In this part of the lesson, you will explore a range of different contemporary pop/rock ballad piano accompaniments by playing them on the piano, identifying the block chord underpinning them and how the chord voices are distributed between the two hands.

You will work with 8 examples, all transposed into either C major or G major, each consisting of several bars from the piano accompaniments of a contemporary pop/rock ballad. A youtube clip for each example is embedded in this lesson below and a short score extract of an accompaniment figure from the ballad can be found in your pdf workbook on page 11.

Here’s what you need to do for each example:

1. Listen to the youtube clip of the original pop/rock ballad that the example is taken from.
2. Play the example from the score written in your PDF workbook.
3. Play or write down the underlying block chords: You can either play the block chords at the piano, enter them into Noteflight / Musescore or write them on the manuscript provided in your PDF workbook.
4. Describe how the chord is spread between the two hands: Write this under the score extract for each example in your workbook.
   • For example: “1 voice in the right hand (RH), 3 voices in the left hand (LH)” or “2 voices in the RH, 2 voices in the LH.”
5. Repeat for All 8 Examples: Follow this process for each of the 8 examples in your workbook.

This exercise will help familiarise you with a range of different ways that accompaniments are played in a pop / rock ballad style. .

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Youtubes of the accompaniment patterns

Pattern 1: Taken from ‘Someone like you’ by Adele

Pattern 1 is found when you listen to the youtube clip below, from 0.00 – 0.012. Listen to this now.

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Pattern 2 and 3: From ‘Skinny Love’ by Birdy

Pattern 2 is found when you listen to the youtube clip below, from 0.00 – 0.014. Pattern 3 is found when you listen to 0.41 – 0.44. Listen to these now.

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Pattern 4: Taken from ‘How to save a life’ by The fray

Pattern 4 is found when you listen to the youtube clip below, from 0.00 – 0.014. Listen to this now.

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Pattern 5: Taken from ‘All of me’ by John Legend

Pattern 5 can be found in the youtube clip below from 0.00 to 0.09. Listen to this now.

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Pattern 6: Taken from ‘Say something’ by A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera

Pattern 6 can be found from 0.06 to 0.012 in the youtube clip below. Listen to it now.

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Pattern 7: Taken from ‘Stay’ by Rihanna

Pattern 7 can be found in the youtube clip below from 0.00 to 0.07.

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Pattern 8: Taken from ‘If I aint got you’ by Alicia Keys

Pattern 8 can be found in the youtube clip below from 0.00 to 0.04.