Ok that's grand, here's my take on it Michelle. We'll work on the verse here first, in a step by step style using a bit of "Clocks" as an example ... I think this would be handiest way.
Clocks
First off, if you listen to the intro to the Coldplay song "Clocks", you can hear the riff on the piano with the "rolling notes". Now if u examine (play) the actual chords behind what the piano player is playing on this riff, you will find that they are the exact same chords as in the actual verse. He's just playing them in an arpeggiated way (basically in single note style from a suitable scale or chord arpeggio). The chords in this song here are:
Eb Major / / / : Bb minor / / / : Bb Minor / / / : F Minor / / / :
... (This is not a common key normally used on guitar, but this song was probably composed on a piano - I don't know that for sure).
So there is a connection here - albeit the melody of the lead vocal in the verse is not the same as the riff in question (as you mentioned previously), but the basic chords behind both are the same. This is a common technique used in let's call it "Pop music" as opposed to Classicial.
But if you listen to the verse you will hear that while the vocals are going on over it, the chords are just played behind it "flat", ie you just hold the chord down - this works great on an organ or keyboard but on the piano it would not really work in this case. This is obviously because you would play the chord on the piano and then the sound would just die out naturally as such. There is no sustain so to speak. (I know there is a sustain pedal on the piano but that is not sufficient for our purpose here).
The reason the Clocks verse organ/keys part works, is because the rest of the band are providing the rhythm! The bass, drums and the guitar. So what you need to do here when your accompanying yourself on the piano, is to provide not only the bass and chords, but the rhythm too. Think of it in the beginning as 3 separate parts which are joined together. It get's easy enough after a while.
So first off we need to find the correct chords for the right hand - your song's chord progression.
Now if you already have the bass notes on the left hand, you can find out what the actual chords are for the right hand easily enough. The right hand chords must be either major chords or minor chords.The way to find this out, is to sing the vocal over the bass note first, then sing it over a chord built on the same bass note, and see which chord fits.
So say your first bass note is D, well the first chord for the right hand will be either a D Major or a D Minor - it must be one or the other! You get used to this after a while and it becomes second nature
The basic chord families in D are:
D : G : A : B minor : E minor : F# minor
So the other chords in the verse are probably some of these family members if the verse is in D and also diatonic (diatonic means staying within the same family).
Please post the full chords for the verse of your song and I'll clear that up 4 you Michelle - it can be confusing if you're not used to dealing with this type of thing.
Ok see what you make of that and we'll move on to the chorus chords next ...
Once you get the hang of this you'll find that it's quite simple compared to Classical music as a rule - but that's a long "argument" or discussion we don't need to get into right now! <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> ...
David
