHilton please do make tutorial for keyboard players who sing like how to backup singing and all

@@vysakhpviswanath6258 I'll bear that one in mind, Vysakh. If it's of interest, I already have several tutorials on the art of "comping" - ie, accompanying oneself or others while singing. Here's a playlist: ru-vid.com/group/PLpOuhygfD7QncJYGo0b-lQXYlmwIVoMfe --- some of these are quite old, so I might do some remakes soon!

It's to do with cadences. Basically the motion from a major V to the I (whether the I is major or minor) has a much stronger sense of motion and completeness than it does if the V is minor. I think it's a lot easier to hear if you play around with 7 chords - try using the diatonic i7-iv7-v7 in a minor key, notice how it kind of doesn't feel like it's going anywhere. Then replace the diatonic v7 with a dominant V7 chord (major triad with a minor third added on top), and just hear how much nicer it sounds. You can actually do this substitution of a dominant 7th chord any time you're going to move harmonically down a fifth to create a strong sense of motion and anticipation. Take any chord you want to "go to", and insert before it a dominant 7th chord a fifth above it, regardless of whether it fits in the key or not. That's called a "secondary dominant", they show up a lot in jazz and sound really nice! Another (maybe less confusing?) way to think of it is in terms of note distance. Look at A minor: the I chord is A-C-E and the diatonic V chord would be E-G-B, or G-B-E if you invert it. Now compare the notes when you go from the V to the I - they both have an E; you have a G moving to an A which is motion by a whole step; and you have a B moving to a C which is motion by a half step. Now, if you were to make that V chord major instead of minor, that means raising the third, so the G becomes G#, and now that whole step movement becomes half step movement. So all the notes of the two chords are either staying the same or moving by a half step. That feels a lot "stronger", because half steps inherently have more tension than whole steps, and interesting harmonic movement is about tension and release. Maybe this is more confusing, I'm not sure!

Hi Emanuel! Basically, Grant's explanation (below) is very good. Shout if you have any more questions arising from it, though. On the Piano Packs, the first one don't contain a practice plan as such you certainly could use it to structure your practice, and the next five (or more, if I keep going after February) I'm going to structure with practice routes more clearly in mind. I'd be delighted to see you on Patreon, but I wouldn't want you to sign up unless you're sure it's right for you - so drop me an email if you'd like a preview of the first pack :)

It is - very much built for the stage, hence the "robust" key noise!

A very fair point, Quentin, and one I'm very much in sympathy with, even though I wrote the headline! The problem is that the current dynamics of RU-vid, and of social media in general, are such that slight (or more than slight...) hyperbole is necessary to make an impact. I'd like to return to my former, modest ways ("you might find this quite useful..."), as I personally very much prefer people and businesses who undersell and overdeliver. Unfortunately, though, I'm competing for clicks with a lot of channels that are happy to oversell heavily... and, in some cases, not to deliver as well as they might. This has resulted in a kind of headline arms race that I don't much like, but which I'm sort of stuck with. With a bit of luck the culture will shift again soon. Sorry, too, that you find it aimless! I'm going to have to put that one down to not being able to satisfy everyone all the time, which is pretty much impossible now that I'm at 250k+ subscribers. TBH it didn't feel quite "right" when I was making it, so I'm quite relieved that quite a few people do seem to like it. With a bit of luck something will come along soon that you'll like. That said, I like to stay on top of what people are looking for - so what sort of tutorials do you like best?

In my opinion this step would have a big impact in mastering though.

Sure thing! Check out my course for beginners - its very old school and thorough! ru-vid.com/group/PLpOuhygfD7QnP46wUgQudOySX_z2UOhXs

Glad you liked it! I do - when I get notified of them. For some reason my FB lets a backlog of the things build up before notifying me. Will check now...

I *think* I've just replied to you....!

I realise ads are annoying, Christian, but I would respectfully point out that you're not paying for these tutorials otherwise. I, on the other hand, need to pay my mortgage and feed my family. That means I can either (a) work full time and not have time to make these tutorials; or (b) advertise my stuff in order to make an income, and therefore have time to make them. I very much sympathise with you wanting to get straight on with stuff - I'm the same when I'm watching anything - but until money starts growing on trees, this is the model we're stuck with, I'm afraid!

@@BillHilton I fully understand the model, I'm just pointing out that it's not a good idea to talk about your patreon at the very start. Just start with the juice. Great video btw!

@@disenchanted3724 Thanks! Yes, I find the Patreon-at-the-start thing awkward: it's just that if I put it towards the middle or the end I find it gets far less take up, and I'm trying to grow my Patreon community at the moment. One good thing is that those ads are, hopefully, temporary: I've positioned them so I can easily cut them out with YT's editing tool once my Patreon recruitment campaign is done. So you're going to see them crop up in quite a few videos between now and early next year, but after that they should magically vanish!

@@BillHilton I understand. But beware that many will be upset and will not continue with the video if you do it that way. Instead, why not put out a good show, and then put the campaign at the end of the video where they can skip it by choice. Maybe they can make up their minds to support you after a few good watch. Don't worry about the "less take up", what's important is to look professional, and then get a loyal fanbase. I guess that's how it works. :)

@@disenchanted3724 Yes, I know it will annoy a number of people. The loyalty-building model you're describing is something I've done for years now: lots of content, then advertising at the end. It's certainly the way I prefer to do it, but based on results, front-loading the promotional material delivers better returns. It's not exactly how I want to do it, because I'm very much of your mind - but I have to do what works. Thanks for the insight, though: I always think that reasoned criticism helps me do things better!

I feel the same way but at the same time I think the more familiar we are with the “common” stuff, the better informed we are in what ways we are able to break away from it.

I'm glad you liked it, Sparky, and thanks for the feedback - insights like that are very useful. You've actually hit on a couple of really interesting dilemmas that I have to wrestle with every time I make a tutorial like this. The first is that RU-vid contains a large minority of people who want to run before they can walk. If I were being totally straightforward, I'd like to label a tutorial like this as being for "relative beginners" - because that's what it is (albeit the term "beginner" itself is pretty awkward sometimes, as it means different things to different people in different situations). The problem with the "B" word is that it attracts a lot of *absolute* beginners, for whom a tutorial like this isn't necessarily the best starting point, while also putting off the "run before they can walk" crowd - who, don't get me wrong, are often great people, very highly engaged with their learning - and they then head to more advanced tutorials and ask a lot of elementary questions in the comments because they've skipped the basics. The labelling I use is designed to get this thing under the noses of people who need it - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Second, as a RU-vid creator there's also a moral dilemma to deal with. When talking to beginners or intermediate players in particular there is often a gulf between what those individuals say they want and what I (in my role as, I guess, "the expert") believe they need. I could produce nothing but flashy material that flattered my audience (and raked in a lot of cash...) but which didn't give them the kind of training and information they need to make genuine progress. So what I try to do is square the circle and produce stuff that provokes interest and get clicks while also slipping the genuinely useful information in under the radar, as it were. It's a tricky balancing act, and feedback from thoughtful commenters like yourself is like gold dust. So feel free to hit me up with more thoughts whenever you like...!

As in anything, fundamentals need to be mastered before they can be tweaked. Don’t be afraid of foundational material, you have to know the rules before you can break them. All the masters do this, in all forms of art.