12 Key Improvisation Ideas For Piano: Just 1 Scale 7 Notes!

K-Pop, Early Classical Music, Contemporary Christian Praise Hymns, Folk Tunes, New Age Piano, Country & Western Music: When it comes to improvisation, what do these genres have in common?  Hint: Musicians will often sound “right in the pocket” by creating solos made up of just 7 notes (using only 1 scale) over the entire tune!

For the above genres of music (including certain even eighth note Jazz & Gospel styles), the 7 notes of the major key center scale work well for improvising over the whole piece. It’s an easy concept to keep in mind that may enhance your solos (without having to think of too many confusing options), so you can focus on building nice melodic lines with rhythmic variety. When we build solos upon one scale it’s called playing diatonically – which can sound good, provided the tune’s harmony doesn’t stray far from the home key.

Pianists, keyboardists, and guitarists also have the advantage of being able to build chords diatonically by combining notes built across a scale. In the following video tutorial I’ll show you how to do just that by using the D major scale – the key center of the K-Pop hit Euphoria – sung by 정국  Jungkook of the popular South Korean boy band BTS. Watch how the entire music video (harmonic devices are expained above the bird’s eye view of my hands on the keyboard, followed by all scale and chord building exercise examples), is created with just these 7 notes: D E F# G A B C#:

The 12+ ideas to explore vary from easy to challenging, and are time-stamped  – see the video’s description box (visable underneath on YouTube).

If you want to hear Jungkook singing in the official BTS music videos which inspired my Euphoria Piano Cover Jam plus this Tutorial, check out this 3 chord version (G  A  B-) https://youtu.be/MA6UBcKmeEk

You may also want to check out this Euphoria Piano Version (Jungkook vocals with piano accompaniment) that uses more chord variety (All still related to the key of D major): https://youtu.be/jZtZkdhmceg

Subscribe to my official YouTube Channel for more easy piano arranging improvisation tips!  https://www.youtube.com/c/DebbieDenke

And if you’d like to have something tangible to put on your piano while you practice/listen along, find all 3 of my piano improvisation book/audio methods (The Aspiring Jazz Pianist, Amazing Phrasing – Keyboard, The Complete Church Pianist) see “Books” on my website or go here to order: https://www.amazon.com/author/debbiedenkemusic

Hope you have fun exploring the key of D like I did! – DD

Big Ideas For Small Hands: How To Write a Full Sounding Piano Arrangement

Let’s take the lovely ballad Skylark (by Johnny Mercer/Hoagy Carmichael), and learn how to enhance a ballad’s melody with beautiful chords and a foundational bass line. In this video observe how I took a chart from an old fakebook and updated some chords more to my liking, a process called reharmonization:


Continue reading “Big Ideas For Small Hands: How To Write a Full Sounding Piano Arrangement”

3 Easy Tips: Playing With Minor Chords

Bored with that minor chord? Don’t be! Making music in minor keys can be quite exhilarating with these 3 fun and easy tips. All you need is a bit of time to move around on a minor chord – then you can add colorful sounds to your arrangement.

The next 3 videos explain everything to start exploring the ideas. Apply the following tips to a tune of your choice in a minor key, or choose a piece which has a minor chord lasting 2 bars or longer. You may also elect to work on the many song suggestions demonstrated in the body of these tutorial videos: Continue reading “3 Easy Tips: Playing With Minor Chords”

Doxology: The New Old 100th – An Advanced Reharmonization Tutorial

The following video demonstrates how I came up with new chords using an old hymn as an example. It involves first stripping away the music to discovering the essential chords which give a tune its basic identity – I call these the skeleton chords – usually they are the I, V and perhaps IV chords of the tune. Continue reading “Doxology: The New Old 100th – An Advanced Reharmonization Tutorial”