How does Ryan Leslie have such command & control over the piano chords?

B

bleachboyrecords

New member
I watched a few videos of him in the studio and the way he makes his beats is he just starts playing away and not 1 single chord ever sounds off
 
I feel the same way! I am astounded at his mastery of the piano.

He is a really smart dude for starters. Graduated from Harvard at 19. From what I remember reading, he put in tons and tons of hours practicing in the studio basement at Harvard for years. He put in a lot of hard work and dedication to get to the point he is at now. In addition, he got on his grind and worked with lots of local artists in Boston.

So yeah, put in the hard work and time and pay your dues. It's not a mystery.
 
It is something that can't be taught. But I will say he uses the same chord progression over and over. If you want the pattern just learn by ear. And everything he plays is just his personal preferences. For instance, I only one scale, key, and set of chord progression, but I made a many different songs with different flavors. Its all bout you and hard work at being yourself. Don't really try to duplicate the R Les experience, but instead give the world your experience. And the pattern, method, and song will come to you. Also you might have people saying they want to know your method.
SN: I pretty sure this didn't help you at all, but I'm all about being unique.
 
Nah I feel you and I'm not trying to duplicate his style at all but I want to have a further understanding of ALL the piano chords and I think that is something that he definitely has an in depth knowledge of
 
He went to Harvard? That's impressive. I remember hearing his dad let him max out his credit cards so he could get some equipment and start up production.
 
Lots of practice and just being around the piano.

Just practicing isn't good enough IMO.

Learn how to play songs, learn theory, chord progressions, composition, plenty of experimentation.

Become a student as well as a musician.
 
bleachboyrecords said:
Nah I feel you and I'm not trying to duplicate his style at all but I want to have a further understanding of ALL the piano chords and I think that is something that he definitely has an in depth knowledge of
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It's rather about learning the theory behind how the chords are formed, instead of memorizing what notes are parts of what chords - that way you'll actually learn *all* the chords. And well, knowing how chords form is pretty elementary music theory, tbh. Doesn't take any great insight.
 
years upon years of practice

---------- Post added at 08:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:33 PM ----------
krushing said:
It's for rather about learning the theory behind how the chords are formed, instead of memorizing what notes are parts of what chords - that way you'll actually learn *all* the chords. And well, knowing how chords form is pretty elementary music theory, tbh. Doesn't take any great insight.
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for some reason people around here think playing keyboards is rocket science
 
krushing said:
It's rather about learning the theory behind how the chords are formed, instead of memorizing what notes are parts of what chords - that way you'll actually learn *all* the chords. And well, knowing how chords form is pretty elementary music theory, tbh. Doesn't take any great insight.
Click to expand...

This. After you learn basic chord formation then apply that to every note on the keyboard it becomes rather simple to be able to play any chord regardless of which note you're starting on the keys. Same thing goes for memorizing scales. I haven't bothered to memorize every single chord and scale, it's much quicker to learn how to form them instead of trying to go "well, this is -insertscale/chordnamehere- so it will get these notes"
 
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