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How to Play She's Got a Way by Billy Joel Part 3


Okay. So this last section of the lesson, I just kind of want to talk about certain things that you can do to the song to make it your own. Obviously it's good to learn it as it's supposed to be played, but my philosophy is always once you've kind of learned that or attempted to learn that, try and make it your own. So what are some things that you could do to make it your own? First of all, like I said, make sure you really understand the chords, really understand all their inversions. Try to play through the song in different inversions each time. See if you can have, say, three variations of how to play the verse. So one variation could be this, which is what we've done mostly. So another variation of that part, what if we start like this in our right hand? See how it's the same sound but I've just got different inversions and they're really the same notes of the chords, just moved in different spots. So that's one thing. Another thing I like to do is to try and figure out what is there to do with this verse besides just play these chords? So if you plan on singing this, maybe you could mix it up by not singing on a verse and playing a melody in your right hand. So all I'm doing there is a couple things. I'm really targeting the chord tones, and by that I mean the notes of the chords. If I just played, so, let's say, only the notes of the chords it could sound like this. So it's kind of interesting. And again, just sticking with those notes that are already under your fingers when you play the song. To make it a little bit more interesting I'm adding some of the blues scale. And the G blues scale, if you don't know it already, is G, B flat, C, C sharp, D, F, G. So it's nice to kind of bend off some of those notes. What I'm doing at the beginning here. And all I'm doing there is really, like right there, I'm playing with the C blues scale. And during that E minor I was kind of messing around with the E minor blues scale. So really main thing to do there is learn those blues scales, learn them in all of the keys of the chord. So G blues scale, E minor blues scale or E blues scale, C blues scale, D blues scale. Every chord that's in here. A minor is in there. Try and figure out the blues scale so that once you're kind of playing through it you can from that vocabulary. So let's try that first section of chords just playing with blues scales. And to be clear, sometimes I'm making this like in the G blues scale, is really but in some cases I'm bringing in that major third in there. Because it sounds nice to slide into. That's one idea to think about. Let me think about another thing that you could do. Again, with the chords, is instead of just playing three notes, and I mentioned this a little bit before, but let me highlight it a little bit better. Instead of playing three notes for each triad, try doubling one of the notes of the triad. So if we're at this G triad, you could double this D with your thumb, and it just makes it that much more of a chord. So you could try and go through the whole song playing four-note chords by doubling one of the notes of the triad. That can make it sound a lot fuller. As opposed to this . This is three notes in my right hand for every chord. Now, what happens if I make it with four? Kind of gives it a little bit more fullness. Last thing I'll show you is this little run all just major chords. So what is it? And I'm playing it over G. And it actually works well on this part, "She's got a way." I'm playing right here. So what am I doing there? And I've heard these were called Cramer-isms from Floyd Cramer. But whatever you want to call them. You're taking the G triad really and you're going to be sliding from A, E flat, B. So try to get it slow first to figure out what your slide is. And then you come back down. And over that same G chord you could do the same pattern looking at a C triad. So G triad, C. But both these work over that G chord, that G to the B in the bass, going to see. So check this out. So I hope this gives you some ideas to think about for the song. It's a very simple song but there's a lot of cool things you could do with it. And, of course, if you have any questions feel free to e-mail us.


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