Playing Sara Bareilles The Blessed Unrest on Piano
The Blessed Unrest is in the key of G major with a fairly standard 4/4 time signature. The chord progression is relatively straightforward if you already know basic pop piano. The main voicings are G, D/F#, Em7, C, with some added ninths and suspensions that give it its particular sound. If you can read lead sheets or follow chord charts, you should be able to pick this up in a few hours of practice. I've been teaching this song to students for years now. The most common mistake people make is rushing through the verse. The tempo sits around 76 BPM, but the rhythm guitar gives the illusion of being faster because of the syncopation. Lock into the pocket first before you try to add the right-hand fills. That took me a while to figure out when I was first learning it myself.
Learning Sara Bareilles The Blessed Unrest
Here's the basic structure. The intro runs G - D/F- Em7 - C with a melody note on top. Verse is basically the same progression. The pre-chorus shifts to something more restless harmonically, dipping into Bm and Cadd9. The chorus opens up with the full band and uses those open chords with added extensions. Bridge goes to E minor and back. Standard pop formula, executed well. I had a specific problem a while back with a student who kept flubbing the transition from the verse into the pre-chorus. The left hand jumps from G to B on the downbeat, and she was missing it every time. What finally worked was having her practice just that two-bar transition in isolation, slow, until the muscle memory kicked in. Took about twenty minutes. We went from there. The sheet music is available through Hal Leonard and Musicnotes if you want the official transcriptions. They're accurate enough for most purposes. Fake Book versions tend to strip out the seventh and ninth extensions, which changes the feel significantly, so I'd recommend the proper editions if you're serious about getting it right.
One thing people miss: the bridge is where the song actually earns its emotional weight. The chord movement here is G - D/F- Em7 - C - Am7 - D - G, and it's easy to rush through it because it feels familiar. Don't. Let the Am7 sit. The tension it creates heading back into the final chorus is what makes the payoff work. I've seen too many performances where the bridge feels like just another verse because the player wasn't thinking about where it was going. If you're playing this with a band, communicate the dynamics clearly beforehand. The verse should be relatively restrained. The pre-chorus builds. The chorus explodes. Some bands miss the build and just play everything at the same energy level, which flattens the whole song. It's not subtle, but subtlety is relative here. The vocals sit comfortably in the middle register for most singers, which is probably why the song has been covered so many times. If you're performing it, make sure you're comfortable with the range before you commit to learning it. The bridge pushes a bit higher and that's where people tend to strain if they haven't prepared properly.
For recording, the piano part is fairly uncomplicated technically. The main challenge is getting the feel right rather than hitting every note perfectly. A slightly laid-back groove works better than playing it straight on the grid. I've had better results with a small amount of humanization in the timing than with perfectly quantized performances, and I think that applies here. There's not much more to say about it. It's a well-constructed pop song with a piano at its center. Learn the chords, internalize the rhythm, and don't overthink the performance. The song does most of the work if you let it.
