How to play the Intro to Seven Seas of Rhye on Piano

Seven seas of Rhye is one of my favourite songs from the Queen II album. Because there is such a high prevalence of piano in the song, of course I would want to play it. I learned the song many years ago and it’s only as the Shane’s Queen Site started to grow that I could see a growing appetite from visitors to see how songs were played. About a year ago I uploaded a video to YouTube showing how to play the intro to Seven Seas of Rhye on Piano – you can see that video at https://youtu.be/x9WJr6s-7Hg  – that video has over 60,000 views on YouTube which is great but nothing is explained in that video. It’s not easy to play the riff and many people wanted to know the keys to play so I have slowed things down in a new video. This updated video is under 5 minutes long but it shows how to play the Seven Seas of Rhye Piano riff in basic terms. See the new slower version of How to Play the Seven Seas of Rhye intro on Piano video below…

The chords used in the Seven Seas of Rhye riff are arpeggios of D and G. In the first riff part the D moves between a D and G and in the second it moves from G to a combo which is actually a D7-3rd chord in other words the notes D A and C. The key to playing the riff for Seven Seas is the hitting of the D note twice before changing the riff pattern.

This can be seen in the video. (But if you have questions about playing the intro to Seven Seas of Rhye on Piano, please feel free to leave them on the video or as a comment below)

As a Queen Keyboardist myself, I have seen many tribute bands and some of them don’t play this riff right and it irks me. It’s not overly hard, it’s just a trick of getting that Double hit on the D note before re-starting the riff. So I wanted to pass on my tips in this post and this YouTube Video. 

I hope you enjoy the new video of How to Play the Seven Seas of Rhye intro on Piano and that it helps if you were trying to learn the song.

Please follow me on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/user/ShaneMcDonaldIE/ for more videos. 

Feel free to comment on which Queen song you want to see explained on video next.