Clocks - Piano Lessonby Coldplay

Clocks is a song based on a piano riff that popped into Chris Martin’s head late one night and was developed into a song by all the members of Coldplay. It was released in 2002 on the album, A Rush of Blood to the Head and got as high as #9 in the UK and #29 in the US In this lesson, we’ll talk about the 5 different triads used in the song. One of them is played with bass notes other than the root – so we’ll cover slash chords. As usual, we’ll first go through each part of the song with chords in root position – we will then follow that up by moving from chord to chord taking advantage of nearest inversions – I will also show the specific inversions that Chris Martin uses in the recording. In the song specific techniques section, I’ll spend time on the signature piano riff that the song is based on – and also some thoughts on how to use dynamics to create the feeling of a band when all you have is yourself, a piano and a voice.