Hello, I'm John Durbin.
I've been teaching music for over 20 years.
And of course, when students come to me,
they start from the very beginning.
They learn in notes.
They go through a long procedure of learning stuff.
But everyone comes to me and they want to know,
how can I play now?
I want to play right this minute.
So this is what this tape is all about.
We're going to start you out.
And within 30 minutes, you're going to be playing chords.
And you can play literally thousands of songs.
And that's what I want to show you today.
You're not going to be a professional.
You're not going to be able to play a lot of chords
and a lot of things.
But you are going to learn how to play three chords in the key
of C. And you will be able to accompany, as I said,
literally thousands of songs.
And I'm going to show you, everyone's
not going to have a big keyboard.
So whenever I teach you, I'm also
going to show you on this little keyboard here.
So you're going to be able to see it
on what you might have at home there,
regardless of what it might be.
Now, first thing I want you to do
is to discover where your left hand is,
because we're going to work with the left hand first.
Now, the fingers in your left hand are 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.
Of course, I can refer to your thumb and your pinky.
If you get disoriented, I'll refer to both
so you understand where we are.
That's 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.
Now, on your keyboard, you're going
to have to find middle C. So sit with your keyboard
right in the middle.
Put the keys out like this, and you're close to the middle.
You want to find that note, which is just
before the two black keys.
That's middle C. It's in the middle of the keyboard
and is before the two black keys.
Every note just before the two black keys is a C.
Now, the C we're going to start with to play
is the one below middle C. So you drop all the way down
to here and put your pinky, or your fifth finger,
on the low C.
Now, you're going to spread your fingers.
You're going to go to the second finger.
So now your fingers are 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.
And you've got five notes that you
can play by just calling on the right finger.
Now, the first song we're going to try to do uses just two
chords, and we're just going to play the bass notes.
So we're going to play the pinky and the thumb.
That's what we're going to be calling for.
The songs will be Clementine.
Dah, da-dah, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.
And you go to the thumb.
Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.
Back to the pinky.
Dah, da-dah, dun, dun, dun, dun.
Now, that's the bass line to Clementine.
But let's try it again.
Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.
Now, go to your thumb.
Dun, dun, dun, dun.
Stay on the thumb.
Dun, dun.
Back to the pinky.
Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.
Now, if you have one of these little keyboards,
let's get these fingers on here.
And we'll try the same thing.
Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun,
dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.
Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun,
dun, dun, dun.
Works, huh?
How about Hang Down Your Head Tom Dooley?
Ta-da, ta-da, ta-da, ta-da-da.
Ta-da, ta-da, ta-ada.
Go to your thumb.
Ta-da, ta-da, ta-da-da.
Ta-da-da, ta-da-da.
Ta-da, ta-da, ta-da-da.
Second verse.
Ta-da, ta-da, ta-da-da.
Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh.
See, it'll work on both keyboards.
How about, uh, row, row, row your boat?
You guys have a whole big round going.
Get everyone around the piano.
Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh.
Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh.
Here comes your thumb.
Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh.
Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh.
Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh.
OK, it's working.
Let's do one more tune, and then we're
going to get our right hand involved here a little bit.
How about, Mary Had a Little Lamb?
Get the kids in to sing with this.
Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh.
Back to pinky.
Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh,
duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh.
Second verse.
Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh.
OK, now this has been the bass part.
We want to get some of the right hand involved
so we can complete the chord that makes it sound good.
OK, now we're going to forget about the left hand
for a few minutes and look at the right hand.
The right hand is numbered the same way.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
But our hands go opposite directions,
so the fingers go this way.
1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.
So we're going to place those for middle C, like that.
We have C, D, E, F, and G. Now, the first chord we're going to play
is going to use the third finger and the fifth finger.
That's the rest of the C chord.
And we're going to call this a C chord.
Now, when you play the other chord, the D chord,
or rather the G chord, you're going
to move to the second and fourth fingers.
So we have the C chord, the G chord.
Now, let's start out, and we'll do Clementine again.
We'll start with the C chord.
Da da da da da da da da da da da da Now, we'll go the G chord.
Da, da da da da da da da da da da da da da da
Let's try it on the little keyboard.
Da da da da da da da da da da da da
Notice how your fingers drop down.
Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun,
dun, dun.
So we're just moving these fingers back and forth,
back to this position.
It's three and four, three and five, rather than two and four.
Three and five, two and four.
How about Tom Dooley?
Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.
Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, switch to two and four.
That's a G chord.
Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun,
back to the C chord.
OK, let's see what it looks like on the little keyboard.
Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun,
dun, dun, dun, dun.
OK, that round that we were doing before, the row, row,
row your boat, same two chords.
All these songs, the same two chords.
Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun,
dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.
Now we switch.
Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.
Let's try it on the little keyboard.
Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun,
dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.
See, it's amazing how easy this is now, isn't it?
How about Mary Had a Little Lamb?
Because after Mary Had a Little Lamb,
we're going to put both hands together.
You know you can do it.
Here's Mary Had a Little Lamb.
Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, da, da, da, switch to G.
Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da,
back to G.
Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, da, da, da,
da, on the little keyboard.
Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da,
da, da, da, da, da.
Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.
OK, now we've played these four songs with your left hand,
And we played these four songs with the right hand.
But now we've got to try to put these together.
Now remember, in your left hand, you
played the C with your pinky.
You played the G with your thumb.
In the right hand, you played C with your third and fifth
fingers.
Put them together, you have a nice full chord.
And you played the G with your second and fourth fingers.
There's the low G. That's a nice chord.
So you have the C chord.
And you have the G chord.
Let's practice that a few times, try to make that change.
Because that's all we're going to be doing for these four
songs.
Now let's do Clementine.
We do it really slow, because I know
this is going to be a little tougher.
You got your C chord all ready?
OK, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.
We got to switch now.
OK, the thumb goes up here, and you switch to two and four.
You got it, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.
You got to switch again.
Music can be that way sometimes.
Back to the pinky, and three and five, da, da, da, da, da,
back to the thumb, and two and four, da, da, da, da, da.
Again, this is the C chord, and this is the G chord.
If you learn that, you're going to be in a lot better shape,
because we can call it C and G, and you
can get right to these notes.
OK, here we go.
Here's Clementine.
Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da,
switch, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da,
da, da, da, da.
And what you did, here's Tom Dooley.
Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da,
switch, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.
OK, how about row your boat?
🎵🎵🎵
🎵Switch!🎵🎵
Okay, Mary had a little lamb.
🎵🎵🎵
Now, of course we can do all these on the other keyboard.
So let's try it one more time and do it on the other keyboard.
Remember how you had your hands set?
One, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five.
Now you're going to use the same notes.
There's that C for the bass.
I'm going to move this up here so I don't knock this off.
There we go.
Okay, so let's try Tom Dooley.
I know we're a little bit out of order here, but it's a little easier.
Change doesn't come for a while.
Switch.
Now with the clementine.
Notice it's all the same moves.
Okay, how about, uh, row your boat?
Everybody around to sing this?
Dun, dun, da, da, dun, da, da, da, da, da, da,
dun, dun, da, da, dun, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.
Oh, I snuck a little trick in there.
We're gonna learn a little bit later on
where I play the bass like that.
Be ready for that later on.
Okay, how about Mary had a little lamb?
Dun, dun, da, dun, da, da, da, switch,
da, da, switch back, da, da, dun,
da, da, da, da, da, da,
da, da, da, da, da, da.
Okay, are you happy with all those notes?
You've learned the bass line,
and you've learned how to add the chords.
That's the C chord, and that's the G chord.
Okay, it's time for us now to learn how to play
the third chord of the three that I wanted to teach you.
Now, you know the C chord again.
Make sure you keep your fingers right.
Now, we wanna learn the F chord.
The F chord's gonna be like this.
You're gonna use your second finger of your left hand.
That's an F, and we're gonna have to run up
to an F and an A over here,
so your finger's gonna do a little moving.
Okay, now we wanna put these together with another chord.
We have a third chord, as I told you at the beginning.
Now, we've played the C chord.
We've played the G chord.
Now, we wanna go to the F chord.
That's gonna be your second finger in your left hand.
That's the F, it's right next to the G.
Okay, now to play that, your right hand
is going to have to move up from the C chord.
So, it's a little bit different.
Don't be afraid to lift your fingers up, you can do it.
They just move there, and then come back down.
So, you play C, and then you play F.
Then, we go to the G, back to C.
So, you have those.
Okay, let's try a song that has three chords.
Okay, how about Jingle Bells?
Now, we're gonna do this real slow,
so we can talk about how the changes work.
Okay, we're gonna start with C.
Now, we're gonna go to F.
The right hand moves up two notes.
Your left hand goes to the second finger.
Back to C.
Now, we're gonna go to G.
Back to C.
We go to that F again.
Back to G.
Okay, that was quite a bit there in one jump, wasn't it?
Okay, well, let's analyze what we did.
Let's take it apart just a bit
to make sure everyone understands what we did.
Notice I put the bass note in,
and then I hit the chord over here.
Kind of helps you think a little bit more.
The bass notes are a little easier to find.
There's only one of them.
Gives you a chance just to get oriented to that other note.
So, it's Jingle Bells.
Now, this is a C chord.
Jingle Bells.
Jingle all the way.
Now, we're gonna switch to F.
Second finger, move up two notes.
Back to C.
To G.
Back to C.
To F.
Move your fingers up.
Back to C.
Down to the G.
How about that?
A good song for you to play.
We can do this on a little keyboard.
We might scrunch our fingers up in there
and get this to work on a little keyboard.
Can all this change?
The C chord.
Get ready to go to F chord.
Second finger, move your fingers up.
To the G chord.
Just as simple as that.
Okay, how about Deck the Halls?
Remember that song?
We're gonna stay with Christmas one more tune here.
Get your hand all set on the keyboard.
Go to the G.
Back to G.
Here's the F.
You thought I wasn't gonna play one, didn't you?
Well, I fooled you.
Let's try, let's switch music here
and go to Amazing Grace.
That's a song everyone likes to sing.
That's also a three chord song.
But the difference here is
we're gonna hit the right hand twice
after we hit the left hand.
It's gonna sound like this.
Because this song's what we call
the three, four time.
It counts a little different.
Go to the F chord.
Back to C.
Go to G.
Back to C.
Back to F.
Dun, dun, dun, dun.
Dun, dun.
Okay, so you can play those three chords
with that song too.
No problem.
Okay, let's try another song.
Let's see if we can get everyone singing
another folk song with the three chords now.
We're gonna try Michael Rowe, The Boat is Shore.
So get ready.
Everything we're doing, of course, is in C.
So get your C chord ready.
Dun, dun, dun, dun.
Go to the F chord.
Dun, dun, dun.
Dun, dun, dun, dun.
Go to the G chord.
Dun, dun, dun, dun.
Back to C.
Let's try a little rhythm thing.
We're gonna go...
Got that?
It's gonna be bass, then hit twice.
Then once.
Dun, dun, dun.
Dun, dun, F.
Dun, dun, dun, dun.
Dun, dun, G.
Dun, dun, dun.
Dun, dun.
Let's see.
Now, we just introduced a little rhythm switch,
and it made a lot of difference to the sound.
It sounded more lively, a little more interesting.
Now, you can do that with adding different patterns
or you can just play a song that's a little quicker
and move your chords a little more.
How about she'll be coming around the mountain.
Dun, dun, dun.
Go to the F.
Dun, dun, dun.
Back to one.
Dun, dun, dun.
Get ready for four.
Dun, dun, dun.
Back to one.
Dun, dun, five.
Dun, dun, dun.
Okay, now that's a pattern that we can also use
for when the sings go marching in.
It's got the same number of chords.
Dun, dun, dun, dun.
Dun, dun, dun.
Dun, dun, dun, dun.
Go to the G chord.
Dun, dun.
Dun, dun, dun.
Dun, dun.
Get ready for F.
Dun, dun.
C.
G.
Dun.
See?
So those all work with the same kind of patterns.
Now, we can do a song like for He's a Jolly Good Fellow,
and we completely switch the pattern.
Dun, dun, dun, dun.
Dun, dun.
G.
Dun, dun, dun.
Go to F.
Dun, dun.
Back to C.
Dun, dun, dun.
Dun, dun.
Now, we introduced a pretty quick change right there.
You got to go one beat on the C chord,
one beat on the G chord,
one beat back to the C chord.
So let's slow that down a bit.
Try one more time,
because you're going to find songs
that move this fast.
Dun, dun, dun.
To G.
Dun, dun, dun.
Back to C.
Dun, dun, dun.
Go to the F.
Dun, dun.
Back to C.
Dun, dun.
To the G.
Dun, dun, dun.
See how you can move those fast like that?
It's not that big of a problem to do that.
Okay.
Now, are you really familiar with these chords?
We're going to run past these chords again
to make sure you understand
everything we've done to this point.
Okay?
First of all, in our left hand,
you learn the note C and G.
Pinky plays the C.
Your thumb plays the G.
Then we introduce the F.
That way, we can play three chord songs,
literally thousands of three chord songs.
You have the C, the F, and the G.
In the right hand, you learned the C chord
or the completion of the C chord.
That should be noted that they aren't complete
without the bass note.
But in your right hand, you're playing the E and the G.
That's the rest of the C chord.
Then you learned the G chord.
Again, completed, and you have the G.
Back to the C.
And remember, when you went up to F,
you moved up here to an F and an A, those notes.
Then you came back to the E and G,
which complete the C chord.
So we have a C chord.
We have an F chord.
We have a G chord.
And we have a C chord.
Now, remember, all of this I've been showing you today
is just to get you started, and in this short period of time,
makes you able to play songs on the keyboard.
You can play any three chord song
if you learn where these notes are.
If it's in the key of C, you can play these chords.
It's no problem.
You vary your rhythms, et cetera.
But it isn't making you a professional.
If you want to be a professional,
call your local teacher, your local music store.
Get together.
Find the right books.
Find the right teachers.
Learn how to play correctly.
But you can have fun with this method,
and it gives you a good start.
So remember everything that I've shown you today.
Of course, you can run this tape back,
and it's not any kind of a problem for you.
And you'll be able to play these chords without any trouble.
Let me remind you again
that I want to play a couple more tunes for you,
and I'm going to show you how to complete the chords.
What I want to do,
because I do have a couple of minutes for you,
I'm going to put your right hand with three notes.
Just one quick move here.
You want to play the bass note,
so we're going to have one, three, and five.
That's going to be the next thing you're going to learn,
so get ready for that in the next tape.
Now, of course, we have to finish this while all anxiety.
I hope you have a good time with this,
and I'll be looking forward to seeing you again.
Thank you.