One of the many blessings of being a Dad is rediscovering music I've loved in the past while introducing it to my son.  He's just about two years old now and "Over the Rainbow" is one of his new favorites.  His mom started singing it to him recently for a lullaby.  He even interrupted her while she was singing a lullaby the other night and said "Want Rainbow."  Haha.  What can I say, he knows what he wants!  While I was finishing up editing this video, he heard the first few bars and said to me, "Hear Rainbow."  My heart just about melted.

So anyway, this beautiful song has been in my head recently and I thought I would work out an intermediate piano arrangement of it for you all.  I hope you enjoy it.  The arrangement has some classic solo piano techniques that work great for ballads.  The left hand is mostly arpeggiating roots, 3rds, 5ths, and 7ths while the top of the right hand covers the melody and the some chord tones and tensions below it.  I stuck with mostly the original harmony on this one, aside from a few tritone substitutions in measure 6 of the A section (or subV7s as we like to call them at Berklee!).  There's also some interesting chord tensions -- check out the b9 on the Bb7 and the #11 on the D7 in the A section.  In the bridge check out the 9 on the G-7 and the 9, #11, 13 on the C7 in the bridge.  

When your practicing this one, really try to bring out the melody and let the chords and bass sit underneath it in volume.  Be as expressive as you can with dynamics, it makes all the difference!  

Happy shedding!  

In my latest solo piano pop arrangement, I decided to focus on one my absolute favorite songs, God Only Knows by the Beach Boys.  This song never fails to give me the chills and it's one of those tunes I can't just listen to once.  I have to hear a few times just to soak it all in.  It's such a beautiful marriage of harmony, melody, and lyrics, a true masterpiece.  For this arrangement, I didn't touch the harmony at all!  No need to reharmonize this beauty!  

For the left hand, I was working on a ballad stride feel.  I mostly play root/5th or root/7th on beats 1 and 3.  On beats 2 and 4 a played crunchy cluster voicings (lots of 2nds!).  I love to use this sound, especially on pop progressions.  For a major triad, I'll often play the root and 9th right next to each other.  For a minor 7 chord, I'll play the third and 9 next to each other or the third and 11 (or all three!).  

For the improvisation, I decided to vamp the IV, I/3, II-7, I progression and treat it like a little mediation.  I was really inspired by Bill Evan's beautiful solo piano improvisation called "Peace Piece."  You may be able to hear the influence?  

I hope you enjoy it!  

During these difficult times, it's incredibly important to find the silver linings and always remember to count our blessings.  One of the upsides of social isolation from my fellow musicians in these past several months is that I’ve been really enjoying shedding some solo piano! 

I was wanting to learn some more tunes but instead of trying to expand my repertoire of jazz standards (which is never a bad thing!) I decided to work on songs that really resonated with me and the music I grew up listening to.  I was finding myself more drawn to pop tunes with strong melodic content which I thought would make great vehicles for solo piano arrangements and improvisation. 

One that I’ve been having some fun with recently is the Beatles’ "Michelle."  I tried to keep the main elements of the harmony in tact to not disrupt the beautiful play between major and minor resolution present in the original.  However, I wanted to sneak a few surprising changes in there to give the arrangement its own identity.  When I arrange a piece, I like to incorporate some concepts that I’d to more fluidly include in my solo piano playing -- in this arrangement I was trying to sneak in some atypical drop 2 voicings (with a crunchy diminished sound), some hybrid chords, 4th voicings, along with melodic counterlines in the left hand.  See if you can spot these different techniques in the arrangement!

This is a fairly advanced arrangement so instead of the typical tutorial I usually do, I decided to perform the arrangement (along with an improvised solo) and transcribe it note-for-note!  This was a labor of love for sure and an experiment in learning some new technology.  Let me know what you think!  

You can show your support for all things Piano Shed by purchasing the sheet music by clicking HERE.

Thanks for checking it out and happy shedding!