Play Any Pop Song

With Despacito having become the watched Youtube video ever, I thought it would be cool to show you how if you learn Despacito, then you can play and sing 100s of other songs at the same time, let me explain.  

First: The Chords

Despacito is a very simple song that only uses 4 chords that repeat for the entirety of the song.  They are

Bm  G  D  A

This puts the song in the key of D Major. (B minor)

D Em F#m G A Bm C#dim D

If  we were to give them numbers, D=1, E=2, etc. Then the song becomes

vi IV I V

Knowing that, you can play the song in any key, pick a major scale, and just play those particular chords, then you can play the song in that place, higher or lower from the original.  Example:

Eb Fm Gm Ab Bb Cm Ddim Eb      This becomes

Cm Ab Eb Bb

Other Songs

Knowing that Despacito has a vi IV I V chords progression means that you can sing the melodies of other songs that have the same chord progression over it.  You can play...

What are major scales and why are they important?

The Major Scale

There are 12 keys at the piano, 7 white & 5 black, that repeat themselves up & down the piano till you have a total of 88.  

That being said, during any particular song or piece of music, only 7 of those keys will be used at any given time.  

Those 7 keys make up what's called the "major" scale.  

Most songs all have what's called a "home key."  This is the note or chord where the song begins and ends.  Let's say it's C major.  

Any song that only uses these 7 notes is called "diatonic".  

When you make C your "home" key, then then scale is only made up of white keys.  

Which means you can play any "diatonic" song by only playing white keys, which is pretty cool.  

C D E F G A B C

Sharps & Flats

You'll notice when going up the scale from C to D, etc.  Some notes will have black key between them, and others...

If you've been playing piano for a while, but haven't heard of the circle of 5ths, boy are you missing out.  This is gonna me an awesome lesson for you.  This will really help you understand your scales, and you're going to love'em.  Just bare with me here.  

What are 5ths?

First, you need to know what a 5th is.  a 5th is just an interval, the amount of space between two notes.  Here's an example

AB = 2nd, AC = 3rd, AD = 4th AE = 5th  

If you go past G, you just start over in the alphabet.  

FG = 2nd, FA = 3rd, FB = 4th, FC = 5th  

That's all a 5th is.  Now what happen if you just went up the piano in 5ths?  What notes would you have?  

C G D A E B F# C# G# D# A# E#(F) B#(C)

And what would happen if you went down by 5ths?  GF = 2nd GE = 3rd, etc.

C F Bb Eb Ab Db Gb Cb Fb Bbb(A) Ebb(D) Abb(G)  

That's every note on the piano spelled with either sharps or flats using the circle of...