How to Play Metamorphosis One on the Piano

Today's tutorial will focus on the song by Philip Glass "Metamorphosis" the first movement. A lot the song actually repeats quite a bit so there is not that much instruction needed if you are advanced but since I am catering for everyone, I may have to explain things a little bit more. It is going to be a lot of E minor chords and variation of the E minor chord in the song. I am not sure with the key if it is exactly—I do not have any sheet music chords of this so the first chord that we are going to play is just the E minor chord that repeats a few times in the song as the main melody. So here we go. [Demo] So I am just playing the E minor chord in both hands, so E-G-B, E-G-B and then it drops down a little bit to a— [Demo] I will go with this in that effect so I guess diminished. So again, the first chord is E-G-B to the left, E-G-B to the right second chord, E-G-B flat. [Demo] And there is a lot pausing in this song going back and forth and I will move this camera down. That is pretty much it for the main chords that you will hear in the song, most of the two chords that you hear constantly in this song. So now I am going to go to the favorite part, the moving arpeggiated chord that you are going to be hearing and it is really E minor chord but you are going to see different variances on this chord. So here we go. I will play it slowly. I will play the block patterns first of what you will be playing. So you are just going to play the E minor, D, C, E flat, and then back to the E chord, very clever, I like it. [Demo] Then what you do since there is a camera on my way behind the scenes, you are going to jump over all the way down here. I would not play that way but you play E flat an octave below. So in the main melody where the other melody is, that moving part of the song is the nice melody that stands out in the right hand. [Demo] So again. [Demo] So it is just D-B a few times, E flat, G, then resolve on E then actually resolve on the E down here. I am going to show you. I want to cross the keyboard. So that is pretty much it for the melodic section. So now we are going to add in the moving chords. So your three and five are going to be moving and you are going to be glued on the section with your pinky and your four. Your E, so again I will play this slow. [Demo] This would be the section where I will cross over down to the E and to cross over with the hands. I cannot do it because there is a tripod right where this is supposed to be so maybe if I was an X-Man, I can do it, but I am not. [Music Playing] And also as a little note, try to lift if you know how the sustained—sustain the root, note one here, so try to lift. [Music Playing] This is what I hear, the sheet music is set up but I don’t have it, or I don’t know it. So with that in mind, now we can add the right hand slowly. [Music Playing] Sorry, I have been thinking of another song. And then back to the E minor. [Music Playing] And then if you want to add the C. I would rather not. Just play it regular. So that is how the song basically goes. This is close as I can get it but I think it is pretty accurate on how it sounds. Play this on the piano if you have a piano. Please do play this on the piano. It sounds very nice, especially this section. [Music Playing] If you have the pedal on there, it sounds out of this world so I suggest you do that. But on this tutorial, it is not too difficult. It is a few–literally it is the two chords in your right hand. That is all it is and then this chord will be very easy to play. And just remember the lifts. That is the cutover but we will let the notes free. [Music Playing] I hope you enjoyed it.