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xlilkatiex1's avatar

Guitar to Piano Transposition for Left Hand?

Asked by xlilkatiex1 (2points) December 16th, 2009
12 responses
“Great Question” (0points)

i’m trying to transpose a song from Guitar to Piano i know if you have G7 on the Guitar then you play G B D F on the Piano for your righthand. But what do you need to play for your left Hand.

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Answers

Sebulba's avatar

the G of the lower octave would be ok. or all of the same on the lower octave

xlilkatiex1's avatar

so just play all of them of one out of what your playing on the right hand.

Sebulba's avatar

lol. this is one option. the other is to study the laws of harmony and come up with the lower notes that fit with G7 (major-minor i don’t know) to sound correctly

gailcalled's avatar

G7 is the same in either piano clef. You can vary that by playing B D F G, etc. Identical chord.

SirGoofy's avatar

There is a great program you can buy called Guitar Pro. It’s great for transposing from piano to guitar and vice versa. Plus, it’s great for writing tab or standard notation.

sndfreQ's avatar

You can use any of those on the left hand, and double them across an octave to give some “bass” to the chord. What’s interesting is the “color” of the chord will change depending on which note you choose on the bottom (they call this an inversion in harmony).

The root of that chord is G (if you’re in the Key of G or related keys). Another trick is to play one of those four notes on the left hand, then omit that note on the right hand. For instance, you can play G on the left hand, then play B D F on the right hand, then get really tricky, by spelling the right hand differently, like D F B, or F B D. These are all variations on the same chord, but give a different sound.

xlilkatiex1's avatar

ok thanks and do i need to re arrange the chords as the notes are from piano and im playing on a keyboard.

sndfreQ's avatar

It’s always good to sit at a piano and spell out the chords by placing your hands on the keys; sometimes what may look or sound good on paper is difficult or impossible to play manually. But to answer your question, keyboard and piano shouldn’t make a difference, but the qualitybof the keyboard’s sounds may cause you to make tonal adjustments to spell the chord in different inversions.

Although there are traditional rules to spelling chords, just remember that it’s your music so do whatever sounds good to you (unless you’re trying to emulate a very particular period piece from a certain era of “Classical” music).

xlilkatiex1's avatar

i’m trying to play an actually song so it has to be just right in the tone but its just confusing me????

sndfreQ's avatar

@xlilkatiex1 If it’s a transcription of an established song and you want to stay true to the sound, realize that there are differences in range and playability between the guitar and piano. What is extremely easy to play on piano might be impossible to “spell” the same way on the guitar based on the string layout and intervals between the strings.

If you’re used to playing the “open” chords of a guitar, it’s not too difficult to use those inversions (spellings) directly on the piano. You could start literally note-for-note transcription, if you know how to identify notes and octaves/registers. Keep in mind that with guitar, you’re playing six strings most of the time in open chords, so if you’re adapting for piano, keep in mind that you’ll need to individually write for six unique notes/fingers. For beginning piano players, this may be difficult to play, especially playing chords in succession and quickly.

It’s an art, not a science…best bet is to write it out on paper, then work at the piano to check the playability. Same goes the other way around with piano to guitar.

Tomfafa's avatar

We are assuming you worked out the melody on the piano… for the right hand. You want to ‘dress up the naked music.’ You need to find (create) a three note musical motif of the melody. Start there and develop your accompanying chords. One (base clef) chord for every two to four measures might pass. Or find breaks in the melody to refresh left hand… You are an arranger! Have fun.

Tomfafa's avatar

I just found a lot of ‘how to’s’ on google.

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