David Bowie piano tutorial. The music behind Bowie's superb 'Changes' from Hunky Dory

[00:00:00]My name's Danny Cooperberg. You know the song.

[00:00:06]D flat 6, E, D minor 7, E flat 7, and D7.

[00:00:17]F, D7. And eventually at the end of the song, rising chord, E flat 7, D minor 7, flat two, and resolves to one.

[00:00:42]It can only be changes by David Bowie.

[00:00:45]Uh I'm going to give a little background to the song. I'm going to go into the song in more depth. Um, by all means, if you like this kind of freewheing content, interested in learning how to play it on the piano, uh, please do, you know what I'm going to say now. Press subscribe. Uh, I want to grow the channel and, uh, if it's your kind of thing, uh, then carry on because, uh, I'm going to be going through in some depth how the song works.

[00:01:13]Here's the verse.

[00:01:25]And what's going on there is chord one C up to E minor 7 and then just chord four and rolls G down to F and then D F G6 unusual and then kind of E flat 7. You hear that jazzy influence Rick Whiteman.

[00:02:07]Back to that G6. G6. Did I say G6?

[00:02:12]C.

[00:02:20]And now for the chorus. G7.

[00:02:23]Unusual going to F because the chorus only really begins here. Turn and phase. But the buildup's great. G7 chord five 4 1 descending F secondary dominant D7 back to that build to the chorus.

[00:02:58]Where's your shame you left us up to our necks in it?

[00:03:03]And then interesting section here. It kind of goes 1 5 1 5 flat 7 4 1 5 4 1 gospel thing.

[00:03:20]Back to the kind of this sort of middle eight section. 1 5 flat 7 4 1 5 4 1 and the outro is again starting from chord one not major 7 like it started those rising chords but the outro chord one C just to see try it D minor 7 E minor 7 climbing up the 1 2 3's quite jazzy and then E flat 7 flat 3 two flat 2.

[00:04:06]Now I want to talk a little bit about who came up with these chords. Apparently Bowie played it to Rick Waitman who's a you know sort of classicalally trained uh virtuoso pionist and he played it on acoustic guitar but I'm sure that Rick Weightman came up with some of these jazzy chords these kind of because they just don't appear in the rest of Bow's work and Hunk story the album from whence this came which down there is you know a very much a pianoled album and uh you know I think he helped a lot.

[00:04:47]Apparently Bowie asked Rick Whiteman uh to uh to join the band to join his band.

[00:04:54]This is pre-ziggy and uh Rick said well I'm going to be a member of Yes. So that has changed the course of rock history. Can you imagine further hunky dory albums with these kind of chords? Which brings me on to the intro C major 7. So it's not the the C that starts the verses. C major 7 climbing up to D flat 6. Unusual. Again, I think it's Rick's influence. D minor 7, E flat 7, and then we've got this kind of which is kind of booming D7. That's unusual in itself because you got chord four F and then you got D7 and then you're into the Still don't know what I was waiting for the the verse. It's a hot day in London, 32 degrees and I'm stuck up here in my studio. Uh I can't really have the fan on because that will affect the vocal uh make the sound rather uh the voice over.

[00:06:02]Um and uh I just started playing Changes and I realiz what a wonderful song it is and how much the song means to me. Uh you know some of the background I mentioned Haden Hall this kind of hippie commune. This was the album he did prior to Ziggy and for me it's it's Bow's most melodic beautiful album. Just I think uh I would have loved to have known what happened if if Rick Wakeman had stayed on. Uh, apparently he just got a session players fee for it. Uh, um, that album's been played so much. Evan knows. He deserved he deserved more, but such was the nature of the music industry and the way it is now. Don't get me started. Um, so you know, uh, it's a slightly new format. If you like this freewheeling talking about the chords, a little bit of the background, then please, uh, do subscribe.

[00:06:58]Another thing I want to mention uh is I uh during the COVID years uh ran a request show.

[00:07:08]So request asking listeners. It was actually on Facebook live uh and we used to have three or four thousand during COVID where people would request songs.

[00:07:18]So I'm asking you the viewer, what song means a lot to you and why?

[00:07:25]Why does it you know what's the background? what's why is it emotionally so resonant with you. Please write in the comments. Uh and I will cover it. Uh I'm thinking of starting up a Patreon and I want I want to hear what songs you'd like me to play. Uh and it it means a lot to me because performing online in those COVID years actually was was uh was fun.

[00:07:49]All us musicians, we want to any opportunity to perform and connect. So it would be lovely. Please do subscribe if you like this kind of content and um I'll play a bit more Bowie, bit more changes, it's actually I'm doing a very mellow version of Yeah, very jazzy lead line. E flat 7 descending.

[00:08:45]Let's just listen to those chords.

[00:08:57]And that's changes by David Bowie. Uh I'm Danny Cooperberg and uh I hope you got something out of uh out of my uh my play through. All the best.