How to Arrange Any Song for Piano
1. Find the Uniqueness
As a teenager, I often played the piano in bands. I played the guitar and piano in a jazz band (not simultaneously), and I often played in various pop/rock bands for events. However, at that time there wasn’t an easy way to quickly find sheet music for the songs I wanted to learn, and even if there was, I would have been terrible at reading it! So I needed to find a way of playing the songs on the piano with very little information, sometimes by just listening to the song, other times by working from just the chord chart.
The truth is, arranging a song for the piano is more formulaic than many players believe, because songs are written in a very formulaic way.
Initially, there are three components to a song that need to be found: the melody, the chords, and the structure.
The Melody
In popular music, the melody is usually pretty repetitive. There will be a verse melody that reappears for each verse and a chorus melody that reappears for each chorus. Often, finding some of the melody notes on the piano can help you quickly work out which key the song is in. For example, if you find that the song has an F# in the melody, then that means you have to be in a key that has an F# in it.
The Chords
The chords are really the foundation of a song, and they’re what make it easy for a pianist to play something extravagant with very little information. Typically, in popular music, there are repeating chord sequences. For those who aren’t used to listening for chords and chord changes, they can be a little tricky to deduce. However, if you know the key (from the melody or if you can hear the bass notes), then that limits the chords it can be. Let’s say you work out that the key is G major (G A B C D E F#), and you hear a D in the chord in one of the instruments that isn’t playing/singing the melody; then this can only be one of three possible chords: D major (D, F#, A), B minor (B, D, F#), or G major (G, B, D).
The Structure
Every song also follows a structure to make it memorable and appealing to listen to. Typically, in popular music, this is a verse/chorus structure. So it may be INTRO / VERSE / CHORUS / VERSE / CHORUS / BRIDGE / CHORUS / OUTRO, or something similar to this. There are some exceptions, Bohemian Rhapsody, for example, but typically a song will follow some kind of structure based around repeating sections. If you can identify where these sections are, then you only need to work out what’s happening in each section once.
2. Melody & Roots
So, let’s say that you know the melody, the chords, and the structure of the song. How do you actually play them on the piano together?
First, play the melody, and play the root note of each chord (e.g., a G if the chord is a G chord) in the left hand when you think the chords change. This helps you hear an outline of the song and work out where the chords change in relation to the melody you’re playing.
Second, continue playing just the root note in the left hand, but also try to play some of the other chord notes at the same time in the right hand alongside the melody. For example, if the chord is a G chord (G, B, D), you might play the root note (G) in the left hand and a D in the right hand below the melody. The trick here is to make sure you know which melody note the chords change on so you know which notes you can reach in the right hand, and to choreograph adding some extra notes alongside that melody. Over time, as you become more familiar with the chords, this becomes second nature.
Third, add some additional chord notes to the left hand as well. You can play an octave in the left hand to thicken the sound, or you can play 5ths (the outer two notes of the chord), e.g. G and D from the G chord. You can also decide whether you want the music to sound thick or thin-textured and, therefore, how widely across the piano you want to play.
3. Give it a Pulse
Once you have the chords, melody, and structure, you have a basic version of the song that will be recognisable. However, to make it sound like a true piano arrangement, most of the work is done by the rhythm and creating a sense of pulse in the music. Unfortunately, this is also the hardest part because it requires some practice to be able to do it automatically.
Unlike finding the notes and where the chords change, playing with rhythm on the piano is slightly less prescriptive and relies a little more on intuition through having patterns built into your fingers.
However, there are still some common rhythmic devices you can learn to start expanding on the basic song outline you have. First, there are left-hand chord patterns. I’ve made a video sharing lots of ways to play chords in the left hand with more rhythm (30 Ways to Play a Chord on the Piano!), but a simple one to try is to play the root, the 5th, and the octave backwards and forwards. So for a G chord (G, B, D), this would be G, then D, G an octave up, and then D again, with fingers 5, 2, and 1.
If you can play this pattern and move between different chords while playing it without thought, then playing this against the melody becomes much easier because your focus can stay with the melody.
Another simple way of creating rhythm in your music is to repeat the chords. You don’t need to play chords only when they change; you can also play those chords multiple times (rhythmically) before the chords change. Once again, when the rhythm you’re playing becomes second nature, you can apply your focus to the melody and this will become much easier.
Arranging a song for the piano is a skill made up of many different formulas. The key is to try it out and keep repeating the process—you’ll be able to arrange anything for the piano!
Matthew Cawood
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