This is honestly the best TH-cam tutorial for this iconic bit of piano playing. It's for people who want to learn for real how to sound this way. As for what the song is about, if it could be explained easier in words, it wouldn't have needed to be a song. Every pianist who comes here--with some attentive practice--will be capable of having this kind of power in your own fingers. Watch the video, feel the music, understand how it works, then explain to yourself how you don't have the desire to practice something that is going to put that power in your own hands. I dare you to try.
any one who is telling this guy to hurry up and teach has no business behind a piano or any other instrument. instruments take time to learn and even more time to teach. That goes double for teaching impatient people who want to skip over the fundamentals. I think he is doing a fantastic job of teaching not only the song but the style in which the song was written. keep it up dude!
yeah i get that but the thing is if you're learning a song this difficult you already know the basics and dont need someone telling it to you over and over. Im just trying to learn the song not hear what what i already know.
If u know chords , trying to learn a song, u jus want the chords rythem, n patterns, not a bunch of nonsense confusing u, complicating things the whole way through
If you're learning a song this difficult and already know the basics then just look up the chords yourself. He is making a video that every player can learn regardless of skill level
Scott Gallagher If you just need chords why did you look up a tutorial. I think you want a chord sheet, which is insanely easy to find. I would much rather have videos that take the time to teach supplemental theory to redundancy than just seeing people who already know how to play teach people who already know how to play to do a thing they could have just found on Google in 2 seconds.
I always heard Elton Johns music was too difficult but this is my favorite song of his and totally p!ayable. I have also learned this song on my acoustic. I love you guys who take the time to show us people with a lot of desire but not quite the musical talent how to play great songs. Thank you Coen.
thank you so much for doing a tutorial of just what he plays without the vocal accompaniment in the right hand. i had to go through about 15 videos before i could find that. great video, i appreciate the lesson.
Did I remember to thank you? Thank you for this tutorial. I'm a 3rd year casual piano player, and I've spent 3 weeks working with what you showed me here. Kind of complicated at first, and then all at once it started to sound right. There is nothing else like that moment of bringing this music out of my piano with my own fingers. It's magic. To other people just starting here, the "slash" chords are the hardest part. That's one chord on the right hand with a different bass note on the left. I suggest trying the bass notes by themselves first, then the bass line makes sense, and you just have to add the right hand chords. Keep trying. You will get it.
You do realise he's not talking about drugs right? 😂 Like as much as they where a huge part of eltons life, the line 'I'm gunna be high as a kite by then' (which I'm presuming your referring to) is in no way a metaphor for drugs
@@kieran-uj9ng Elton didn't write his lyrics, so you're right. Bernie Taupin writes his lyrics and always writes them before showing them to Elton. Taupin said he wrote the lyrics in a car on a dark road to his parent's house, who he hadn't seen in a long time. He said in a WSJ interview: "Driving the back roads, I began writing a song in my head about the drudgery of being an astronaut. As I thought about how to start the song, the first verse came to me at once: “She packed my bags last night pre-flight / Zero hour 9 a.m. / And I’m gonna be high as a kite by then.”" The song is based on a short story by Ray Bradbury, "The Rocket Man", and was not the first song based on it.
Slapped Potatoes just gotta keep practising...when I first started learning bohemian rhapsody I thought I'd never play it well but after practising every single day I got the entire song down just don't give up
Slapped Potatoes yeah that’s why. You don’t have a sense of rhythm or technique yet. I’ve been practicing and playing for a good year and this is pretty easy for me to pick up. I mean I still have to practice and get my muscle memory down because I’m not familiar with these chords or the song. It would take years to be able to just immediately play a song like this fluently and perfect from the first time watching the video.
Slapped Potatoes I mean without playing to the song I can pretty much play this close to perfect after about an hour from first hearing it but it’s much different when you’re playing to the song because like a metronome it forces you to stay in time. Better be able to hit those notes quickly!
Being bad at the piano IS NOT a permanent condition. The only permanent condition is giving up. Here's how slow you can start and be productive in your practice: choose one chord from the chords shown above. Place your fingers on the keys and sound that chord one time. Lift your fingers off the keys completely, then start again, placing your fingers and sounding the chord. If you can't do any other practice that day, do that one thing for 5-10 minutes. The next day, do the same with a different chord. In the course of 2 days, you will have taught your fingers to find and sound 2 chords, which is more than your fingers knew on Day 0. Then string two chords together. Sound one and then the other. This teaches your fingers to change from one chord to another. 5 or 10 minutes is effective. Then change among 3 different chords, then 4. Then realize you're halfway there. This song only has 8 chords, and some of them use the same notes. Try this for two weeks at 5 to 10 minutes per day, then come back and tell me how bad you are.
A little wordy on the tutorial, but I'm an analytical guy, so I appreciate the rationale explained. The inverted chord thing is crazy, yet magical at the same time. Very intuitive of EJ.
really don't understand the comment section complaining about your lesson. the chord charts are there and the material and several riffs are performed. do people expect to watch a video only once and learn the entire song? no one plays a song like this perfectly every time and it would be ridiculous to expect a perfect transcription on youtube. great job, sorry some people are too lazy to appreciate it.
You're absolutely right, I've been learning Elton songs for the last while (I'm only 10 months or so into learning), every time I watch these I basically just remember the chords, then it takes many many attempts to get towards playing it competently
This is my first time coming across your tutorials, and I gotta say, this is definitely one of the best I've listened to, you show so many ways and possibilities on how the song goes, and in detail on the rhythm and bass, keep it up👍
really enjoyed that thank you well executed. Ive been playing in bands a long time but never really learned to play whole songs on my own this really helped
Omg thank you so much, it's so hard to learn the rythm by sheet music but it's not too hard for me at least to play the rythm by feeling so this is actually just super helpful. Thanks a lot
I love this version and this tutorial... so it is definitelly the one I would like to achieve... however I am still quite new at Piano and I just know major and minor chords... totally happy to introduce more chords but maybe you know a more simple version to start with? (not sure how to simplify this one so I am going veeeery slow ;-) ) thanks!
6 months later but hey. Every song is basically major and minor chords. This one is as well. The reason this one is more complicated is because you can shuffle the notes in those chords around. For example your standard c chord is a C E G. That is very easy to learn on the piano as a shape, but if you would play G C E, that's also a C chord but played in a different order. Now you could even add a Bflat to your C chord and it would be a different kind of C major chord, but still C major. The reason for this is that C major is not a chord, but a scale. And within that scale you have lots of chords that will be some sort of C major chord. Now every note has a scale and lots of variations. If you really want to learn piano I recommend you also at least look into the scales that is being played and what cords can be constructed with that. You might already have since I am 6 months late but if you really want to learn an instrument (or anything) learn why what you are doing is what it is. Learn why CEG is a C major chord. You will find that learning the rest is a lot easier and you will know what you are doing.
i have tried learning this before from other tutorials on YT and i just couldnt get it untill today, u made it so easy to learn and understanding you and the chord progression was as simple as learning the C scale for the first time thank you :)
Really appreciate the tutorial - the chord progression was easier than I thought it was gonna be so thank you for the enlightenment. The only other comment I would make is it would be great if on the next video you take more time playing ALL the way through the verse, chorus, bridge, etc. as (especially w/ Elton John songs), a rhythmic pattern can be harder to pick up than the actual chord progression. Thanks man! Good stuff - keep it up!
I am a keyboardist and I never realize how different that is to being a pianist more than when I hear and watch Elton John play. I am determined to get this one tune down so that I can at least begin to call myself the latter too.
As a guitarist, I find this invaluable to help me see how people construct chords on the piano, my instrument is honestly crazy when compared to a piano, it's like having 6 pianos stacked on top of each other all tuned up by a forth except for the second one which is tuned up by a major third! Don't get me wrong I love my instrument but I am learning more about music in general and having such a clear way to see the notes, both with your hands and the keyboard above, makes much more sense to me, you guys play each note in turn (not counting inversions) where as we tend to play chords like root, fifth, third, octave, seventh, etc. So hard to put into words. What I am trying to say is... great video, cheers!
This was so helpful! Thankyou so much! I'm a complete beginner to Piano, but this video really helped me out the most! Just one small suggestions from us beginners, please teach a bit slowly, as we're not much familiar so we can't match your speed! Rest everything is perfect! Thankyou so much ☺️
Wow Coen. I was completely blown away when I found your video last night. I'm VERY excited to be learning this song right now. THANK YOU so much for the free tutorial!! I haven't been able to find a single accurate version of this song anywhere. I just ordered a book hoping it was the original score & was once again let down. As far as I know, the point of offering a free tutorial is to get people interested but not give away too much. That makes logical sense. Do you slow it down a little for the paid lessons? It would make a big difference to me. I'll probably do the paid lessons anyway, but I'm just hoping they don't make me so anxious? Lol... weed... can't smoke anymore so that's probably the real reason. 🤣 Love Elton John. Loved the movie Rocketman. He's a total inspiration to me. Once again, THANK YOU!!!!! You're freaking awesome. 💖
I really appreciate this video and making this a free resource to learn. I'd like to recommend spend more time on the basic chord and go slower would be easier for beginner to grasp the concepts.
Thanks for the excellent tutorial! One thing, though....although there's been a lot of speculation, it's not about drugs. Its meaning is literal and was written only 3 years after the first moon landing.
Yes, this is it. You'd be surprised how many TH-cam piano tutorials for Rocket Man are not it. This one is.
Yes
Agreed
You should check nacho pozo. It's in spanish but it is the absolute best and most accurate
He truly does explain the nature of the song in which Elton wrote it. Once you get the chords and the understanding your explaining it's all gold
Yesssssssss!!,!
This is honestly the best TH-cam tutorial for this iconic bit of piano playing. It's for people who want to learn for real how to sound this way.
As for what the song is about, if it could be explained easier in words, it wouldn't have needed to be a song.
Every pianist who comes here--with some attentive practice--will be capable of having this kind of power in your own fingers.
Watch the video, feel the music, understand how it works, then explain to yourself how you don't have the desire to practice something that is going to put that power in your own hands.
I dare you to try.
I just started learning how to play this song and when I started playing the first two chords, I got very excited
omg same
Same!!!! Feels so amazing to recreate that beauty on our own :)
Update? Did you learn it and if you did, any tips? :D
any one who is telling this guy to hurry up and teach has no business behind a piano or any other instrument. instruments take time to learn and even more time to teach. That goes double for teaching impatient people who want to skip over the fundamentals. I think he is doing a fantastic job of teaching not only the song but the style in which the song was written. keep it up dude!
yeah i get that but the thing is if you're learning a song this difficult you already know the basics and dont need someone telling it to you over and over. Im just trying to learn the song not hear what what i already know.
If u know chords , trying to learn a song, u jus want the chords rythem, n patterns, not a bunch of nonsense confusing u, complicating things the whole way through
If you're learning a song this difficult and already know the basics then just look up the chords yourself. He is making a video that every player can learn regardless of skill level
Scott Gallagher If you just need chords why did you look up a tutorial. I think you want a chord sheet, which is insanely easy to find. I would much rather have videos that take the time to teach supplemental theory to redundancy than just seeing people who already know how to play teach people who already know how to play to do a thing they could have just found on Google in 2 seconds.
I get that but also he talked for about 60% if the video before actually going past the first 2 chords
I always heard Elton Johns music was too difficult but this is my favorite song of his and totally p!ayable. I have also learned this song on my acoustic. I love you guys who take the time to show us people with a lot of desire but not quite the musical talent how to play great songs. Thank you Coen.
Who says that? His music is very simple, in a great way.
thank you so much for doing a tutorial of just what he plays without the vocal accompaniment in the right hand. i had to go through about 15 videos before i could find that. great video, i appreciate the lesson.
Did I remember to thank you? Thank you for this tutorial. I'm a 3rd year casual piano player, and I've spent 3 weeks working with what you showed me here. Kind of complicated at first, and then all at once it started to sound right. There is nothing else like that moment of bringing this music out of my piano with my own fingers. It's magic.
To other people just starting here, the "slash" chords are the hardest part. That's one chord on the right hand with a different bass note on the left. I suggest trying the bass notes by themselves first, then the bass line makes sense, and you just have to add the right hand chords. Keep trying. You will get it.
Definitely helped me through 25 years of playing it wrong and I could hear something was off.
Love your breakdowns!
"The part where he sings about smoking weed" killed me
Rip
You do realise he's not talking about drugs right? 😂 Like as much as they where a huge part of eltons life, the line 'I'm gunna be high as a kite by then' (which I'm presuming your referring to) is in no way a metaphor for drugs
When he said he didn't know the lyrics, I understood what he meant.
@@kieran-uj9ng Elton didn't write his lyrics, so you're right. Bernie Taupin writes his lyrics and always writes them before showing them to Elton. Taupin said he wrote the lyrics in a car on a dark road to his parent's house, who he hadn't seen in a long time. He said in a WSJ interview: "Driving the back roads, I began writing a song in my head about the drudgery of being an astronaut. As I thought about how to start the song, the first verse came to me at once: “She packed my bags last night pre-flight / Zero hour 9 a.m. / And I’m gonna be high as a kite by then.”"
The song is based on a short story by Ray Bradbury, "The Rocket Man", and was not the first song based on it.
I love your style of teaching! I hope that you're still doing well after the last couple of years.
Made me realize how bad I am at piano. Thanks man!
Slapped Potatoes just gotta keep practising...when I first started learning bohemian rhapsody I thought I'd never play it well but after practising every single day I got the entire song down just don't give up
Adameeze actually started taking lessons yesterday so wish me good luck!
Slapped Potatoes yeah that’s why. You don’t have a sense of rhythm or technique yet. I’ve been practicing and playing for a good year and this is pretty easy for me to pick up. I mean I still have to practice and get my muscle memory down because I’m not familiar with these chords or the song. It would take years to be able to just immediately play a song like this fluently and perfect from the first time watching the video.
Slapped Potatoes I mean without playing to the song I can pretty much play this close to perfect after about an hour from first hearing it but it’s much different when you’re playing to the song because like a metronome it forces you to stay in time. Better be able to hit those notes quickly!
Being bad at the piano IS NOT a permanent condition. The only permanent condition is giving up. Here's how slow you can start and be productive in your practice: choose one chord from the chords shown above. Place your fingers on the keys and sound that chord one time. Lift your fingers off the keys completely, then start again, placing your fingers and sounding the chord. If you can't do any other practice that day, do that one thing for 5-10 minutes. The next day, do the same with a different chord. In the course of 2 days, you will have taught your fingers to find and sound 2 chords, which is more than your fingers knew on Day 0.
Then string two chords together. Sound one and then the other. This teaches your fingers to change from one chord to another. 5 or 10 minutes is effective. Then change among 3 different chords, then 4.
Then realize you're halfway there. This song only has 8 chords, and some of them use the same notes.
Try this for two weeks at 5 to 10 minutes per day, then come back and tell me how bad you are.
A little wordy on the tutorial, but I'm an analytical guy, so I appreciate the rationale explained. The inverted chord thing is crazy, yet magical at the same time. Very intuitive of EJ.
8:29 . . Exactly
Very cool.. I learned it completely after one watch!
really don't understand the comment section complaining about your lesson. the chord charts are there and the material and several riffs are performed. do people expect to watch a video only once and learn the entire song? no one plays a song like this perfectly every time and it would be ridiculous to expect a perfect transcription on youtube. great job, sorry some people are too lazy to appreciate it.
You're absolutely right, I've been learning Elton songs for the last while (I'm only 10 months or so into learning), every time I watch these I basically just remember the chords, then it takes many many attempts to get towards playing it competently
This is my first time coming across your tutorials, and I gotta say, this is definitely one of the best I've listened to, you show so many ways and possibilities on how the song goes, and in detail on the rhythm and bass, keep it up👍
Excellent 👌
Great tutorial!! was stuck on the sheet music for ages, thanks man!
Great channel - thx! Iam a guitarist learning piano. They way you visualize the lessons is fantastic!
Yes! This is exactly how I like to learn, thank you!
Just started taking piano lessons. I’ll make sure to come back to this video when I learn how to hopefully get close to mastering the piano!
Thanks for posting/teaching! Will be tackling this shortly.
Really fantastic teaching technique. Would love to have you put it all together and go through the entire song
Amazing tutorial, easy to follow, sounds amazing!
really enjoyed that thank you well executed. Ive been playing in bands a long time but never really learned to play whole songs on my own this really helped
Awesome, really understandable and loved your pace. Also chord diagrams very helpful.
Really helpful thanks, just learning this.
This has helped me so much, I love you man
Coen I love your tutorials, thank you very much.
HELLO THANKS YOU VERY MUCH
many thanks Coen
Excellent Tutorial! it is very well explain. Thank you a lot.
Brilliant lesson. Great playing thanks very much 😃
Good work, thanks!
Hi! great job! please do more Elton John tutorials like Sacrifice,Levon,Someone Saved My Life Tonight etc.
Cheers!
A bit chaotic but overall ok to learn from. Thanks man!
Omg thank you so much, it's so hard to learn the rythm by sheet music but it's not too hard for me at least to play the rythm by feeling so this is actually just super helpful.
Thanks a lot
Love your videos. Keep em coming
I love this version and this tutorial... so it is definitelly the one I would like to achieve... however I am still quite new at Piano and I just know major and minor chords... totally happy to introduce more chords but maybe you know a more simple version to start with? (not sure how to simplify this one so I am going veeeery slow ;-) ) thanks!
6 months later but hey. Every song is basically major and minor chords. This one is as well. The reason this one is more complicated is because you can shuffle the notes in those chords around. For example your standard c chord is a C E G. That is very easy to learn on the piano as a shape, but if you would play G C E, that's also a C chord but played in a different order. Now you could even add a Bflat to your C chord and it would be a different kind of C major chord, but still C major. The reason for this is that C major is not a chord, but a scale. And within that scale you have lots of chords that will be some sort of C major chord. Now every note has a scale and lots of variations. If you really want to learn piano I recommend you also at least look into the scales that is being played and what cords can be constructed with that. You might already have since I am 6 months late but if you really want to learn an instrument (or anything) learn why what you are doing is what it is. Learn why CEG is a C major chord. You will find that learning the rest is a lot easier and you will know what you are doing.
Thank you so much for this
Thanks for your explanation. Sounds very good.
Perfect tutorials.
Very helpful. Thank you!
Helped alot my friend
Thank you so much for this wonderful tuition - so clear and easy to follow. Loved it.
i have tried learning this before from other tutorials on YT and i just couldnt get it untill today, u made it so easy to learn and understanding you and the chord progression was as simple as learning the C scale for the first time thank you :)
Thank you! I'm on my way with this. Cant wait to play it with friends!
Make copies of the lyrics, they'll be singing along ruining your work.
@@NyxSilver8 Damn, you were spot on with that.
I love this song. How i would love to eventually play this.
I love this. You earned a willing subscriber just now.
this is awesome. thank you
Great tutorial! a little complicated at least for me, but thanks for the chord chart--makes it much easier to learn
Thanks man. Very helpful
Thanks,great tutorial and just at the right pace for me.Just subscribed and hoping to find more EJ tutorials.
Thanks! That's great!
excellent teaching with explanation - well done!
the (bass guitar) bassline on this track is so lovely with the piano
Very nicely done.
"again ... smoking weed!" hahhaah didnt get it until i was singing the lyrics. nice!! lol
Esse tutorial é muito legal, principalmente porque mostra as notas entre os acordes, incrementando a canção e tornando-a mais bela.
Excellent
“This part where he says he is smoking weed”. Thank you for this entertaining lesson!
Great video. Very simple, you just have to improvise a little bit and get the feel of the music to play it!
Really appreciate the tutorial - the chord progression was easier than I thought it was gonna be so thank you for the enlightenment. The only other comment I would make is it would be great if on the next video you take more time playing ALL the way through the verse, chorus, bridge, etc. as (especially w/ Elton John songs), a rhythmic pattern can be harder to pick up than the actual chord progression. Thanks man! Good stuff - keep it up!
Best version out there
Love the 'im a rocket man' haha. @10:52 awesome tutorial thank you :)
Very good tutorial ! Nice explanation on it, Sir !
I am a keyboardist and I never realize how different that is to being a pianist more than when I hear and watch Elton John play. I am determined to get this one tune down so that I can at least begin to call myself the latter too.
Tank you for take the time to show me this song 😉
Thank you!!
thanx, I have learned MUCH from you!
I want to learn piano and this is going to be the first song I learn and I’m not stopping till I do
Awesome.
het beste piano kanaal dat er is! Hier kan ik zo veel inspiratie uit halen, ga zo door! :)
+Alex.G Te gek om te horen! Dank voor je comment :)
As a guitarist, I find this invaluable to help me see how people construct chords on the piano, my instrument is honestly crazy when compared to a piano, it's like having 6 pianos stacked on top of each other all tuned up by a forth except for the second one which is tuned up by a major third!
Don't get me wrong I love my instrument but I am learning more about music in general and having such a clear way to see the notes, both with your hands and the keyboard above, makes much more sense to me, you guys play each note in turn (not counting inversions) where as we tend to play chords like root, fifth, third, octave, seventh, etc. So hard to put into words.
What I am trying to say is... great video, cheers!
Thank you very much guy. You really could to help me.
Great!
Thank you
Very nice tutorial! :)
This was fantastic, thanks for the upload
Omg!!! Thank you!!!
This was so helpful! Thankyou so much!
I'm a complete beginner to Piano, but this video really helped me out the most! Just one small suggestions from us beginners, please teach a bit slowly, as we're not much familiar so we can't match your speed!
Rest everything is perfect!
Thankyou so much ☺️
Thank you!
Nice work man ;)
Awesome dude
Wow Coen. I was completely blown away when I found your video last night. I'm VERY excited to be learning this song right now. THANK YOU so much for the free tutorial!! I haven't been able to find a single accurate version of this song anywhere. I just ordered a book hoping it was the original score & was once again let down.
As far as I know, the point of offering a free tutorial is to get people interested but not give away too much. That makes logical sense. Do you slow it down a little for the paid lessons? It would make a big difference to me. I'll probably do the paid lessons anyway, but I'm just hoping they don't make me so anxious? Lol... weed... can't smoke anymore so that's probably the real reason. 🤣 Love Elton John. Loved the movie Rocketman. He's a total inspiration to me. Once again, THANK YOU!!!!! You're freaking awesome. 💖
0:22 is great!
this is great
Fantastic tutorial! The whole thing for free too!
Subbed. Good job.
I really appreciate this video and making this a free resource to learn. I'd like to recommend spend more time on the basic chord and go slower would be easier for beginner to grasp the concepts.
Very helpful video! Can you explain the color coding? Seems like blue just means left hand and red right hand, but I don't get what yellow means.
very helpful, thank you
Un grand merci
Thank you for this! Helped a lot :) Love the "smoking weed part" :D
Thanks for sharing,could you please do Daniel by Elton John.
Thanks
awesome!. hey im beginning piano is their a formula I should follow?
do we hear the sound from rd800 ? I like it !!!!
Yessssssirrrrrrrr! Genious.
Thanks for the excellent tutorial! One thing, though....although there's been a lot of speculation, it's not about drugs. Its meaning is literal and was written only 3 years after the first moon landing.