Bill Withers’s “Lean on Me” is one of those classic piano tunes. It’s also one of my favorite tunes to teach to a beginning student, as it’s a simple song, but so musical, fun to play, and soulful. Back in 2020, when Bill Withers passed, I dedicated a reharmonization to him, and in this blog post, I’ll show you some of the techniques I used to reharmonize Lean on Me. The explanations of these techniques are fairly brief so if you’d like a little more information on how to use them, make sure to download my free Reharmonization Quick Guide here.
But first, let’s have a listen to the original:
Step 1: basic chords
Let’s start with the original piano part. These are basically diatonic (meaning: within the key of the song) voicings moving up and down with the melody:
As you can hear, there’s a nice embellishment: Bb/F resolving to F in measure 2. In the recording, it’s played on a Wurlitzer, but I included it in this piano part because I feel it’s such an integral part of the song.
Step 2: add in secondary dominants
Next, we’re going to add some secondary dominant chords. These are dominant 7th chords that resolve to other chords in your song. You could also use a ii – V, or a tritone substitute dominant (see my tutorial on tritone substitute chords). For example, we could approach the F chord with a ii – V (Gm7 – C7), and make the dominant a tritone substitute chord (Gb7):
Adding secondary dominants creates more tension, and can drive your arrangement forward.
Step 3: add in #iv diminished chords and iv-minor chords
One reharmonizaton technique I use a lot, is the combination of a #iv diminished or half-diminished chord with the iv-minor chord (which is an example of mixture). As you’ll hear, this creates a very smooth harmonic movement. Use inversions to create good voice leading and a nice bass line:
Step 4: add in embellishments and arpeggios
The last step is to finalize the arrangement with a little more piano magic, adding in grace notes, embellishments, and arpeggios:
Full reharmonization
Below is my full reharmonization of Lean on Me, which contains all of the above techniques, applied throughout the song:
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial on how to reharmonize Lean on Me! Let me know in the comments what you think of these techniques, and if you ever use them. To receive my piano tutorials and reharmonizations directly in your email inbox, make sure to sign up to my mailing list here, and grab your free copy of the Reharmonization Quick Guide.
One Response
Very well as usually you do
Is it possible to have the sheet?
Good music!!