This past Sunday on All Mixed Up I played the audio from one of YouTube music personality Rick Beato‘s videos that led me to thinking about five of the greatest keyboard openings in rock.
First, here’s Rick’s video, which contains a GREAT story about the 1967 hit “A Whiter Shade of Pale” by Procol Harum.
If you’re a musician, you’re probably already aware of who Rick Beato is. His videos are a combination of tremendous long-form video interviews (his recent conversation with Nuno Bettencourt of Extreme is off the charts), and breakdowns of what makes certain songs so great.
If you’re not a musician, Rick can sometimes sound like a college calculus instructor trying to teach 3rd grade math. His delving into music theory can leave your head spinning.
In that video above, he gets into certain chord inversions and you might think he’s speaking in a completely different language.
At the risk of getting you too deep into the weeds, here’s some really quick music theory.
The majority of songs you hear on WDHA are comprised of major chords.
A major chord is three notes – the 1, 3, and 5.
Stay with me here.
Take the key of C in which the notes are C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C.
Number those notes from 1 to 8 and you have C(1)-D(2)-E(3)-F(4)-G(5)-A(6)-B(7)-C(8). So a C major chord, the 1-3-5, is made up of C-E-G.
Think you don’t know what that means? This long-running gag of the Three Stooges answering the phone is a series of 1-3-5 chords.
If Moe, Larry, Curly, Shemp. and Joe Besser could figure it out, so can you.
5 of the Greatest Keyboard Openings In Rock
At any rate, Rick’s video got me to thinking about 5 of the greatest keyboard openings in rock.
This is by no means conclusive, and I would love to hear your favorites.
