Hi, it's Tom Donald here from the London Contemporary
School Piano. Today I'm gonna show you three Elton John
songs you need to learn. It doesn't matter what your level is, whether
you're a complete beginner, a moderate beginner, intermediate, or you've been playing for a
while. These three songs, you'll get something out
of them. The great thing about the singer songwriter
pop geniuses like Elton John and Billy Joel, as you can always tell, their songs have been
written at a piano. They're using piano centric chords. And, you know, these chords are not too difficult
to play on piano. They might seem more difficult than a lot
of other chords due to our music theory system telling us it might have more sharps and flats
in them, but playing chords on the flats, they're so piano centric, so piano friendly,
and you don't wanna wait many years ahead until you've been studying grades for many
years before you start playing these chords. There's something critically wrong with our
exam system telling us to wait till we're up to grade five before playing scales like
E flat major, and so on. And if you've seen a lot of our videos talking
about these concepts, you might wanna subscribe to our channel. Click the bell button because we we are releasing
many, many useful videos that cover these topics. So without any further ado, I've got my Elton
John jacket on today. We're gonna start playing some Elton, and
before we start, we need to have a look at some concepts here to make sure that we've
got our chords and our fingers ready to play the songs we're going to be studying today. And so the great thing about the piano again,
is the design of the instrument, the fact that we have these beautiful chords just right
under our fingers, all ready to go. And so the first chord I'm going to show you
today is a D flat major chord. And here it is. You can see here how it's comprised and how
it's configured. You've got the D flat, the F and the A flat. And you notice it's like a boat-like shape
of the higher black keys and then the white key in the middle. And the great news is that a lot of other
chords have similar shapes. So does an E flat major chord. See, it's got the same shape. So let's firstly practice alternating between
D flat major and E flat major. Okay, now we've got that. There's also another chord with exactly the
same shape, A flat major. Here it is. So we got D flat major, E flat major, A flat
major, and then we've got G flat major. Now it has a different shape. It's all three flats there, so there's G flat
major and also B flat major has a different shape as well. It's just got the one flat B flat, D and F,
so it's a slightly different shape. So let's review all of those chords on the
flats. I'm going to play the chords in the right
hand. And just an octave base in the left hand,
four times on each chord. D flat major, E flat major, G flat major,
A flat major, B flat major. Okay, we're ready to play some Elton now. So now before we play the Elton, actually,
I'm gonna give you one more exercise. I want you to be really prepared to learn
these three songs. And this exercise is really, really useful
exercise to test how well we can change our chords between the different flats such as
B flat, E flat, and A flat and D flat, the chords, we basically just been playing. And if you'd like a copy of this sheet mixture,
part two, just visit our website, contemporaryschoolofpiano.com. Send us an email, tell us you've seen the
Elton video and you'd like a copy of Mixture part two because this is just gonna help you
prepare yourself to play a whole bunch of great pop songs on the piano from the great
pop singer songwriters on the piano such as Elton John and Billy Joel. So let's play through these chord progressions. One line at a time. C major, B flat major, F major, C major, C
major, E flat major, F major, C major. Third line, C major, A flat major, B flat
major, C major, C major D flat major, E flat major, C major, C major,
G minor, E flat major, B flat major, C minor, F minor, B flat major , E flat major. And then E flat major with a D in the base. And I'll finish on C minor. So you'll notice on that very last chord on
that page, this is what we call a slash chord. And it's when the left hand base note is different
to the chord that's being played in the right hand. And the reason why I point that out is that
Elton John uses slash chords a lot in his music. So you can just see here we've got the E flat,
then we've got the E flat with the D in the base, and the E flat remains in the right
hand. And then you can just resolve to the C minor
to finish off those exercises. And again, if you'd like a copy of this exercise
mixture, part two, just head to our website, get in touch with us and ask us, and we'll
send that to you with our compliments. It's a really useful exercise just to get
you all warmed up and ready to go to start playing some Elton John chord progression. So Elton John song number one that we're going
to look at. The first one is a classic that you all know
"Your Song". Let's have a look at the chords for this. So you can see there's quite a lot on this
page and this is a typical lead sheet for a pop song. And you know, this has been a great seventies
hit, though the song was written slightly before the seventies in 1969 but being a great
seventies hit this song, it's a narrative song. It tells a story. So you have the introduction and you can see
that on the first line there. Then you have that A section here, that's
the first verse, and then the verse repeats twice. You got the first and second time bar, and
then you got the chorus, which is the B section. And you can go back and do a third and fourth
verse, or you could continue on through to the very end. Depends how you wanna host that sing song
around the piano. Now I'm gonna make one very important distinction
here. We're not going to play the melody, we're
just going to play the chords, and there's a very good reason for that. And I could do many seminars and extra masterclasses
on how to add the melody to your song. But the reason why it's really important that
you also practice it just with chords and without the melody is well, just bear in mind,
Elton John himself doesn't play the melody on the piano. He sings it. And this music is really designed to accompany
the vocals. So it's actually good to sing along with your
own playing a little bit or just enjoy the sound of the chords and study the chords and
learn the grooves that Elton is using. And that's what we're going to be focusing
on, the grooves that elton's using when he plays the chords, because if we add the melody,
we'll lose that groove completely and really just focus on the progression. So that's a really important distinction to
make. So let's start by playing this amazing song
"Your Song". I'm going to just bring this up as well so
we can see what it is I'm doing as well. So if we look at the introduction here, I'm
just gonna play the chords without any groove at the moment, just to break down what's happening
in the chords. So we have a lot of slash chords at the beginning
here. The left hand stays on that E flat in the
base, and the name for that is a pedal point. It's when the left hand's just staying on
the same note and the chords are changing above. I'm gonna play each chord twice. E flat,
A flat, B flat, A flat. I'll just do that introduction again. And I'm not using any inversions, I just wanna
break this down for you first. Now let's play the verse. It's a little bit
funny, C minor over an A flat, which is also an A
flat major seven, by the way. This is a lovely movement here. The C minor and the C minor with the B flat
in the base, C minor with the A in the base, C minor with the A flat, B flat over the B
flat. So even just playing it in this two beats
per chord format, it's very effective. You'll notice here we have a B flat suspended
chord, and there are two types of suspended chords. I have suspended seconds and fourths. And Elton loves his suspended chords, he uses
them everywhere. So in this case, it's a suspended fourth. And what that is, is just you get the middle
of the chord and you just lift it. And we're just gonna punch out that suspended
forth twice and then resolve it back to the B flat major. And then we've got that. So now let's add the groove. I'm not going to play the whole song, I'm
just going to break down how those chords then formulate into a groove. And this is really the quintessential Elton
groove and it's a mixture of chord and arpeggio with a little bit of syncopation. And it sounds like this, and you'll recognize
the sound straight away. So I'll go from the beginning, I'm gonna just
do this very slowly. I'll
do that Again. And
This is just the introduction. And then you can apply that to the whole chord
progression there. Got the tune over the top of those wonderful
chords. I mean, aren't these just fantastic chords? No wonder this is such an iconic song. Okay, punch out those suspended fourth chords. Second verse, I'll add some versions
now And I've taught this song to many beginners
over the years. This is very playable, regardless of your
musical level. Just need to know these chords. And then you start just grooving on them. And moving between them, some of you'll need
to apply yourself and practice a little bit slowly to start with. And that's the second time bar where we finish
on the E flat and then it moves into the chorus. And I'm gonna show you now a third a third
way of playing this. We get to a more advanced way of playing this. And that's where we start adding more suspended
notes, suspended seconds particularly. So that's like the second note above the root
of the chord. There's an E flat suspended 2 resolving to
an E-flat major. And Elton tends to add these suspended chords
to his playing in a very ad hoc way. He doesn't play it the same way every time
he plays. He's not that type of musician that just plays
exactly the same thing every gig, particularly this song, he's played this song thousands
and thousands and thousands of times in his career. And there's these subtle variations. And he'll put suspended notes on some chords
and leave it off others, he will play it to how he feels at the time musically. And of course the original recording of the
piece is somewhat immortalized, where he's using a particular configuration - he puts
a suspended second on that chord. But you don't have to necessarily copy the
original recording. You can do what Elton does and, and sort of
play to your own groove and how you feel at the time with suspended chords. So that's what I'm gonna do right now. I'm gonna add a couple of suspensions as I
go along now and we'll move to finger view for this so you can see what I'm doing a bit
closer. So it's a wonderful tune and I could spend all day just
talking about "Your Song" and the wonderful chords and changes in that piece and all the
suspensions that you can add to it. But we don't have all day. So I'm gonna show you a second Elton John
song that you can start having a look at. And that's the wonderful iconic "Rocket Man". And this is from his 1972 album Honky Château. It's a wonderful, wonderful tune this is. So if you are not up to speed with your seventh
chords, you could just play the first chord there as a G minor. You don't have to put the seventh in there. It's not obligatory. You wanna get the feel of the song. And again, we're just gonna play the chords
because this is really what this is all about. It's understanding the chords. So we're gonna play the chords in the right
hand and we'll have the left hand on the bass, and here we go, "Rocket Man". I'll go from the beginning now. And then that repeats, that's the repeat sign. So let's break down those chords. We've got G minor seven to C major, four times
on each chord. Then there's a quick passing chord at the
B flat over a D, lots of slash chords here, real sort of standard Elton John stuff, E
flat, B flat over D, E flat over C, E flat over B, F over the A and then some arpeggios
to fill the space of those two bars. By the way, that little sign there, that means
you play the same chord as the last bar. That's the professional notation for that. Just
sort of break that up, fill the space. Then the second verse, Now we're the second time bar here. You see you've got the F over the A, F over
C, F, and then E-flat over F. So we'll look at that second time bar again, F over A, F
over C, F, then E flat over F, chorus. There's the chorus, wonderful chorus with
B flat, B flat over D, E flat, E flat over F, B flat, B flat over D, E flat, B flat over
D. Then the C major, it's like a quick movement there. C major, really great stuff. This is quick passing chord here. E flat, B flat, and then there's another verse,
another chorus. And then the song finishes out just on a fade
out of B flat and E flat. It's just moving between those chords. So you can host a sing song around the piano
with your family and friends, singing songs like Your Song and Rocket Man just playing
through these chords. Really powerful stuff. And you know, everyone's going to love it
because it's Elton. I mean, everyone loves Elton. So and now we go to the last song. Now the last song, I want to give you a little
bit of a music theory test here in the last song. See if you've been watching our other videos
on our YouTube channel. And if you haven't, well you can always click
the subscribe button to see when our new videos come out, because we've spoken a lot in previous
videos about chord progressions and about how we have seven chords that fit the scale. And those chords seem to, that are often used
in patterns over and over and over again in, in many different types of pop songs. And this this pop song by Elton, this is his
first ever number one hit in the UK, actually. And in 1989, or was it 1990? It was one of those two years. And the song is called "Sacrifice". And it's a song many of you will know. And it's a beautiful song, song. It's quite sad song actually. But it's a really beautiful song. And it's amazing how Elton has written so
many incredible songs over many eras and it's very simple pop music writing, but it's in
a very beautiful key. And I think that's the secret of this song. That's the DNA behind it. It's in this beautiful lush key of D flat
major. Certainly not enough pop songs in D flat major,
but of course it's gonna take a pianist to do that because it's such a great key for
the piano. And you would've seen some of our previous
videos where I talk about the scale of D flat major, how beautiful and powerful it is. So we're going to analyze this song. So we've got chords one,
Chords two, chords four, chords five, chords six. Let's do that again. 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 in the key of D flat major. And so the verse of this song sacrifice uses
chords 1, 4, 2, 5, 1, 4, 2, 5. So it's just a really lovely progression,
a very simple progression, 1, 4, 2, 5, but just looped around for the verse. And then there's a little bit of a turnaround
in the verse of chord 6, 4, 5. Let's do that again. 6, 4, 5 Chord one,
chord two, chord five So you get that lovely feel of the verse of
1, 4, 2, 5 with that turnaround of six, four, and five. And then you've got the chorus Chord two Chord five
chord one chord two, chord five, chord four, then 1,
4, 2, and 5, which repeats for the instrumental section as well. So I've enjoyed sharing those three wonderful
Elton John songs with you and I have a little bit of a bonus. For those of you who are Elton John fans,
I have a bit of a test for you today actually. I've put together a playlist of 15 Elton John
songs that you have never heard before. Elton John's back catalog is absolutely remarkable. And there's so many incredible Elton John
songs that are just lesser known. So I wanna put you to the test again, just
go to our website, drop us an email or contact us and ask for the Elton John Spotify playlist
15 unheard deep cuts from Elton John. To put your knowledge to the test. And if you are not an Elton John fan, by the
way, you will be converted when you hear the 15 absolutely remarkable pieces of music that
I'm gonna share with you on that Spotify playlist. But in the meantime, enjoy practicing these
three classics, Your Song, Rocket Man, Sacrifice, learning your chords on the flats, scales
on the flats, and moving ahead your piano playing. I'll see you soon. Bye-Bye.
