It was a piano chord chart that got me started in piano playing when I was about 14 years old, and over the years I probably have purchased a couple dozen more chord charts of all kinds, from simple to complex. In this short video you’ll see a chart that shows the most-used chords in the key of C — known as the primary chords — as well as the secondary chords as well. I think you’ll find it facinating. Here are links to the two courses mentioned in the video: Chord Piano Crash Course

I used the tri-tone substitution for years before I knew the name of it, and perhaps you do also. It makes sense, because it allows you to “slide in” to the target chord for a smoother transition. In fact, I always refered to it as a half-step slide from above when moving from a V7 chord to a I chord. A tri-tone substitution is the use in a chord progression of a 7th chord that is three whole steps (in other words, a tri-tone) away from the original 7th chord. For example, if you were moving from G7 to C, you would substitute a Db7 for the G7 chord before you land on the target chord C. The reason these chords may be substituted for each other is that they have two notes in common — and the two notes are always a tri-tone (3 whole steps) away from each other. In a G7 chord, the third is B and the seventh is F. In the Db7 chord, the third is an F and the seventh is Cb (same sound as B, but written enharmonically). Watch the short video, and I think you will understand. Click here to go to the Play Piano Catalog of piano courses.

Would you go to a doctor who couldn’t tell your liver from your heart? I don’t think so. So why do millions of people take piano lessons from teachers who are great at sight-reading, technique, and all the other areas of piano playing that we all need to learn, but don’t have a clue about chords and progressions? Oh, many of them “know chords” in an intellectual way, but do they know why chords are used when, and why they progress the way they do, and what to do with them and how to improvise and create piano styles out of them? There are a few, but not many. Just make sure when you select a piano teacher that he or she is strong on music theory, musical form, and chord progressions. Then all the traditional stuff that piano teachers teach makes sense. (This is NOT an argument against sight-reading or technique or memorizing — all those are important elements of piano playing. Just make sure that the other elements mentioned above are included too.) Weekly piano lessons by DVD in your home.

Students sometimes become confused by the language of music — I know I was confused sometimes as I was learning music in the early days. Language is like that: it sometimes complicates reality. It’s not that the thing itself is so complicated, but the words that are used to describe it are either not well defined, or have somewhat different meanings for different people. “Harmony” is one of those words. Some view harmony as just another word for “chords”, but chords are really a sub-set of the subject of harmony. For example, a 2-part Bach Invention contains no “chords” as such, but as the two independent melodies interface, they create a harmonic sound, however brief. For a more complete explanation of harmony, please go to my article on the subject by clicking on the word HARMONY.

Do you remember the movie Phenomenon staring John Travolta? He played the part of a car mechanic who gets struck by lightning and wakes up possessing unusual mathematical and linguistic skills. Later he discovers he has a massive tumour of the right side of his brain, causing the left side to compensate. (By the way, that movie which came out around 1998 as I recall was shot in old town Auburn California — my home town.) That was fiction, of course, but based on experiences of a wide variety of normal people who became geniuses when something traumatic happened to them. Here’s a news story that is not fiction. You’ll find it facinating! Man’s piano talents develop after serious head injury

I have just published an article on Piano Tips: 10 Tips For Improving Your Piano Playing Rapidly. I hope to make a series of these tips, of which this is the first, so please don’t miss it. Some of the tips include playing walk-ups and walk-downs, creating a flowing river of sound, using passing tones and color tones, plus a couple tips at the end that have been worth their weight in gold to me over the years.

The word “key” in music is kind of like the words “to”, “two”, and “too” in that they sometimes lead to confusing as to when to use which. A key signature tells the musician what sharps or flats are in a given song, and therefore it defines the key of the song. To be in a key means the piece of music is based on the scale of that key. For example, a key signature with 4 flats — B, E, A, and D — indicates that the song is either in the key of Ab or it’s relative minor key, F minor. A key signature of 2 sharps — F and C — indicate that the piece is in the key of D or its relative minor key, B minor, and therefore uses the notes of the D scale in its formation. So each key signature announced to the performer the scale of the key in which the song is written. Key signatures are a type of musical notation that indicate which key the song is to be played in. But key signatures, despite the name, are not the same thing as key. Key signatures are simply notational devices; just as a note is the notational name for a pitch, key signatures are the notational names for keys. It is what it says it is: a signature, a simple piece of information that tips you off to the physical form (the key) to be played. Key signatures appear right after the clef (before the time signature) and show a sharp or flat on the line or space corresponding to the note to be altered. Key signatures placed at the beginning of songs will carry through the entire song, unless other key signatures are noted after a double bar, canceling out the first. For instance, it’s entirely possible to start a song in the key of F but end it in the key of E flat; it all depends on the key signatures and where they’re placed throughout the song (a key signature can change at any point). Accidentals can also show up throughout a song and only once or twice flatten or sharpen a note that was not previously indicated; this cancels out the key signatures, as well, but only temporarily, for as long as the accidental lasts. Beginners just learning to read music often have a hard time with key signatures because the key itself is not expressly written, and it’s sometimes difficult to remember what goes where. Key signatures with five flats or sharps have been known to terrorize new musicians — how in the world, they think, are we supposed to remember all these note changes while we’re playing the song? It’s obviously possible, though, and there are some rules that can help beginners identify and remember the key as it relates to the key signatures, rules that go beyond rote memorization. If there is more than one flat, the key is the note on the second to last flat. If there are any sharps at all, the key is a half step up from the last one noted. F major, a key frequently found in beginning sheet music, only has one flat (B), and C major has no sharps or flats at all. Key signatures, when viewed in light of these rules, are much easier for beginners to digest, ensuring that a proper knowledge of key signatures is on its way through the door. Piano keys, on the other hand, are the physical keys - the 7 “white notes” and the 5 “black notes” - on a keyboard. Which piano keys are played in any given song depend on the key signature of the song, and therefore what key the song is in. No wonder beginners sometimes scratch their heads! Piano programs for beginners are at Piano Courses For Beginners & Near Beginners

Sometimes 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. Here are Five Great Practice Ideas I Learned From My Piano Students! 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 Michael Jordan moving toward the basket, or watching Sammy Sosa 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! You might also get some ideas at Play Piano Catalog.