Major chords are composed of the root, 3rd, and 5th of a major scale. And since there are 12 major scales (more if you count all enharmonic possibilities) then there are 12 major chords. Watch this short video and your understand right away:
How To Learn All the Major Piano Chords in 10 Minutes Or Less!
September 1st, 2010Learn All The Diminished & Augmented Piano Chords In 15 Minutes Or Less!
August 31st, 2010Once you know all the major chords, it’s easy to form diminished and augmented chords by just changing one or two notes. Watch this short video and see how easy it is to learn them all and understand them.
How To Learn All 12 Minor Piano Chords In 7 Minutes Or Less
August 30th, 2010Once you know how to form major chords, you can easily form any minor chord by simply lowering the 3rd of the major triad. Watch this video and see all 12 major chords become minor by moving just one note down 1/2 step:
All about piano chords: Major, minor, diminished, augmented & extended chords
August 30th, 2010Piano chords come in all flavors — major, minor, diminished, augmented, and many kinds of extended chords such as 6ths, 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, 13ths, etc. This 50-minute video will give you a good introduction to piano chords and prepare you for more in-depth study:
Chords of all kinds: Major, minor, diminished, augmented & extended chords from chordman on Vimeo.
Piano Improvising versus Arranging: Is there a difference?
August 28th, 2010What is the difference between improvising and arranging? The difference is mainly a matter of semantics, but I think it is useful to consider improvising as involving the creation of a new (or partially new) melody, while arranging involves a more or less new structure for an existing song. Watch this short video on the subject:
Use 4 fingers to get a great “straddle” piano sound!
August 27th, 2010There are many ways to break up chords into various patterns, including the open-voiced arpeggio, the 2-1 and 3-1 breakups, the pentatonic run, the Alberti bass, the Kansas City Bass, and on and on. But one of the best ways to get a contemporary and professional sound in your right hand is to use the 4-note “straddle” technique.
Instead of playing all 4 notes of a chord at once, you play just 2 and straddle the note inbetween. Then invert the chord up or down and do the same on the next inversion. It sounds complicated, but you’ll understand it when you watch this short video:
Five great ideas for successful piano practice!
August 27th, 2010Sometimes the teacher learns more from the student than the student does from the teacher. Hopefully, not too often, but today I would like to share with you some great practicing ideas that have come from my piano students over the years:
1. A Colonel in Virginia that I taught for several years got up at 4AM every weekday morning and practiced on an electronic keyboard with headphones so he wouldn’t disturb anyone at that time of the morning. “I love the early morning”, he said, “because it’s so quiet and peaceful and I’m fresh and raring to go. No phones are ringing, no people walking into the room, no disturbances at all. I practice for a half-hour, have breakfast, and then hit it for another half-hour — all before I have to show up for work. When I get home in the evening, if I’m too tired to practice, I don’t feel guilty because I’ve already got my licks in for the day. And if I’m up to practicing some more — well, it’s a bonus!”
2. An elementary school teacher in Indiana told me she took each piece I assigned her and transposed it into all 12 keys — not written out, but at the piano — in her head. She said “It doesn’t always sound so hot, but I find that if I keep at it day after day, I can at least get by in the most difficult keys, and it makes the easier keys seem real simple. And it gives me a perspective that I just wouldn’t get it I just played it in one key — the key it is written in. I’ve learned that each key has it’s own “feel”, and some keys are bright (like “D”) and some keys are mellow (like “Db”).
3. Another piano student with a similar idea, who was the Minister of Music in a Catholic church, said he took one whole month of the year and devoted it to mastering just one key. Since there are 12 months in the year and 12 Major keys, that works out perfectly. So in January he played everything he could find in the key of C, and transposed anything that wasn’t in C into C. In February he went up 1/2 step to the key of C# (also known as Db enharmonically) and played everything in Db and searched for pieces written in the key of Db, and so on. By the time the year was up, he had a pretty fair grasp on the 12 Major keys. I suggested that he devote the next year to the 12 minor keys, and the next year to the modes, and the next year to polytonality, etc., etc. — but as I recall he decided to just recycle through the 12 major keys, since he used them so much more than the ones I suggested.
4. Still another piano student took an idea from me and twisted it a bit. I suggested that she play along with pieces she liked on tapes and CD’s, so she would get a feel for the motion of the song. (I used to do that by the hour when I was a teen-ager, and it paid off big time for me!). She took the idea and tried it and liked it so much that she started getting videos of people playing the piano. She arranged her TV and video player so that she could be at her piano while the video was playing, and she would play along with the pianist on the screen, following her/his hand motions and arm motions and finger position and thereby getting a feeling for the flow of the music. (Patterning). Her creativity is paying off for her — she is advancing rapidly. (And by the way, don’t think she is “copying” the person she is watching — not at all. It’s the same principle as watching Kyle Singler moving toward the basket, or watching Robinson Cano swing a bat — it just gets you in the right groove before you apply your own style to it.)
5. A doctor I have taught for years makes a idea file of things he has learned about piano playing over the years. He notes where in a given book or tape or video I discuss such and such a topic, and files that alphabetically. Then later when he needs to refer to that idea, he simply looks up the idea in his file, locates the video or cassette or book, and presto — he can review that idea or concept almost instantly. It’s like a card catalog in the library — makes finding things so much faster than flipping through endless books trying to find that idea you saw long ago.
With the advent of the computer a person could store and categorize ideas such as this very quickly.
Hope this gives you some ideas of your own!
Learn to read music AND learn to play using chord symbols!
August 26th, 2010Most people play the piano by reading music and playing what is on the written sheet music, and that’s fine. Others play by reading only the melody of the song, but also by using the chord symbols that appear above the written music.
Which should you do? I say BOTH. There are benefits to knowing how to do both, so don’t sacrifice one for the other. Why limit yourself to just one way? So keep learning to read music — the better you can read, the better off you will be in many situations. But also learn all you can about music theory and chords, as that will enable you to create a much bigger sound on the piano than you would get from just reading the written sheet music.
For more information on the subject, click on How To Play More Notes Without Reading More Notes.
Read Music: A Quick Overview Of The Process of Reading Music
August 24th, 2010 Learning to read music is a process which involves learning to read the melody of a song as well as all the harmonic support (chords and intervals) and the rhythmic elements such as note values, time signatures, rest values, rhythm patterns and so on.
If you want a downloadable course on How To Read Music, please click on http://www.readmusicfast.com/
Podcast: Learn to Play Diminished 7th Chords – Doorways To Everywhere
August 23rd, 2010
Learn to play Diminished 7th Chords - Doorways To Everywhere
Learn Music: A Birdseye View Of Music in 5-Minutes For Beginners
August 23rd, 2010Music can be so complex and multi-faceted that it’s no wonder that the average person is lost when it comes to a basic understanding of what music is. After all, there are many different classes of classical music alone - from baroque to romantic, from Bach to Bernstein, and everthing in between. Then in jazz there is ragtime, blues, bop, west coast, Kansas City, dixieland — so many different styles all under the broad heading of “jazz”. And who can count the different styles in the world of “popular” music — from rock to country to folk to new age to….on and on.
But no matter what style or genre, all of music can be boiled down to just 3 basic elements: melody (the tune), rhythm, and harmony. If I play melody alone without any rhythm, you probably would not recognize it as a tune — you would think of it as just a meaningless succession of notes. But when I marry it to rhythm, then it becomes recognizeable. And when I add the third element of harmony, then we have “music” as we know and love it.
Watch this 5-minute video on how to learn music from a birdseye view:
Piano Fills — The 2-1 Chord Breakup — Easy and Fun To Do!
August 19th, 2010One of the most useful fillers for piano playing is the 2-1 breakup. It can be used in countless situations and is very easy to do. All you do is take any 3-note chord and play the top 2 notes and then the bottom note by itself. Then invert the chord up or down and do the same until the time alloted is used up. Watch the short video below and you will quickly understand:
Can you teach music to your own kids?
August 15th, 2010Sometimes it is better to hire an outside teacher even if you are capable of teaching your kids, but not always. The video below was sent to me by a lady who has learned some things from me and passed them along to her kids. Her daughter is the singer, and her sons are playing the keyboard and organ. So here is some proof that it indeed can be done, even if the children don’t particularly enjoy it at the time — they will later when they can play and sing like this!
Chords of all kinds: Can you count them?
August 13th, 2010There are so many different chords of different kinds and flavors that it’s easy to get lost and think that chords are so complex one could never begin to understand them. In this video we take a look at the various kinds of piano chords and add them up. Can you guess how many there are?
For more information on chords and chord types, please go to http://www.playpiano.com/pianocoursesgalore.htm
How to play the piano even if you don’t know how to play the piano…
August 6th, 2010Even beginners can have fun on the piano playing simple jazz sounds using just 3 chords and a little bit of rhythm. Watch this short video to see how to make a simple jazz waltz out of 3 basic chords — the material from which the blues are made:
Piano scales: Major scales and their relative minor scales
August 5th, 2010As you probably know, every major scale has a “kissing cousin” — a minor scale that is related to it’s major scale. To locate the starting point of a minor scale, find the 6th degree of any major scale and that becomes the root (the starting note) of it’s relative minor scale.
For example, in the F major scale the 6th degree of that scale is D, so D becomes the starting point of the relative minor scale to the scale of F, which of course is D minor.
Watch this short video and I think it will become clear to you:
For more information on scales, take a look at All About Scales & How To Use Them!
Piano Fingering: The Intrinsic Logic Of Which Finger Should Go Where — And Why
July 28th, 2010If you’ve ever wondered if you’re using the correct fingering,there are a few basic principles that can help you big time. There is an intrinsic logic to fingering that most pianists don’t know about. It’s simple, yet requires some explanation. You’ll learn how to finger scale passages, chord sequences, chromatic phrases, and so on. But once you understand, you’ll scratch your head and say “Of course! It’s obvious now!”
Here are some general principles — the intrinsic logic of fingering:
1. If you see a passage in your sheet music move higher on the staff, use a low finger (fingers are numbered from the thumb outward, so your thumb is #1, your index finger is #2, your middle finger is #3, your ring finger is #4, and your little finger is #5) so you’ll have fingers available for higher notes.
And of course, exactly the opposite if you see a passage move lower on the staff.
2. Hold your hand up in front of you. The longest fingers are in the middle — right? Your thumb is far and away the shortest because it starts at a lower point on your hand. Now look at a piano keyboard. The black keys are the furthest away from you — correct? So which fingers can reach the black keys best? You got it — your middle fingers. Therefore, whenever possible play the black keys with your long fingers instead of your thumb. It’s just common sense.
3. The corollary to that is obvious: use your thumb and little finger on white keys whenever possible. (And it’s NOT always possible.)
4. A scale contains 8 keys. You have 5 fingers. So it’s logical to assume you will have to use some fingers more than once. On right hand scale passages ascending beginning on white keys, start on your thumb and then cross your thumb under your 3rd finger except when the 4th note of the scale is a black key. In that case, to avoid playing the black key with your thumb, cross your thumb under your 4th finger. (And just the reverse with your left hand, of course)
On scale passages beginning on black keys, start on a long finger — preferably your index finger (also called your “pointer finger”) and then cross your thumb under whenever the next white key occurs.
5. On chromatic passages, the best way I have found is to use just fingers #1 and #3 except where two white keys in a row occur — then use fingers #1 and #2.
6. Fingering on chords is largely dictated by the size of the chord; obviously if you are playing a 5-note chord, you will use all 5 fingers. Otherwise just follow the intrinsic logic in the general principles listed above.
For more details, go to “Which Finger Goes Where… & Why”
With 10 fingers and 88 keys on the piano, how can I know which to use when?
July 23rd, 2010“Which finger should I use on such and such a passage in this piano piece?”
Questions like that are asked all the time, and understandably so, since it can be kind of confusing to know which of your 10 fingers you should use on any of the 88 keys on the piano. While each situation is unique, there are a few principles that can guide you to
fingering that will get you where you want to go. Please watch this short video:
How to play piano notes rapidly up and down the keyboard
July 22nd, 2010Your fingers can fly up and down the keyboard with great speed if you master the techniques described in this short video. You begin with a tremelo, then take the notes of that tremelo and break them up going up the keyboard rapidly and also coming back down, if you so choose.
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