Hey Jude Piano – Sweet Video Tutorial

Would you like a cool Hey Jude piano tutorial? Great! You’ve come to the right spot.

In today’s video we’re going to teach you how to play the classic beginning of Hey Jude. This is a song every aspiring piano player needs to learn how to play. So, take a few minutes and learn all the notes and chords now.

Hey Jude Piano Tutorial Video

After you watch the Hey Jude piano video make sure you scroll down for some very important tips to help you master this piano lesson.

Hey Jude Piano Chords

Sometimes the easiest thing to do to get started learning a song is to learn the basic chords. So, in Hey Jude the basic chords are F, C, C7sus, Bb, and C7.

Pretty simple right? I highly recommend you also watch the video because it will help you learn faster. But, to help you learn this song from a different angle lets look at where the chords and lyrics line up.

      F                C   
Hey Jude dont make it bad      
                     C7sus4      C7       F  
take a     sad       song  and make it better
 Bb                           F     
Remember to let her into your heart 
                    C               F
and then you can start to make it better

To learn how to play each of these chords and lock in the melody make sure you watch the video! Learn pop and rock songs is just as much about sound as it is about reading sheet music or reading chord charts.

Ok, now that you understand the basic chords and melody relationship, lets look at some additional tips that will help you master this pop piano masterpiece.

9 Tips To Help You Master This Hey Jude Piano Arrangement

1. The First Piano Pattern You Should Focus On

It’s always helpful to know the key of the song you play in. This helps you organize the music, find patterns, and eventually learn other songs faster. Hey Jude is in the key of F.

Here is an F major scale written out. F, G, A, Bb, C, D, E, F.

Every chord and melody note comes from this key. So many great melodies have been written just using the major scale or the pentatonic scale.

As you can tell from this simple and beautiful Hey Jude piano arrangement. This counts in that list too!

If you’d like to learn more about how to build and use the major scale in any key make sure you check out this piano major scales tutorial.

2. Is There Really 5 Chords or 3 Chords?

Although it appears there are 5 separate chords for the song the C chords (C, C7, C7sus4) are really just small variations on each other. They function in the same way.

So, to simplify this song you could think of the chord progression as pretty much I, IV, V. Or, written another way… 1 4 5.

This chord progression is the most popular chord progression in the world. The reason it works so well is because every note of the major scale is inside the chords.

So, it’s the perfect chord progression for any major scale based melody.

3. How Piano Chord Progressions Fit Together

If you’d like to learn more about how chords work together, make sure you check out this lesson on piano chord progressions.

4. One of The Reasons Hey Jude’s Melody Is Beautiful

Notice how most of the resolutions notes of the melody end up on chord tones for each individual chord.

Lets put this another way.  Lets say we have a F chord and the notes are  F- A – C. Most of the time the melody notes over that chord will either be F – A – C.

And the small percentage of times that they aren’t, those “non chord tone notes” are just scale notes that eventually resolve and sit back on notes inside a chord.

This is one of the many tricks of making a great melody. 

5. Why You Should Use The Sus Chord In This Song

Earlier we talked about how the C7sus is just a substitution for the C7 chord in this song. So, why is Paul McCartney making this small little chord switch there? Well, it has to do with how the melody fits over that particular chord.

In a C7 chord we have the notes C-E-Gb. The melody note that happens right on the lyric “song” is an F.

This F clashes with that chord big time. The reason for that is because the E inside the C7 chord is a minor 9th interval lower than the F melody note. This isn’t really a sweet sound.

Seriously, check it out. Go over to the piano right now and play an E and hold it down.

Then, play an F above it an octave above. Can you hear that dissonance?

I mean in music all sounds can be beautiful but usually most people try to only use the minor 9th interval sparingly.

So, to fix this melodic problem. All we did was take the E out of the C7 chord and put an F in the chord instead. This small little substitution is what turns a C7 chord into an C7sus4 chord.

Pretty cool right?

6. How To Separate Your Hands For Maximum Success

One of the easiest things you can do to master this Hey Jude piano tutorial is to learn each hand separately. Then, once you master each hand you can try and put them together.

Which hand should you start with? Honestly, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you get each hand clean before you put them together.

If you’re more of an advanced player you can start by playing both hands at the same time, but it’s always helpful for beginners to do hands separately. This is one of many of piano practice techniques I teach my students.

7. How To Use Rhythm In Your Left Hand

In the tutorial you can hear that Andrew is keeping a steady beat in his left hand. He’s playing quarter notes the whole time.

If keeping the rhythm in your left hand while playing the melody in the right is a bit tough in the beginning, you can simplify by just playing the chord in your left hand for the whole measure.

For example, instead of hitting the F chord 4x in the first measure. Just play it once and hold it down. Then, you can do the same thing with the C chord in the next measure.

Eventually, you’ll want to put that extra quarter note pulse in the left hand because it sounds cool. But, start simple. You don’t have to do everything at once.

8. How To Nail The Melodies Rhythm

Speaking of rhythm, Andrew counts out the beats where the melody should be placed in the Hey Jude piano video.

I recommend you try and get your melody notes on the same beats as Andrew or as close to where Andrew places them.

At one point we’ll include make some Hey Jude piano sheet music but for right now listen to where Andrew places his beats. Being able to count and understand where melodies fall on beats. So, listening to Andrew will help you develop this really important skill.  It’s easy if you follow along. 🙂

9. Power Chord Position

Instead of just playing basic 3 note chords in his left hand, Andrew plays a cool type of chord shape called a power chord. This is just the root of a chord, the 5th of a chord, and the root again on top.

So, instead of playing an F piano chord as F – A – C, he just plays it as F – C – F.

It’s subtle difference but it fits really well in the pop piano style of playing.

More Beatle Piano Lessons

Want to get started learning more Beatles?

Then, I highly recommend you also check out this Yesterday piano tutorial, this Let It Be piano lesson part 1, or this Let It Be piano chords tutorial.

Of course after the Beatles, George, Paul, and John wrote some huge hits after the Beatles broke up. You can check out one of John Lennon’s biggest hits, post Beatles, in this Imagine piano tutorial.

Moving On The Next Level With Your Piano Skills

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