The Complete Idiot''s Guide to Music Theory

Part 4:
Accompanying
the chords already! In any case, three heads are better than one, and together you
should be able to come up with just the right chord progression for this song.
Working from Nothing
Now we visit the worst-case scenario. You’re asked to play piano accompaniment
and you’re given no music at all. All you have are your ears and your fingers,
and all the skills you’ve picked up from reading this book.
Now you can panic!
In this situation, it’s okay to ask for help. Ask the person in charge if he or she
has 
anything
to give you—a lead sheet, a lyric sheet, an old trumpet part—any-
thing at all. (Anything is better than nothing in this scenario.) Ask what key the
song is in. Ask if there’s anyone who knows the chords and can either teach
them to you or write them down for you. Ask if anyone has a recording of the
song you can take home and listen to.
In short, ask for all the help you can get.
Whatever meager help you get, you’re now on your own. It’s time to fall back
on the ear-training skills you learned back in Chapter 12. You’ll need to figure
out the melody, figure out the key, and figure out the chords. In short, you have
to reconstruct the song from memory and hope you get it right.
Then, when you start to play and the vocalist says “Those aren’t the right
chords!” make sure you have something small but heavy nearby—because you’ll
want to throw it!
Working the Form
Once you get the chords written down, you’ll need to write down some sort of
“cheat sheet” to help you remember the form of the song. Do you play one or
two verses before the first chorus? How long is the introduction? Is there an
instrumental break in the middle—and for how many measures? Do you fade
out at the end, or stop cold?
You’ll need to figure all this out and write it down, so you’ll remember when to
start, when to stop, and what to do in between. Use the form notation (AABA,
ABCA, and so forth) you learned back in Chapter 11 to help you keep your place.
Playing the Part
Once you have the chords written down, you have to play the song. Because
there’s no formal piano part, you’re on your own in terms of figuring out what
type of part to play. Fortunately, you can employ some common accompani-
ment techniques; you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
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Chapter 13:
Accompanying Melodies
171
Block Chord Accompaniment
The easiest type of accompaniment to play is the 
block chord
accompaniment.
This approach is exactly as it sounds: Whenever there’s a chord change, you put
all your fingers on the keyboard (at the same time) and play the chord.
That’s it. You don’t play any special rhythms, you don’t arpeggiate the chord,
you don’t do anything except 
plunk!
the notes of the chord all at once.
All you have to do is put the three (or more) notes of the chord in your right
hand and double the root of the chord with your left hand, like this:
Accompanying a melody with block chords.
The primary benefit of playing a block chord accompaniment is that it’s easy—
for you, anyway. The drawback is that it’s a rather sparse accompaniment; it
really doesn’t add anything to the music, except to provide only the most basic
harmonic underpinning to the melody.
Still, if block chords are all you can master, that’s what you should play. No one
will ever accuse you of getting in the way or covering up the melody!
Rhythmic Accompaniment
There’s another way to play chords that isn’t quite as boring as the block chord
approach. You play the block chords, but with a more interesting rhythmic pattern.
What kind of pattern am I talking about? There are several you can choose
from, including these:
Rhythmic accompaniment in quarter notes.

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