Chords for How to Arrange Music For Piano (Adele 6 Different Ways!)

Hey there, Corey Lennox here, and this is my student Jeremy [D] Rosado.
_ And [C] recently on the channel, I've been talking, I've got [Bm] a couple videos where I sort of talk about [G] arranging a song.
And I thought it would be amazing to bring Jeremy [D] in here because that's exactly what we've been working on the [G] past couple weeks.
So tell them the story of like [D] the song you picked and why.
_ Well, a friend of mine, she wanted to do a [Bm] competition _ involving the [C] song When We Were Young by Adele.
[G] And the goal was to see who could make it the most intricate, who could make it the most complicated, who could really grab the attention of the room.
_ [N] _ And it sort of started with _ _ full notes, you know, and then it was quarter notes, and then into eighth notes and sixteenth notes, and it got gradually more complicated. _ _
Exactly, exactly.
So we took the basic level of it, and then we sort of built on it and made it more and more intricate.
So stick around to [E] the end of the video, I'm going to show you where we started and where we ended.
And it is wild to see how [B] many different things you can [Ab] do with a single song.
And bear in mind, [C] Jeremy is a newer [Gbm] student of mine, he's only been taking for [Gm] a little over two years.
So everything [E] you see is due to his hard work and just genuinely loving the piano.
[G] He's always ready when he comes in to do whatever I gave him last week and then build [E] upon it.
So having a [Eb] good attitude like that is just worth its weight in [Gb] gold.
Even though it doesn't weigh anything.
[Eb] Yeah.
But you've got a good attitude and that's the point.
[G] So [E] I'm going to take you over the shoulder and we're going to show you how we did this.
[Am] _ _
_ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ So I've been over a lot of [Gb] times on this channel that to play any song you need the melody and you need the chords.
So that's two elements.
Now I was able to help Jeremy by ear, but if you're doing this at home, you can pull up the chords online for pretty much any song.
And the chords for this one were E flat, G minor, A flat, and B flat.
Now the first version of the song we're going to do is the absolute beginner version where we don't even do full chords.
We just do the bass notes.
So Jeremy, show them just the bass notes _ of the left hand there.
[Eb] _ _ _ G, [Ab] then E flat, [Bb] B flat.
And now show them with the melody over it.
[Eb] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [F] _ _ _ _ _ [Eb] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [Bb] _ _
_ _ [F] _ _ [C] _ _ [G] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [F] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [Fm] So that is the absolute [Ab] beginner version and it only gets better from there.
Because now what we can [A] do is change those left hand [Ab] bass notes into full chords.
So show them just the [A] chords for the left hand. _
_ [Eb] _ _ _ _ _ [Gm] _ _
_ _ [Ab] _ _ _ _ [Bb] _
Okay, good.
So we went from single bass notes to full [Abm] chords and now show them what that sounds like.
_ [Eb] _ _ _ _
_ _ [Gm] _ _ _ _ _ _
[Ab] _ _ _ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _
_ [Eb] _ _ _ _ _ [Gm] _ _
_ _ _ [Ab] _ _ _ _ _
[Bb] _ _ _ _ [Cm] _ _ _ _
_ [Gm] _ _ _ _ _ [Ab] _ _
_ _ _ [Abm] _ _ _ _ _
_ Bueno!
[Gb] Now the next level would be repeating the chords with the left hand.
So Jeremy, [Eb] just show them the left hand like repeating quarter notes with that.
_ Same chords.
E flat, [Gm] G minor, and then A [Ab] flat, and then B flat.
[Bb] And now he's repeating those.
So now [Eb] add the melody in over that.
_ _ [Gb] _ _ _ _
_ [Eb] _ _ _ _ _ [Gm] _ _
_ _ _ [Ab] _ _ _ _ _
[Bb] _ _ _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ _
_ _ [Gm] _ _ _ _ [Ab] _ _
_ _ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ [Cm] _
_ _ _ _ [Gm] _ _ _ _
_ [Ab] _ _ _ _ _ [Abm] _ _
_ _ _ [B] Love it.
[Em] And now instead of [F] just doing block chords where it's all at once,
we're going to do broken chords with separate notes on the left hand.
[Ab] And you can just jump in and do both hands there.
[Eb] Show them what that sounds like.
_ _ _ _ _ [Gm] _
_ _ _ _ [Ab] _ _ _ _
[C] _ _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ _
_ _ [Gm] _ _ _ _ [Bb] _ _
[Ab] _ _ _ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _
_ [Cm] _ _ _ _ _ [Eb] _ _
_ _ [Gm] _ _ _ _ _ [Abm] _
_ _ Nicely done!
But we're not done yet.
It gets better.
[N] Now what we're going to do is instead of doing the root position [Eb] chord, the triad,
we're going to do the root of the chord, which is the bottom note,
and then we're going to skip the third and do the fifth, and then do the octave up.
So we have the root, fifth, and the octave.
[Ab] And in addition to that, instead of just playing the melody notes as single notes,
we're going to [D] play them as octaves.
So we're going to double up on the melody notes.
All right, show them how it's done.
_ _ [Eb] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [Bb] _ [Gm] _
_ _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ _
_ [Bb] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Gm] _ _ _ _ _
[Eb] _ _ _ _ _ [Bb] _ _ _
_ _ [G] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [F] _ _ _ [Abm] _ _
_ _ _ _ Nice job! _
Now for the last and final version, this is like the fanciest one we came up with.
Instead of doing the left hand as eighth [Eb] notes,
_ [Bb] _ we're going to do them as sixteenth notes.
_ _ _ All right, so [N]
we're going to keep the octaves,
show them what we ended up with for [Eb] the final version.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Gm] _
_ _ _ _ [Ab] _ _ _ _
_ [Bb] _ _ _ [Bb] _ _ [Eb] _ _
_ _ [Gm] _ _ _ _ _ [Ab] _
_ _ _ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _
_ _ [Gm] _ _ [G] _ _ [Gm] _ _
_ _ _ _ [F] _ _ _ _
[Abm] _ _ _ _ Love it!
Yes!
[E] So that was [B] the journey that we [Bm] undertook over the past couple months,
going from the single note version to the chord version,
to the broken chords, to the eighth notes, to the sixteenth notes,
and adding octaves into the right hand.
So there's a lot of different elements, and every week I upped the stakes for you.
I was like, okay, now you've got the repeated quarter notes,
[E] now break apart the chord, or now add the octaves in.
[F] So we really just, once you have those elements of the melody and the [B] chords,
even if it's just single notes, [Bm] if you have a good teacher,
or you really know your theory, you can sort of manipulate it
and work your way up from there.
That's why it's so important to know the music theory behind it,
and to know how to work with these elements of the song.
So, did you have fun with that?
[N] Yeah!
I mean, at one point it felt like you were more emotionally invested in the song than I was.
That's probably true.
That's probably true.
I was like, get this right, I need you to beat this friend of yours,
I need you to win the competition.
Oh, I don't know if I ever told you, I did win the [Em] competition.
She [Ab] accepted defeat.
Yes!
You [N] never told me that.
Yeah, somewhere around _ the eighth notes is when she accepted defeat,
and then we did sixteenth notes.
And then, so that [G] was just overkill at that point.
Oh yeah, no, I did the sixteenth notes.
I showed her the sixteenth notes.
Awesome.
_ And was she like, mind blown?
_ _ [Gb] _
No.
Right, so it did sort of feel like [Abm] overkill at that point.
Well, you know, I [G] did my job as a teacher.
[E] Now [G] you can set people up to challenge you with that,
be like, hey, let's see who can [D] play Adele better, and then just bust that out.
They're [A] like, you know, what if we did a classical piece?
You're like, well, what if [Bm] we did Adele?
What if that was our [E] competition?
_ [G] _ _ _ _
_ [Bm] So, thank you so much for watching this [G] video.
If you enjoyed it, be sure to subscribe to the channel, share it with a [D] friend,
and let me know in the comments if there's anything else you'd like to ask Jeremy,
or that you'd like me to [D] cover in