My Color Music

I’ve said it before … and I’ll say it again: All great musicians are total nerds.  And that’s how they got so good. But you’ll sometimes see musicians who naturally have more mojo. Like they were born with an extra dose of suaveness.

To see what I mean, check out the following shortlist of extra cool musicians. Am I right … or am I wrong? Do these musicians seem especially cool to you?

Music basically took these guys to the next level. Sure, they might have made some pretty cool accountants, police officers, or airline pilots. But they’re all especially hip because of music.

So, all I want to know is … what will music do for you?

After you’ve had a little practice, it’s easy to add chords to any melody. You just have to play the melody with your right … and hit the chords with your left hand. It’s as simple as that. And this combination of notes makes our music sound a lot more interesting.

But things get even more interesting when we change chords in a song. After all, the C major chord isn’t the only game in town. We can play all sorts of chords to create some very cools sounds. For example, check out the song “Mary Had a Little Lamb” below. By adding an extra G major chord to the mix, everything sounds a little better.

Now that we’ve added another chord, our left hand gets to move a little more throughout the song. And it’s kind of fun. Instead of keeping our fingers in place over the C major chord, we get to move back and forth between C major and G major … like this:

Both chords have the same note pattern of “1-3-5,” so we can keep our left hand in the same basic shape. We just have to move our hands quickly enough to play the correct chord at the start of each measure. Don’t worry if you need to glance down every once in a while … to make sure you’re hands are moving to the right place.

Just like before, try playing each part separately first. Start out by focusing on the melody. Once you’ve played it alone a couple of times, your right hand will be ready. Then play through the chords to get a feel for how they should sound. And when each hand can play its part, try putting them together. The end result will sound awesome.

Right now, it might still be difficult to get your hands playing together. But honestly, that’s okay. If you’ve already mastered the art of playing chords with a melody, then you’re a fast learner. And if you need some more practice (don’t we all?), then try playing this next song. It’s a classic and one you’ve definitely heard before.

Again, this new song is pretty simple. All we have to do is play a C major chord at the start of each measure with our left hand. And with our right hand, we’ll play the notes of the melody … which is based on the C major scale (like all the songs we’ve played so far).

Just like before, it may help if you practice the melody alone with your right hand first. Then, once you know which notes to play and when to play them, go through the song hitting just the chords in each measure with your left hand. Once each hand knows its part, go back to the beginning of the song and play each measure … mixing both parts together.

It also helps to focus on playing one measure at a time. For example, as you go through this song, remember to play both hands together at the start of each measure. And keep your left hand in place until your right hand has played all the melody notes in that measure. Then repeat this same process in the following measures until the end of the song.

After you’ve learned one or two more songs, things will get easier … I promise. Teaching your hands to work like this is a lot like learning to swim or ride a bike. Before long, you barely have to think about what your hands are doing. But until then, the best thing to do is practice.

Of course, our hands have got it pretty easy … now that we can actually see which notes to play. And that’s why Color Music is so awesome. It lets us focus more on the fun of music … and less on the mechanics of playing.