Buy Seven Studies in Pop Piano here: http://www.billspianopages.com/seven-studies

How To Really Play The Piano: http://www.billspianopages.com/how-to-really

In this piano tutorial I take a short section from one of the pieces of music in my new book, Seven Studies in Pop Piano, and explore how I developed it from a basic chord progression to a fully-developed sequence.

The basic technique I describe here involves taking a fairly straightforward chord progression and breaking up the chords to create a rhythmic pattern in the right hand. The pattern can be varied, both rhythmically and by bringing in notes from outside the chord to create interest. The sustain pedal provides flow, and there's lots of scope for very expressive playing.

The left hand - which people who are learning how to improvise and use chords on the piano often fret about - is very simple, consisting of just single notes for the first half of the sequence, and then not getting much more complicated after that.

You should be able to take many chord progressions, whether you've invented them yourself or borrowed them from favourite songs - and use this technique to create cool and interesting sounds on the piano