(chiming blues music)
- [Dan] Howdy HDpiano students
and welcome to this lesson
on Great Balls of Fire by Jerry Lee Lewis.
My name is Dan, and in this part one video
we'll learn how to play
the intro and verse.
That much sounds like this.
One, two, three.
("Great Balls of Fire" by Jerry Lee Lewis)
Two, three, four.
One, two, three.
("Great Balls of Fire" by Jerry Lee Lewis)
Two, three, four.
One, two, three.
("Great Balls of Fire" by Jerry Lee Lewis)
Two, three.
("Great Balls of Fire" by Jerry Lee Lewis)
Two, three.
("Great Balls of Fire" by Jerry Lee Lewis)
Two, three.
And the verse, two, three.
("Great Balls of Fire" by Jerry Lee Lewis)
Two, three, four.
And then the bridge.
Alright, so that's the intro and verse.
The other sections bridge, solo,
and whole song play through.
Those are all at HDpiano.com when
you're finished with part one here.
And the question, before
I get breakin' this down.
The question is, what would
you call this style of music?
I'm going to give you my best analysis
and opinion on that in
the second video, so.
Drop a comment below,
what do ya think this is?
Alright, (deep piano sounds)
so let's take a look at this intro.
It's just left hand.
We're spanning the whole keyboard
for the most part in this song.
This is middle C (clear piano sounds).
So, our left hand is starting.
One G, two G, three Gs below middle C.
And in octaves, okay.
Same note, one octave apart.
And we're just gonna walk, G, A, B, C.
And that gets us into this song.
("Great Balls of Fire" by Jerry Lee Lewis)
♪ You shake my nerves
and you rattle my brain ♪
Right, so that's the little
pick up to this song.
(clear piano sounds) G, A, B, C.
Alright, the next set of notes are
(deep piano sounds) C, D, E, F.
Now we're gonna go way
low on the keyboard here.
(deep piano sounds)
Okay?
So we go from here (fast piano sounds).
Down to here (deep piano sounds).
And we're just walking up.
So we have these little four note sets.
The next four note set is
(deep piano sounds) E, F, F#, G.
This one's a little bit
chromatic, meaning half step.
(deep piano sounds)
Okay, and then the next four note set.
Three on G. (deep piano sounds)
One, two, three, F.
And then that's our,
that finishes that set.
And then we end the same way we started.
(deep piano sounds)
G to C.
So we have, again, to break
it down a little bit simpler.
(clear piano sounds) We have G to C.
Then we have C to F. (deep piano sounds)
Then we have E to G,
chromatically. (deep piano sounds)
And then, (deep piano sounds) G to F.
And then back to G to C.
So those are the little
ranges that we span.
Okay, so let's try that slowly.
One, and two, and three.
(deep piano sounds)
And four,
and one,
two,
three.
Okay a lot of rests here.
The next set.
One, and two, and three.
(deep piano sounds)
And four,
and one.
Okay the next set.
One, and two, and three.
(deep piano sounds)
And four,
and one.
Okay the next set.
Three, (clear piano
sounds) and four, and one.
Two, three, just like we
started. (clear piano sounds)
Alright, so hopefully that
offers you a nice blueprint
so that you can bring this
up to speed at your own pace.
(deep piano sounds) And now let's
just try it at recorded tempo.
Which happens to be, let's see
what's recorded tempo, 1/56th.
(snapping sounds)
Let's try it right here.
(singing sounds)
One, two, and one, two, three.
(deep piano music and singing sounds)
Two, three, four, one, two, three.
(deep piano music).
Two, three, four, one, two, three.
(deep piano music)
Two, three. (deep piano music)
Two, three. (deep piano music)
Two, three, four, and that is our intro.
Alright, so that's the intro to this song.
There's not to much going there.
I won't spend more time
on that than we need to.
The verse is next, and again
I'm gonna recap what that sounds like.
A little bit like this.
("Great Balls of Fire" by Jerry Lee Lewis)
Alright, something like that.
This is definitely one of those songs
where sloppiness is okay.
Of course we wanna strive
for precision but, you know,
it's kinda rock-us, it's dirty,
it's a little bit grungy.
This was pretty crazy
stuff in 1957, you know.
This was quote unquote, the Devil's music.
We're writing about this stuff and anyway.
Let's talk about exactly
what's going on here chordally.
So we have, pretty much, two chords.
This is like very much
a blues, three chords.
If you include the five chord.
(bright piano sounds)
So, the one chord is C.
It's C, E, G.
Alright, the next chord
(bright piano sounds)
is an F seven, we add the
nine, so it's an F nine.
F in the left.
A, Eb, G.
Okay, and then our five
chord is G, and G seven.
G in the left.
B, F, G in the right.
So these are the three chords
around which we're working.
These are the three chords
in our blues template here.
So, we have C, we have F
seven, (rich piano sounds)
we have G seven, and then we have C, okay?
So, in theory, you could get
away playing just these chords.
Two, three, four.
(bright piano music)
One, two, three, four.
One, two, to F seven.
Two, three, four.
(singing sounds)
♪ I change my mind, this girl is fine ♪
♪ Goodness gracious great balls of fire ♪
Alright, so that's the outline
for this song is those three chords.
But we're working a little bit
more intricately, a little more complex.
So this is what's going
on in the right hand.
Actually, pardon me, let's
talk about the left hand first
because this is a little
bit more repetitive.
(deep piano sounds)
This is the pattern you're
gonna see for every chord.
We take the root note, we go up
to the third, the fifth, and the sixth.
Those are all respective to
the root note of each chord.
Alright, so C, E, G, A.
And the way we play it
is (deep piano sounds)
bottom, top, bottom, top,
bottom, top, bottom, top.
Alright, this kinda has this
boggie-woggie, rockabilly feel.
(deep piano music)
Alright, so this is really challenging.
If you can't make this rift, you know,
after we've practiced it by the end
of the video or even hours later.
Feel free to relegate this part to just.
(deep piano music)
Alright, so instead of.
(deep piano music)
Okay, but for the sake of trying it,
let's work on this slowly.
I'm gonna go through these
patterns really, really slowly.
So you can learn the notes and then maybe
we can bring it up to speed, alright.
So here they are.
One, and two,
and watch,
and listen
and (deep piano sounds).
To F.
So we go F,
A,
C,
D, and do that again.
F,
A,
C,
D, and then G,
to B,
to D,
to E.
Back down to F, same notes from F.
Then back down to C.
(deep slow piano music)
Okay, so those are our
notes, that's the pattern,
that's exactly what we're gonna play.
Obviously a lot faster.
Let's see if we can try it
at like a slow medium tempo.
(singing sounds)
Let's see. (snapping sounds)
One,
two, and ready, and play,
and (deep slow piano music).
And at that point in this song
they'd be singing the hook.
Alright, let's try it at a medium tempo.
One, and two, and ready, and
play, and (deep piano music).
Okay, and again we're aiming for 1/56.
So we're (snapping and singing sounds).
So let's try it at like
a medium fast tempo.
(singing and clapping sounds)
One, and two, and ready, and play.
(deep piano music)
Alright, I would expect 90% of you
to struggle immensely with that
because it is challenging and it took
me a while to get it, that comfortable.
So you have a couple of options.
You can either abandon it and go back
to just the single
notes. (deep piano music)
Okay, or you can practice your
butt off until you get this.
This is just one of those, it needs
to turn into muscle
memory, I mean eventually.
(deep fast piano music)
You know, this is pretty fast.
And I can't even play it perfectly see.
Alright, but that is the goal.
So for the sake of showing you
the goal one last time, I'll play it.
And then I'm just gonna assume that
you can fill in the intervals in between.
Meaning okay, I need to try
this really slow, medium,
medium fast on my own
before I can move forward.
So, this is 1/56th. (snapping sounds)
(singing sounds)
One, two, three, and
(deep fast piano music).
Two, three, four, yes there it is.
Alright so let's look
at the right hand now.
The left hand does that
for most of this song.
The right hand is playing this.
("Great Balls of Fire" by Jerry Lee Lewis)
So we've got a lot of these glissandos.
(piano sliding sounds)
The glissando just means,
I like to take two fingers
(piano sliding sounds)
and kinda just drag 'em.
Put some pressure downward
and just drag it to the left.
Okay? (piano sliding sounds)
Some people will try other methods.
Like a whole hand or
(piano sliding sounds).
We want just the white keys here.
And that's the technique
I would recommend.
So those pop up all over this song.
If you're listening to the recording,
you'll notice, wow there's
a lot of, lot of just
hand slappin' (piano
sliding sounds) on this one.
But let's look at this
rift that opens it up.
(bluesy piano sounds)
This is cool, I like it.
Really bluesy, fun one to play.
Once you get it down
it'll be hard to forget.
But it is a bit challenging.
So we start with this C minor chord.
Got this blue note (flat
piano sound), in there.
Okay, that Eb.
So C, Eb, G.
Play that three times.
One, two, three, (rich
piano sounds) and four,
and (bright piano sounds).
And then we play our C chord.
And we break it up.
So we do top two, bottom note.
(complex piano sounds)
Alright and, there's no really better way
for me to describe this,
what's happening here
than just to play it.
So let's play it really slowly.
I'll let you kinda
analyze it as we go, okay?
One,
and two,
and three,
and four.
(bluesy piano music)
Try that again.
Three, and it's right here.
Three, and (bluesy piano music) four,
and (bluesy piano music).
Okay we're doin' a lot of sliding.
Middle finger from Eb to E.
(bluesy piano music)
That's a really cool bluesy
thing to be able to do.
So let's try it at a medium tempo.
Two, and three, and
(complex piano music) four,
and (bluesy piano music).
Again, three,
and four.
(bluesy piano music)
Okay, so that rift happens
a lot in this song.
Pretty much whenever
we're playing a C chord,
that's the option we're
gonna play during the verse.
(bluesy piano music)
With the left hand it sounds like this.
(deep bluesy piano music)
Okay, we've got these
glissandos coming up.
So I'm gonna move forward now the verse.
(deep bluesy piano music)
Okay here's the next chord.
So it's this F, pardon me,
F nine chord that I showed you earlier.
And we're just punchin' it like this.
(deep bluesy piano music)
Alright. (deep bluesy piano music)
And we do the same thing with
this G chord, we just punch it.
It's B, F, G.
(deep bluesy piano music)
Alright, so we're just kinda working
around those three
chords that I showed you
initially at the
beginning of this section.
I'd like to play the whole
verse super, super slow.
Two, and three
(slow "Great Balls of
Fire" by Jerry Lee Lewis).
Okay, let's try it at medium tempo.
One, and two, and three.
(medium "Great Balls of
Fire" by Jerry Lee Lewis)
Alright, how about recorded tempo.
(snapping and singing sounds)
One, two, three.
("Great Balls of Fire" by Jerry Lee Lewis)
Alright, so there's a
lot of stuff here guys
and it's a lot of really challenging stuff
But the important bits to
remember are this lick.
(bluesy piano music)
Alright, and if you wanna throw
these glissandos out you can.
You don't need to play 'em but,
(piano sliding sounds)
they're simple, alright.
But they can be a
distraction, I understand.
So we've got this rift here.
(bluesy piano music)
We've got this F nine chord.
And this G seven chord.
And that's gonna get you a
long way on this verse, okay.
If you wanna start pairing it
down to something manageable
if you are a very, very
beginner, feel free.
Even some of the intermediate
students are gonna struggle
with this but it's such a
fun song so let's keep at it.
Like I said before, the bridge, solo,
and whole song sections
are all at HDpiano.com.
And before we head that way
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And, it's been fun so far guys.
This is a classic 1957
Jerry Lee Lewis song,
Great Balls of Fire.
We'll learn the rest at HDpiano.com,
the home of the hybrid piano lesson.
