Piano music

So, you’ve been thinking about taking piano lessons. And you’re a beginner. You probably think you’ll begin your piano lessons studies with note-reading and triads. And you’d be right!

Most piano teachers begin their students out on some obscure method book that drags out the teaching process. This makes your piano teacher rich and you a much poorer piano player.

You may be thinking there’s a better way to learn piano. And you’d be right again! Listen to this. What if there was a method a way to play piano right away using a modern sounding chord? And what if you could use this chord to create your OWN music instead of playing Kum ba ya 40-50 times for practice.

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Gallant parents who are too excited about their kids getting into violin lessons may just overlook the price of the instrument. But have you, as parents, ever thought about how long your kids enthusiasm on the instrument will last? Or better yet, have you considered the possibility that a cheap, ordinary-sounding violin may just be more beneficial to your child than an expensive, shiny one?

It is always good to start with a cheap, amateur instrument. Why? Only time can really tell whether you as an adult beginner or your child as a beginning violin student is into serious violin playing or not. If you are simply flirting with violin playing and decide to quit

halfway into the year, you don t lose much in terms of money spent on the instrument. However, if you decide you want to pursue violin playing as a serious musician, the amateur instrument will just give you a mediocre sound, thereby prompting you to coax the best tone and the best intonation from an average instrument. Once you are used to getting the maximum sound from a cheap violin, imagine how this ability for creating the best tone will sound in a professional violin!

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Do you know why the guitar is the most popular instrument in the world? It’s because it’s easy for a complete beginner to pick it up and actually create something most of us can call music right away.

Do you think a beginning piano student can do this? Not really. That’s why learning how to play chord piano is becoming so popular. Most students don’t want to wait years before they can create music. They want to be creative like their guitarist counterparts - and why not?

Learning how to play chord piano is actually easier then playing chords on a guitar. It’s because you don’t have to hurt your fingers on the strings. No finger calluses here. Not at all.

In fact, the piano may be the easiest of all instruments to play. Just press on a key and you’ve sounded a note. Press on three or more keys and you have created a chord.

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Most students try too hard. They really want to be able to improvise. To sit down at the piano and express through music. But they try too hard and miss the point of it all. It doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, improvisation should be a joy. If it isn’t you are doing something wrong.

Here’s a simple method to get you going. Look at Lesson 3: “Rainforest.” Here we have a strategy for successful improvisation. The left-hand takes care of the background while the right is free to create whatever it wants from the G Major scale - an excellent method for beginners.

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Beginning piano students can become focused on reading the notes and finding the right keys on the piano and miss the point of playing to bring their personal sensitivity to bear on the music. Hearing each note in the mind before it is played and thinking about how to touch each key is important to playing thoughtfully and creatively. Music is a language and as such it always tells a story or paints a picture.

Painting is a great analogy for children in piano as it is something that can easily relate to. In children s music the first place kids can look to get an idea of what this picture will look like

is the title of the piece. The title could be for example about the Morning, Moonlight, a Triumphant March, or a Dance.

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