Chords

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If I'm playing solo, I tend to play bass lines with my left hand, and then melody/chords with the right. Typically the melody outlines the chords, anyway, and then you can kind of add some harmony notes in between to fill it out. The problem that A) the bass is the most important part and it needs to be covered, and B) chords don't sound very good (for acoustic reasons) very low.

The times you'll need to play chords in the left hand and melody in the right are situation like small combos where you've got a bass player covering the bass but where the piano is playing the chords and melody. Not very common in pop and rock, but all the time in jazz.

For starting off, I would concentrate on learning bass and chords, and then bass and melody. Chords and melody is a little more advanced to do and is not as common, as I mentioned.

As for which chords to learn, I wouldn't concern yourself with "how many chords on the piano are possible", it's not particularly relevant for what you need. Concentrate on learning the "chords of the key" you are playing in. So start with the key of C Major, and learn the I, ii, IV, V, and vi chords (C, Dm, F, G, Am). Very little music uses the iii or the vii, so you can ignore those. Go through easy tunes and you'll find that they often use same combinations of chords (progressions). Once you learn a few tunes, you'll start to pick up on those patterns and you can translate them to other songs.
 
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So lets get this right!

If you want to play pop type music the chords are on the right hand and melody on the left and if you want to play classical or jazz the chords on the right and melody on the left?

Hmm .....
 

Fred Coulter

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if you want to play classical [...] the chords on the right and melody on the left

That's not necessarily the case.

Here the melody(s) is in both the right and left hand. There are no chords played (although the harmony is implied).
upload_2017-7-13_8-44-4.png


Here the melody is in the right hand, the chords are in the right hand (and a little in the left), while the bass in in the left hand.
upload_2017-7-13_8-47-38.png

Same melody, but this time in the bass, with chords on the right.
upload_2017-7-13_8-58-12.png


Here's an example of the melody in the right hand, a bass drone, a bit of harmonic movement, and a counter melody in the left hand.
upload_2017-7-13_8-50-20.png

The melody on the right and the chords on the left.
upload_2017-7-13_8-51-21.png


Chords in both hands (skipping the bass run in measures five through eight).
upload_2017-7-13_8-52-11.png


And chords spread across both hands:
upload_2017-7-13_8-55-5.png

upload_2017-7-13_8-55-23.png



(Everything other than the first sample is from the same piece of music. For extra points, see if you can identify it.)

In conclusion, saying anything about where the chords, melody, etc., of classical keyboard music is a waste of time. Composers will do whatever the heck they want, whether it's playable or not. (Piano music on three staffs just to make it easier to read. Still two hands.)

upload_2017-7-13_8-59-21.png


Yeah, I skipped Twentieth Century compositions. With a lot of those, it's hard to identify chords, melody, etc. (My father played some world premiers of Stockhausen's Klavierstucke. The pieces were on poster board, and you followed from one fragment of score to another, to another. I'm not at all sure that I could analyze them in terms of melody, etc.)
 
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Fred Coulter

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what is that monster thing with zillions of buttons he used in the video?

It's an organ.

220px--Flight_of_the_Bumblebee_on_Pipe_Organ_Pedals.webm.jpg


I'm not sure what brand it is, but from first glance it's an electronic realization of a theater organ, with the added capabilities that electronics brings in.

Organs can easily grow to four manuals (keyboards - generally five octaves each) plus a pedal board of 30 or 32 pedals for playing bass lines. (The number of pedals is determined by whether the organ follows American Guild of Organist specifications or whoever the equivalent body is in Europe.) Inexpensive home organs might have smaller keyboards and pedal boards.

Salemer_M%C3%BCnster_Orgel_Spieltisch_und_Pedal.jpg
 
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SeaGtGruff

I meant to play that note!
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Wersi makes some pretty fancy organs, but I don't see any on their web site that has buttons like that over the upper manual. Yamaha also makes some fancy Electone organs.

Fred, since you had previously mentioned playing the pedalboard, I'm surprised you didn't post the video that went with that picture-- very impressive footwork!

 

Fred Coulter

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Fred, since you had previously mentioned playing the pedalboard, I'm surprised you didn't post the video that went with that picture-- very impressive footwork!

Didn't even know there was a video; I was just looking for a better picture of an organ. Yes, that's impressive.
 

SeaGtGruff

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Didn't even know there was a video

I was just poking at you. :) I saw the same still image, too, before I found the video. All I know is that if I were to attempt that, my left foot would be stomping on and tripping over my right foot, and vice versa. Also, I'd have to keep looking at the pedal board to see where my feet were supposed to be going next.
 

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