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S2E20 – Piano and Melodies for Music Producers

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If you want to learn how to make melodies in beats, then listen closely to this episode!

You will discover that beatmakers and classical piano players differ very much when it comes to making beats on a piano.

Also, you’d be surprised that YOU DO NOT need to know MUSIC THEORY in-depth to make beats, either!

This episode talks about MANY piano secrets music producers must know, as well as ways to practice and build muscle memory to become a good beatmaker who plays piano!

We talk about..

  • Beatmakers vs. Classical Piano Players
  • Picking a Key and Scale
  • Building Muscle Memory
  • Using Inversions
  • How to Pick Chords for Beats
  • Your Hand’s Numbering
  • How to Practice Piano and See Results!

Listen to the episode for more details about how to play piano in FL Studio!

You may also like my Piano Course for Producers (save 50%!)

Beatmaking Improvisation Inversions Key and Scale Melodies Piano

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Questions about this episode

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S2E20 – Piano and Melodies for Music Producers

  1. Season two, episode 20, piano and melodies for music
  2. producers. Now, I actually have an episode on this.
  3. It's actually from season one, episode 25.
  4. It's called Playing Piano as a Beatmaker.
  5. Now I want to let you guys know that I have a piano course.
  6. It's called Piano Lessons for Producers, and it teaches you all from a music
  7. producer's perspective. And the two main things that you need to learn is that as a
  8. music producer, we are focused on improvisation, which means that we can just play
  9. melodies on the fly, right? And we're also focused on catchy melodies.
  10. Now, as a music producer, we need to learn how to blend these catchy melodies,
  11. right? We need to make sure that these melodies go together.
  12. So essentially it's like you are the conductor, you know, like you are making sure
  13. that the guitar goes with the piano with which goes with the bass line, and all of
  14. you know, so all the melodies have to be catchy and they all have to blend together.
  15. Music theory, it is tricky, it is you know, all those things, but it's not that
  16. hard. Okay, as a music producer, we don't need to know you know, music theory super
  17. in depth. So, to repeat, as a music producer, we need to know
  18. improvisation and how to create catchy loops.
  19. All right. So if you guys want to get 50% off of my piano course, only in this
  20. episode I'll give you guys a link.
  21. So you're gonna be visiting my website, it's gratuitous.com on the podcast page.
  22. This is season two, episode 20, piano and melodies for music producers.
  23. You will see the episode resource section.
  24. If you click on the link, it'll be piano lessons for producers, 50% off.
  25. You click that, it's gonna add it to your cart for 50% off.
  26. Okay. And also, if you do want to stay updated with the website, you can join the
  27. membership and you can get the piano course in the membership as well as watch all
  28. the other courses, and it's a way better deal.
  29. Okay, so let's get into piano and melodies for music producers.
  30. Okay. So the first thing that you need to know to be able to learn the piano with
  31. improvisation is keys and scales.
  32. You need to pick a key and a scale.
  33. We often work in major or minor scales.
  34. And essentially, in one octave, there is 12 notes.
  35. And you might think, well, I'm going to use all these 12 notes, but it doesn't work
  36. that way. A key and a scale actually breaks it down that you're only allowed to use
  37. seven notes. All right. And if you're like, well, what do you mean?
  38. Yes, inside of an octave, when you pick a key and a scale, you can only use seven
  39. notes. Now, when you play your melodies with single notes or with chords, they have
  40. to have these seven notes. And that's the secret.
  41. All right. If you're confused by that, again, check out the piano course.
  42. It's also going to teach you improvisation and train you how to create catchy
  43. melodies all from a beatmaker's perspective.
  44. Okay. So you got to pick a key and a scale.
  45. It's going to tell you the seven notes you're allowed to play.
  46. Now you can go to your different octaves, but you always have to play those seven
  47. notes in either your single notes or in your chords.
  48. They have to have those seven notes.
  49. Otherwise, your notes are going to be out of pitch.
  50. Okay. That's the biggest secret, okay?
  51. Now, the next thing I see a lot of people talk about all out there is they always
  52. use like the Roman numeral numbers, right?
  53. When it comes to you know, like one, four, five, and stuff like that.
  54. And like in my opinion, that stuff's way too intense and way too technical.
  55. It's like people are just trying to sound smart.
  56. And it doesn't have to be like that.
  57. You, as a music producer, need to learn just to create catchy melodies and to learn
  58. improvisation. And I already told you the biggest secret.
  59. It's picking a key and a scale, all right.
  60. I didn't know about this for years.
  61. And as soon as I realized, I was like, wow.
  62. But it's not that simple because okay, now you know the seven notes you're allowed
  63. to play, but now you have to build muscle memory.
  64. And nobody can teach you muscle memory.
  65. I can't teach you muscle memory.
  66. My course can't teach you muscle memory, but I can, and the course can.
  67. It will teach you how to get started building your muscle memory and how to
  68. practice. Okay. And then it's up to you.
  69. Okay. So I can only get you so far.
  70. I can show you all the little tricks, all the little secrets, but the muscle memory,
  71. it's just like if you're going to be playing sports or if you skateboard or
  72. whatever. Like, you know, I remember when I was learning to skateboard when I was
  73. like seven years old, trying to learn a kickflip.
  74. Like I probably tried for like a year, and then I finally was able to do my first
  75. kickflip, and it's so exciting.
  76. But it's the same thing with learning the piano.
  77. You have to build muscle memory.
  78. And in order to do that, you got to keep practicing.
  79. So I'll talk to you about a couple tricks about how to practice in this episode as
  80. well, because I've been getting some questions about that.
  81. And just a heads up, be on the lookout for a new series coming very soon.
  82. It's called the Melody Minute.
  83. I'll give you more information about that in coming up time.
  84. You'll be able to sign up. I will give you a cheat sheet when it comes to all the
  85. keys and scales. And honestly, you just select one key and scale, and that's all you
  86. need to know as a music producer.
  87. You can use other keys and scales, but I always tell you guys it's nice to pick one
  88. key and scale so that you can memorize it.
  89. If you ever want to transpose, and what that means is just going to a different key
  90. and scale, you can do that in your music program.
  91. But as a music producer, there's not enough time to learn all these different keys
  92. and scales. Like we are not classical piano players.
  93. Okay. That's what I talked to you also about in the course.
  94. classical piano players There'sers
  95. versus beat mak., As a beatmaker we are focused on improvisation and catchy loops.
  96. Classical piano players, they are interested in perfection, right?
  97. So what does that mean? They need perfect time.
  98. They need they need to know all the keys and scales.
  99. They need to be able to play like any music piece.
  100. But as a beatmaker, if we screw up, we can just edit it in our with our mouse in our
  101. music program. We are more focused on creating that catchy loop so that we can edit
  102. it later. All right. So we need to know how to play the piano, but we don't need to
  103. be like professionals. We just need to know how to create catchy loops and flow.
  104. Okay. So picking one key and scale and learning it and practicing and building
  105. muscle memory, that's the secret.
  106. Okay. It's gonna take you years.
  107. I'm probably seven or eight years in, and honestly, in my last, you know, maybe in
  108. the last month or two, I've noticed another little improvement in my piano playing.
  109. I noticed that my left hand's blending a little bit better with my right hand, and
  110. it's just it's just the way it goes.
  111. Like in the first, and so okay, so it'll be like this.
  112. In your first month, you were you are gonna notice some huge improvements in your
  113. second month, you might notice some little improvements, maybe six months in, all of
  114. a sudden you're like, wow, like look how far I've come.
  115. Then it comes to two years, and maybe you haven't progressed that much, but it's the
  116. fact that the muscle memory has to happen.
  117. It's just like when I was trying to learn skateboarding and that kickflip, right?
  118. Like it's just muscle memory. So let's talk about how to practice now.
  119. The best way that I like to learn to practice is I like to pick four chords.
  120. For example, if you're in C major, I showed you in the course there's C, G, A, and
  121. F. That's in C major. Okay, it's a really really beautiful chord progression.
  122. But what you can do is you can play it with both the left and the right hand, just
  123. the same chord and get it going left, you know, over and over, over and over.
  124. Another thing I teach you in the course is what's called inversions.
  125. Inversions are super powerful because it's the same chord, but it's either up higher
  126. or down lower, which is a little secret because we are always interested in sound
  127. selection and being able to make our sounds fit in the frequency spectrum.
  128. And so if you use inversions, like so, for example, let's say you're playing the
  129. chord in the root position, which is just the normal position, okay.
  130. Let's say it's kind of being masked by the other instruments, and you're like, okay,
  131. well, I like this sound. You can play an inversion of the chord, maybe just like on
  132. the I usually do the inversion on the right hand, not the left hand.
  133. And without getting too technical, essentially it's because the left hand is the
  134. lower frequencies, okay. In scientific audio math theory stuff, the
  135. lower frequencies are going slower, which means that if there's ever phase
  136. cancellation and stuff like that, we hear the wobble a lot more than in the high
  137. frequencies. Okay, so the right hand are higher frequencies, and so you can be doing
  138. inversions with the right hand, and in the left hand, I usually don't play the full
  139. chord. I will usually just play the outside.
  140. So, for example, just on your pinky and on your thumb, which is what so your thumb
  141. is what they call the one, and your pinky is the five.
  142. Okay. All right, so that's just like the left hand, but on the right hand, again,
  143. you can play inversions and you can take advantage of the frequency spectrum.
  144. So I pick four chords though when I'm practicing, and so that just allows me as I'm
  145. practicing just to be able to flow.
  146. If you're only using two chords, I kind of find it's boring.
  147. Now you can make a beat with just two chords.
  148. You can make a beat with just one chord..
  149. but I usually find four chords is just pleasing to the ear
  150. It also allows the beat to be really refreshing.
  151. So, for example, a loop has a beginning and an end point.
  152. And when the loop wraps around, and I talk about this in my safe spots book, I talk
  153. to you about the end loop bring-in.
  154. Okay, so at the very beginning of the loop, we we can be adding something into our
  155. drum loop, for example, and we can also be adding something at the end of our drum
  156. loop so that when the loop comes around, right?
  157. With our four chords, it's refreshing, okay?
  158. And I usually find four chords minimum is quite pleasing to the ear, and it's also
  159. really good to practice with. So four chords, okay.
  160. The next thing that will help you practice is practicing over a drum loop.
  161. And this drum loop I usually make about 10 minutes long, and I'll save it onto like
  162. my phone or an MP3 player, and I'll put earbuds in and I'll go on a real piano and
  163. I'll play over the drum loop. And what's really useful is that because it's 10
  164. minutes long, it forces me to play for 10 minutes.
  165. Once I'm done playing, I can decide am I gonna hit play again to keep practicing
  166. or am I done for the day? Sometimes I will hit it once.
  167. So for example, I get a 20-minute practice session in.
  168. Sometimes I hit it twice. I usually don't go more than like 30 minutes, but it all
  169. depends on you know how I'm feeling that day.
  170. And sometimes I don't play over the drum loop, like you don't always have to.
  171. But the thing is what I'm trying to say is as a music producer, it's really good to
  172. put yourself in the situation that you're actually going to be making a beat, right?
  173. And usually when we make a beat, what are we playing over?
  174. We're usually playing over a drum loop.
  175. Sometimes there's different melodies going on.
  176. Like if you would like to do that. that, but the thing that's tricky with that is
  177. you always have to remember the chord progression
  178. And that could also make you have you know, kind of be in a bad habit of always
  179. using the same chords because you have to use those same chords if you recorded
  180. melodies over the drum loop to practice over.
  181. So I suggest just have a drum loop that you can play over, and then you can play
  182. your four chords, and you don't have to play on a real piano.
  183. You can do this just like an FL Studio or whatever music program you use.
  184. Again, I use FL Studio. So there you guys go.
  185. That's a lot of information about a piano.
  186. There is so much to learn. And the biggest thing I can tell you guys is yeah, it was
  187. just like when I was skateboarding.
  188. You know, it took forever to learn that kickflip and other tricks, and you try them
  189. over and over and over and over, and then you finally land it, and it's just like
  190. wow. And then it starts getting a little easier because you build a little bit of
  191. confidence, especially in skateboarding, because like you're landing on a board with
  192. wheels and it can slip out super easy, right?
  193. But when it comes to a piano, again, it's muscle memory, it's knowing where your
  194. hands can go, it's knowing that you can play faster and faster and more confidently.
  195. Your hands get stronger, your your forearms start getting stronger, okay.
  196. You know, and at the very beginning, I'm just telling you guys just to play chords,
  197. and what that means is just play the note, hold it down, go to the next chord.
  198. Okay, go to the next chord. As you start to advance, your left hand maybe you're
  199. gonna hold down, but your right hand, you can maybe start playing different chords
  200. and then go to the next chord progression on the left hand.
  201. Okay. So usually when I'm talking about a chord progression, it's usually the left
  202. hand. The left hand is like that driving force, so it'd be like, you know,, C C, G,
  203. G, A, F, A, F.. But then on your right hand, you are
  204. just kind of playing around But again, the right hand still has to play the same
  205. notes that are in the key and scale.
  206. Okay. So again, if you guys want to learn piano from a music producer's perspective,
  207. visit the description link. You guys are going to go to it's gratuitous.com, the
  208. podcast page. This episode is season two, episode 20.
  209. You will see the piano lessons for producers course for 50% off.
  210. You can click it, it'll add it to your cart.
  211. You can you you can take it that way, or you can join the membership with special
  212. pricing when you download my free book and you can get the piano course that way.
  213. Okay. So to get the free book, you just go to it's gratuitous.com forward slash five
  214. keys, sign up with your name and email.
  215. Again, it's gonna take you to a thank you page with a free video presentation.
  216. It'll also have a button there if you want to join the membership at special pricing
  217. where you can take all the courses, including the piano course.
  218. and I'll send you the free book to your email, or again, just visit the episode
  219. description and you'll be able to get the piano course for 50% off.
  220. So be on the lookout for the melody minute.
  221. I'm really excited for it. It's gonna be just quick piano tips as a music producer.
  222. and again, we as beat makers, we play the piano way different than classical piano
  223. players. That is what I discovered over the years, you know, quite a quite a few
  224. years ago now. and like I said, a lot of people make playing the piano
  225. sometimes difficult. You know, they try to show you all at the Roman numerals and
  226. they try to show you all this stuff, and they try to make it as if it's just like,
  227. oh, this is what all the most popular songs use.
  228. This is the chord progressions that they use.
  229. And it's just like I'm telling you guys, if you listen to that, you are not gonna
  230. learn the piano yourself. You're not gonna learn to create your own melodies.
  231. And I'm telling you guys, listen to my beats.
  232. Go check them out at it's gratuitous.com forward slash music.
  233. If you like my melodies, if you like, you know, the way I make beats and like that
  234. they're unique and how the melodies kind of all blend together.
  235. That's because I've taught myself how to play piano and I focused on catchy melodies
  236. and improvisation. If you want to learn the piano, again, check out the piano
  237. course. Thank you for listening.
  238. You guys can contact me at any time.
  239. I hope this episode helps because I know that the piano is a very, very important to
  240. learn as a music producer, right?
  241. If you want to learn your melodies, but the next step is to learn about drum loops.
  242. And if you're interested in that, check out my book and my course.
  243. It's called Safe Spots, create amazing drum loops.
  244. And in addition to the melody minute, I'm also creating something called the drum
  245. corner. So the drum corner is going to be teaching about safe spots and drum loops,
  246. and the melody minute is going to be teaching about the piano.
  247. Now, if you've taken the piano course, the melody minute is gonna really help you.
  248. And if you haven't taken the course, the melody minute might be a little bit hard
  249. for some people because you haven't taken the course.
  250. All right, so again, thank you for listening to the episode.
  251. If you ever have questions, you feel free to reach out to me, and I'll talk to you
  252. in the next one.
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