The course › Unit 12: Accompanying like a pro
Lesson 72 of 72 · Scale degrees, the right key, and your first real session
Written with chord names, the chart C – F – G – C works in only one key. Written in degrees, I – IV – V – I, it works in all of them: you just need to know which chords carry those numbers in the new key. You already know the family of each easy key (lesson 62):
Transposing means playing the same song in another key: you keep the degrees and change the names. From C to D, everything goes up a whole step: C becomes D, F becomes G, G becomes A, Am becomes Bm.
Why this way: That’s the idea behind the Nashville Number System, built on the degrees of lesson 45: in the late 1950s, Nashville’s studio musicians started writing charts in numbers, 1 – 4 – 5 – 6m, instead of chord names. The singer wants to go up a whole step? Nobody rewrites anything: everyone thinks in degrees and plays in the new key.
A key, a degree: find the chord and play it, in any order and any octave. Count up the scale if you need to: I, II, III, IV, V, VI.
I – vi – IV – V, the Stand by Me progression, in C, in D, in G, then in A. Look: the hand shape and the fingerings stay exactly the same (1-3-5, 1-2-5, 1-3-5, 1-2-5). Only the notes change.
Accompanying means serving the voice: the singer is the star, and you’re the carpet they walk on. You already know how to start a song and how to end it (lesson 66). Here are four more rules:
Tip: No singer around? Sing yourself, even quietly, or hum. It’s the best training there is: you’ll feel right away whether your accompaniment carries the voice or covers it.
Amazing Grace, which you played in C in the pieces, moves up to G here: a fifth higher, for a higher voice. The degrees haven’t changed: I, IV and V. The computer plays the melody, transposed to G. You play the left hand: root and fifth together (5 and 1), once per measure. Listen closely to the melody: soon, you’ll be the one singing it.
You’ve reached the end of the course’s 72 lessons. You can now do what pianists who accompany singers do:
What’s next?
Tip: Pick a song you love, work out its chords, transpose it for your voice… and play it a little every day for a week. That’s how you build a repertoire.
Did you know?: Jazz musicians call the art of backing a soloist comping: short for accompanying, or for complementing, depending on who you ask.
The final curtain: Amazing Grace in G, accompanied as if for a real singer. No melody this time: your voice (or a friend’s) carries it. Too high, too low? Now you know what to do. Well done, and happy music-making! Two measures of intro (G – D), then the singer comes in on beat 3. Bass on 1 (left hand), chord on 2 and 3 (right hand), softer than the voice. In the next-to-last phrase: G/D, then D, over the same D in the bass. Sing the melody, and don’t stop until the last chord.