The Time Warp Piano tutorial

Any other Rocky Horror Picture show lovers out there? Check out this fun The Time Warp piano tutorial, guaranteed to solicit and epic singalong at this year’s Halloween party!

“Now do the pelvic thrust, until it drives you insane…” (Not the easiest thing to do at the piano I’ll admit…)

The Time Warp

The Time Warp is probably the most famous song from the 1973 rock musical movie The Rock Horror Picture show.

The song is sung by characters Riff-Raff, Magenta and Columbia as well as the Narrator. The text consists of dance steps and there is nothing more fun than being in a sweaty room full of people all doing it together!

Standard Piano for Singers Format

In this piano tutorial, I use my standard protocol for creating great pop piano arrangements. If you want to learn more about this protocol, check out this post.

I find a copy of the lyrics or I just type them up from the recording. I then figure out the chords on a chord website or I just learn them by ear. If you want to learn to play by ear click here for a video I made where I outline how to learn to play by ear

Learn the Chords on Piano

Step #1 Learn the chords on piano. This can be as simple as playing them in root position, or if you are a more experienced pianist, you can find the inversions that sound the best to you and voice lead your way through. Watermelon Sugar only has four chords total, so it’s super easy to play!

Play the Groove

Step #2 is to figure out how to play the groove. You can use a simple pattern or more complicated, depending on your level. Remember that you’ll have to sing over this, so don’t make it too hard!

Identify the hook

Step #3 is to identify the hook, bass line or any other aspects that help to bring it to life. Again, you can make this as simple or complicated as your piano chops will allow you. The hook of hold on is the guitar line, which I show you in the tutorial. Also the tricky bass line that kicks in in the chorus.

If you enjoyed this tutorial of The Time Warp, make sure to take a moment to subscribe to my YouTube channel to check out more great content!