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Have you ever wanted to be able to sit down at the piano and serenade your soulmate with beautiful improvised melodies? Well, in today’s Quick Tip, 4 Steps to Play Romantic Piano, Jonny May helps you train your fingers do the talking the next time that true love has you at a loss for words. You’ll learn:

• Intro to Romantic Piano
• Learn to Play Romantic Piano With These 4 Steps
  • #1: The Love Progression
  • #2: Descending Bass Line
  • #3: Left-Hand Broken Chords
  • #4: Romantic Piano Improvisation

Intro to Romantic Piano

There are very few things in life more romantic than the sound of a slow, tender piano ballad. In fact, when you add in a touch of improvisation, then the effect is even more sublime. If this is one of your goals as a piano student, then you have truly exquisite aspirations. Moreover, you’ve also come to the right place, because that’s exactly what you’ll learn in this lesson! Just follow the 4 simple steps in today’s lesson outline.

If you’re already a PWJ member, then be sure to grab the downloadable PDF and backing tracks for this lesson, which are included with your membership. These resources will appear at the bottom of this page after you’ve logged in with your membership. In addition, PWJ members can also easily transpose these romantic piano examples to any key using our Smart Sheet Music.

Learn to Play Romantic Piano With These 4 Steps

The following 4-step outline will enable late-beginner to intermediate level piano students to achieve their goal of playing romantic piano music. In addition, more advanced pianists will find deep reward in exploring the wealth of expressive possibilities that are available within these musical examples. In particular, these examples offer advanced players a unique opportunity to focus on carefully controlling dynamics and rubato, which is playing with an elastic sense of time.

Let’s begin with Step 1.

#1: The Love Progression

There is one particular chord progression that tends to surface over and over again in love songs. In fact, did you know that all of the following songs make use of the same basic chord progression?

Here at PWJ, we simply call this familiar succession of chords “The Love Progression.” Often times, songwriters present this chord progression with a few different tweaks, such as employing different passing chords. Still, the overall harmonic thrust is essentially the same. The example below shows The Love Progression in C major in its most basic form.

In the example above, all of the chords are in root position—just as we’re accustomed to hearing this progression in Pachelbel’s “Canon in D.” In the next step, you’ll discover another common manner in which The Love Progression is frequently used in romantic piano songs.

#2: Descending Bass Line

Now, let’s examine one of the most common formats that songwriters use when arranging romantic songs based on The Love Progression. In this step, we’ll apply chord inversions to the chords that fall on beat 3 in bars 1–3. These 1st inversion chords produces a smooth, stepwise bass line that results in a tender and delicate romantic piano effect.

In sheet music notation, chord inversions are expressed with slash chord symbols containing two parts separated by a slash. The letter in front of the slash represents the primary chord and the letter after the slash indicates the bass note. Therefore, in slash notation, the chord symbol G/B indicates a G major triad with the note B as the bass note. [learn more about slash chords]

In the next step, you’ll learn how to propel this progression along by adding 8th notes in the left hand.

#3: Left-Hand Broken Chords

One of the hallmark techniques of romantic piano music is its flowing character. Therefore, let’s learn how to achieve this musical effect by adding an 8th-note pattern in our left hand. The following example shows one possible accompaniment pattern using broken chords (aka arpeggios).

The accompaniment pattern in the example above is based on beautiful, open-position triads. However, if you’re more of a beginner, you can play a similar pattern with closed-position triads instead.

For a deep dive on The Love Progression, including additional left-hand patterns and right-hand improv tips, check out the following full-length course:

🔎 The Love Progression (Int)

#4: Romantic Piano Improvisation

The fourth step to playing beautiful romantic piano music is to add an improvisational dimension to your playing. Therefore, let’s consider five versatile techniques that you can use to add some personal expression to The Love Progression. These tips will enable you to add a pro touch when accompanying over this progression. Plus, you can also combine these techniques together with improv scales to play an improvised solo.

Here are the five techniques we’ll consider:

1. The Sus Walkdown
2. Middle Slips
3. Interval Rocking
4. Magical 3rds
5. Ostinatos

Now, let’s take a closer look at each improv technique.

a. The Sus Walkdown

The Sus Walkdown technique uses a melodic ornamentation technique called a suspension, which Billy Joel once poetically described as a “hanging note” [see reference]. The suspension in a non-chord tone that resolves or settles into the chord just a little bit after the chord arrives. Let’s take a listen.

Notice that when we play The Love Progression with the Sus Walkdown technique, we use root position chords throughout the progression. That’s because suspensions are dissonances that we deliberately create over the root of the chord as the bass note. In fact, there are two different types of suspensions employed in this example: 9-8 suspensions and 4-3 suspensions. The numbers in these terms refer to intervals above the root of the chord. Hence, the first number is the intervallic distance of the suspended note above the root. Naturally, the second number is the intervallic distance of the resolution note above the root of the chord. In fact, each suspension type in the example above is labeled for your consideration.

b. Middle Slips

Another great sounding improvisatory technique that you can add to The Love Progression is slip notes—designated here as “middle slips” because we’re employing this technique in the middle of the chord. Slip notes are notated in sheet music with smaller noteheads—just like grace notes. However, slip notes are actually a separate and unique articulation technique. Thus, they’re not played in quite the same manner as grace notes would be played in the Classical piano tradition. Instead, the slip note is played simultaneously with the upper harmony note. Then, immediately after the initial attack, the slip note gives way or “resolves” to the larger note that appears to its right. The following example demonstrates how to interpret slip notes in contemporary piano styles.

c. Interval Rocking

Next, let’s explore interval rocking, a delicate and simply-stated right-hand technique that can be used to gently adorn the broken-chord accompaniment in our left-hand. Interval rocking creates captivating sonorities by taking a four-note voicing and dividing it into overlapping, oscillating interval pairs. For instance, in the following example, the right-hand notes on beats 1 and 2 of the first measure are derived from interval rocking the 4-note C major voicing E–G–C–E.

d. Magical 3rds

Another beautiful, romantic piano improv technique is “magical 3rds.” You can create this elegant pro touch by harmonizing an improvised melody with 3rd intervals. Note, this technique is particularly effective when the melodic line primarily uses stepwise motion, as in the following example.

e. Ostinatos

Lastly, when you’re ready to play out with a bit more energy in the right hand, ostinatos are a great “go to” technique. An ostinato is simply a repeating musical figure or pattern. For example, the following melody employs a 16th-note ostinato figure in each measure based on a simple hand shape. Specifically, the hand shape in measure 1 is G–C–D-G (from bottom to top). Similarly, the ostinato in measure 2 is based on the hand shape E–B–C–E. Finally, measures 3 and 4 are based on the hand shape C–F–G–C.

Conclusion

Congratulations, you’ve completed today’s lesson on 4 Steps to Play Romantic Piano. Once you have these romantic piano techniques under your fingers, you’ll find that expressing your true feelings on the piano will feel more natural than ever!

If you enjoyed this lesson, then you’ll love the following PWJ resources:

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