Music Lesson: Exploring Right Hand Chord Rhythms

So if you've practiced this walking bass line, perhaps try it with a friend or your teacher.

Playing the Melody:

• Play the melody on top while you play the bass in the left part of the piano.
• Eventually, you'll need to add some chords in the right hand, as we did with the 2 feel bass line.

Chord Rhythm:

• The last thing you want to do is play all the chords on the beat.
• Even though they may be written like that, it's really up to you to find more interesting rhythms to play.
• Try incorporating some off-beat elements along with on-beat chords.

Exploring Rhythms

We'll look at a selection of rhythms that you could tap into to create two-handed accompaniments.

1. On-Off Rhythm

• First chord is on the beat and the second chord is off the beat.
• Example: Let's do this with a two feel bass line.
  • Here's a metronome at 110.
  • The second chord will be played between beats 2 and 3 (234 chord).

It's important that the right hand chord does not upset the steady rock-like quality of the left hand bass.

2. Off-On Rhythm

• Now play the chords on the first beat and the third beat.
• The same principle applies with the walking bass.

3. Combining Patterns

This is where the fun really begins!

• You're creating a two-bar pattern, which we could call an off-on, on-off rhythm.
• Example: Here it is over a 251 in C in the two-feel bass.

Maintain the same rhythm now in the right hand, but with a walking bass.

• It's important to develop the ability to syncopate some of these right-hand chords across the bar lines, without disrupting the left hand bass, as you did previously with guide tones in the two feel bass.

This will make your accompaniment swing much more authentically.

Practical Application

I'm now going to play the first eight bars of "All of Me" and show you two ways of practicing this.

• Method 1: Push each chord coming in on the forehand every two bars.

Now, let's try another rhythm with the walking bass line:

• We're going to play all the chords off the beat, specifically on the "and" of four and the "and" of two.

This is a really important style, not only for the right hand chords but sometimes in left hand comping. For instance, if you listen to Red Garland, you'll hear his left hand does this most of the time.

• For now, we will stick with the right hand and play it against a walking bass.

Practice Example

First eight bars of "All of Me" again:

• Count: 2, and 1, 2, 3, 4.

Final Thoughts: Try out all those right-hand chord rhythms, not just over the examples given, but extend it over the whole chord sequence of "All of Me" so that you can really get to grips with that 32-bar sequence.

Actually, the shapes I was demonstrating, which were ordinary four-note inversions, are not necessarily the best shapes or the most professional ones to use.

Next Lesson

In the next lesson, we're going to explore some rootless voicings.