- Hey, what's up everybody,
this is Devon with Hdpiano.com.
And in today's lesson
we're gonna be working
on one of our mostly
highly requested songs,
Fly Me to the Moon.
I'll be showing you guys a
basic arrangement in this video
which features the left
hand on the bass notes
and the right hand on the melody.
And it looks a little something like this.
(piano music)
Alright, so we'll be
gettin' through that much
and more in this video.
But the rest of the videos,
which are all over at Hdpiano.com,
are gonna focus on
exploring all the secrets
that this quintessential
jazz standard has to offer.
We're gonna talk about the harmony,
I'm gonna show you how surprisingly
formulaic it can all be.
And of course, we're gonna work
on developing an arrangement
that's a little more along
the lines of you know,
a jazz piano stride style.
Something like this.
(piano music)
Alright, so that might seem
pretty far out of reach,
but hopefully by the end of this
you can have something
like that under your belt.
Or at least somewhere in the middle,
so you're not just stuck
with something too simple.
But like any good lesson,
you've got to start with the simple stuff,
and make sure your foundation is strong.
So, we're gonna start with left hand bass
and right hand melody.
Now before I dive in and
break this down for your guys,
I do have a quick question,
and I will be answering this in part two.
But which pop song,
it's a very famous song,
I can't imagine you wouldn't know it,
shares pretty much the exact same harmony
as Fly Me To the Moon?
Alright, let me know in the
comments, what you think?
Okay, well, first things first,
we are in the key of C Major.
This is the key that Frank Sinatra
sings Fly Me to the Moon in.
And I'm referencing his
version for the melody.
So let's take a look at
the melody to begin with.
Fly me to the moon, C, B, A, G, F.
We're just starting with our
pinky and walking down to F.
How simple, right?
Well check this out.
Alright, so, and let me
play among the stars.
Wow, that's also, pretty
much the same thing.
Five, four, three, two one.
B, A, G, F, E.
So it's very pattern-based already.
Fly me to the moon,
And then we do G, A, C and
then we just shift down to B,
and walk down all five notes.
Alright, now we breathe, we pause.
Let me see what spring is like,
starting from A, again, we
just walk down five notes.
Alright, pretty simple.
Let me see what's spring,
and then is like on.
And that was just like G, A, C,
except this time it's E, F, A.
Alright, you see the same pattern?
Right, two close together and
then a skip to the upper note.
Alright, so so far we've got ...
Alright, and then we do the
same pattern starting from D,
From A, rather.
And now, Jupiter and Mars.
Alright, so it's a little different there.
We have a G#, an F, an E, a D and a C.
Okay, so one more time, play it with me.
I'll play it nice and simple.
(piano melody of Fly Me to the Moon)
One, two, Jupiter and Mars.
So, alright, I'm referencing
the phrasing of Frank Sinatra.
So get familiar with that
recording if you aren't already.
And now that you know these notes,
I would absolutely
recommend that you sit down
and play along to the recording.
Granted, he does take a
few melodic liberties,
so it may not be exactly what
you're hearing on the record.
But this is the foundation of the melody.
Alright, so let's add
that left hand in there.
So this is where it gets interesting.
We know the right hand melody
is pretty pattern-based to begin with.
But check this out.
Our root notes, our bass notes
are A, D, G, C, F, B, E, A.
Now obviously, I didn't
play that with my left hand.
But the reason I am playing
it across the keyboard
like that is to demonstrate
that that is all drawing
from the circle of fifths.
Granted, these are
fourths when you move up,
but were you to move
down A to D, to G, to C,
to F, to B, to E, to A,
those are all fifths, right?
So that's from the circle of fifths,
a concept I'm sure you've heard of
if you've studied any
amount of music theory.
So that means the whole first
eight measures of this song,
are just cycling through
the circle of fifths.
So that makes it easy to
remember at least, right?
A, you can go up a fourth,
and then if you'd go up
a fourth you'd hit G,
but instead we can go down a fifth.
And then up a fourth, and
then down a fifth, sorry.
Up a fourth, and down a fifth,
and up a fourth and we're back at A.
Alright, so those notes
are A, D, G, C, F, B, E, A.
Each one of those is a measure.
So if we put the melody on
top of that, we get this.
(piano music)
Alright, now I would definitely recommend
playing along to a metronome,
if not the recording.
Because you wanna make
sure that you're doing
four measures a piece
and that your swing feel,
dip a dung a dung a dung
dung, is in the pocket
rather than something kind
of weird and uncomfortable.
Alright, it's easy to build bad habits
if you're not playing along
to some sort of reference,
either a metronome or a recording.
Alight, so that's pretty simple so far,
so what happens after that?
(piano music)
Alright, so, right there we
had C#, D, A, A, C, B, G.
And our left hand played D, G, E, A.
And now the last four
measures of this first half,
our right hand plays in other words,
so B, C, F, F, A, G, F, E.
Darlin' kiss me.
And the left hand plays, D and G again.
And we just land on C
instead of going up to E.
And we'll stop there in this video.
So we've got 16 measures,
and I'll go ahead and play through it all.
And then we'll talk about it some more.
Here we go.
(piano music)
Alright, so we're
halfway through the tune.
And we've got a bass and
melody arrangement going on.
So what's gonna happen
in the later videos,
is we're gonna expand on this.
This is the foundation,
we know the melody,
that's great, you gotta know the melody
of any song to really know it well.
And we know the bass line.
Now, of course, every
bass note has chords.
And there's some incredible,
I don't wanna way it's formulaic,
but there's some patterns
built into these chords
that I'm gonna talk about in part two,
that make it surprisingly easy
to turn these simple bass
notes into full on jazz chords.
So you can start working
towards a fuller version
of this song that's gonna
be a little more pleasing
to the ears than something quite as simple
as we've just learned.
Alright, so I'll go ahead and play you out
with a little taste of ...
(piano music)
Alright, now there you
go, there's a little taste
of what the piano has to offer,
just by expanding your knowledge
and understanding of these chords.
Obviously some of that
might be a little bit
out of reach for now,
but I'm trying to make
this song approachable.
So I hope to see you over at Hdpiano.com
to learn the rest with
me and see what happens.
In the meantime, if you could like
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all the upcoming tutorials
we've got coming your way.
May name's Devon with Hdpiano.com,
we'll talk to you soon.
