How to Play Chords With Melody on Piano
We students typically learn songs with the left hand playing harmony, and right hand playing melody. While that approach is fine to begin with, at some point the right hand should start participating in creating harmonic content. It is something you do already, if you play more elaborate arrangements of pop songs, or intermediate arrangements of jazz tunes.
In this post, I provide a few free, relatively short YouTube videos that may be helpful to you in beginning to utilize your right hand more for harmony. By the way, each of the YouTube channels featured below are listed on our Resources/Music Tutorials page.
In “How to Play Chords With Melody,” the London Contemporary School of Piano instructor explains that the left hand can play the chord root, for example, the root octave, and then the right hand can play the melody note with the right hand pinky, and then fill in the chord tones with the right hand by playing the inversion of the chord that is closest to the melody note.
For example, if the chord is F major, and the melody note is an E, then the left hand would play F, and the right hand would play A, C and E, whereby all four chord tones of F major are played. If the melody note is a C, then the left hand would play F, and the right hand would play E, A and C.
London Contemporary School of Piano
In “How to Play Piano Chord Melody - Piano Chord Progressions,” the InsidePiano Tutorials instructor explains a three part system that is (1) right hand melody note on top, (2) left had bass note for the chord on the bottom, and (3) fill in chord tones with both hands in the middle. For example, if the chord is G major, and the melody note is also G, then the left hand can play G, D and G (root, 5th, root), and the right hand can play B, D and G (3rd 5th and melody).
InsidePiano Tutorials
You can also play root, 5th and 3rd in the left hand, or root, 5th and flat 3rd (minor) for triad chords. You can also play root, 5th and 7th (or flat 7th for minor and dominant seventh chords). This three part method also provides the opportunity to play chord extension notes, such as 11ths and 13ths.
Regardless of how you approach the left hand, the right hand plays melody on top, and completes the chord, in the manner discussed above in the London Contemporary School of Piano video. In this way, the chords can be spread out between the hands in different keyboard registers, which provides more harmonic color and emotion to the tune being played.
In “How to Play Melody and Chords Together With Your Right Hand,” The Keys Coach explains (at 7:29 in the video) that it can be useful to use what he calls the “tune-chord-tune” approach.
In the tune-chord-tune approach, you play the melody note in the right hand first, then play the chord with the left and right hands while holding the melody note. The chord tones are split between the left and right hands, as described above.
This approach is very useful for learning how to play melody and chords with two hands, but after you get comfortable doing it, you may not need to do it for every new song you learn. In time, you may just feel comfortable splitting the chords between your hands from the start.
But it’s also certainly ok to use the tune-chord-tune method whenever you want!
The Keys Coach
In “How to Play Chords With Melody,” Warren McPherson explains how to play chords with melody in a manner similar to what is covered in the other videos, but he does it in the context of an actual song, “Can You Feel the Love Tonight.”
Piano Lessons With Warren
One item that Warren mentions is that you can generally play the root-5th-root octave in the left hand, and then the 3rd or the 6th with the melody note in your right hand. Doing so provides more harmonic texture to what you are playing, because the 3rd informs whether the chord is major, minor, or dominant.
In addition, Warren recommends that when you learn a new song, you familiarize yourself with the song structure (verse, chorus, etc.), understand the harmonic rhythm (when the chords change), and learn the melody alone.
Finally, for jazz students and the jazz curious, I recommend you watch in “RIght Hand Chords With Melody,” by Jazz Skills creator Shan Verma.
He explains that playing chords an melody with two hands provides an authentic, fuller sound, fills time, provides a sense of movement, and lets you play the left hand in a lower register than is possible when only the left hand plays chords.
Shan also explains (at 7:25) how to handle the harmony when a melody note doesn’t fit in the chord.
He also demonstrates (at 8:45) one approach for dealing with a rest in beat one of a measure, which essentially is to play the root (or the root and 7th) in the left hand, and then on beat two play the rest of the chord notes and the melody note with the right hand.
You can also optionally play an inversion of the chord above the melody note on beat 3, to provide a fill and some movement. That method works well when the melody has lots of quarter notes.
Jazz Skills
I hope you find these videos helpful - enjoy learning!
