In this piano tutorial, I tackle Watermelon Sugar by Harry Styles. This song originally came out in his second studio album Fine Line, which was released in 2019.
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Watermelon Sugar by Justin Bieber
Watermelon sugar was released as a single in 2020 and won a Grammy for Best Pop Solo Performance.
Fun fact: this song was inspired by a dystopian American novel called In Watermelon Sugar, written by Richard Brautigan. The song has nothing to do with the actual story of the novel, but Harry thought it was make a cool hook for a song.
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
3 Steps to Authentic Pop Piano Arrangements
I detail this entire process in this video. I have used this process to learn hundreds and hundreds of songs and my students absolutely love the simplicity of learning pop songs on piano this way.
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.
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