Piano music

Have you ever wanted to just sit down at the piano and play what you feel? Without worrying if it’s good enough or if you have enough “talent?” You can when you learn how to play piano using the amazing open position piano chord!

This chord structure allows the complete beginner to create modern sounds at the piano FASTER THAN ANY OTHER METHOD! After teaching piano for 14 years, I can safely say that I’ve never seen students progress as fast as they do when working with this chord position. Let’s examine how one can improvise right away using the open position chord.

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Most of you don’t want to go to college and learn theory, harmony, and composition techniques. Not only is it tedious and for the most part -boring, but it’s also unnecessary.

That is, if you want to compose atonal music or whatever the latest fad in academia is, go to college. If you want to capture your ideas and quickly put them down on paper, you only need to learn how to think in phrases!

This is what most improvisers/composers do anyway. For example, many of you have heard me speak of using 8-bar phrases as a cornerstone to both improv and composition. Why? Because it’s a very easy space to work in! You can very quickly complete 8-bars and have both

your theme and the first section of music.

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It is not possible to play or sing through memory for musicians who love to play an instrument or love to sing. Sheet music contains musical notes that are written for musicians to interpret. Musicians can write their scores and play them in an orchestra or band.

A blank music sheet has two formats, on which music can be written. Such music sheets are commonly used for piano and organ music. Two basic formats are treble staff for the right hand side and base staff for the left hand side. Treble staff is for higher notes, and base staff is for lower notes on the keyboard. Treble staff has music according to five lines present and is the base staff. However,

both offer different key positions for a player. Notes in between the lines are represented as F A C E on the treble staff. Notes on the five lines are named Every Good Boy Deserves Favor. Notes on the bass staff lines are called A C E G or All Cows Eat Grass, and on the five lines they are represented as Good Boy Deserves Favor Always.

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Make a joyful noise unto God, all ye lands, sing forth the honor of his name, and make his praise glorious.

Music has been used as a form of prayer since time immemorial. People praying in a group have used music to pray together. Most hymns and songs have been set to tune so that it is easier for people to identify with them. In fact, hymns and songs set to tune have helped strengthen faith in the Lord and created a feeling of oneness with Him.

Christian Sheet music has been followed ever since the first music sheet was brought in existence around 500 AD. In those times, the Vatican had the famous Pope Gregory, who was an ardent music lover.

Pope Gregory formalized and made music reading for the church, and around 600 AD, music was formed as sheet music and remains that way to this day. The first Christian sheet music was called ‘Gregorian Chants,’ or ‘Gregorian Cantus,’ which are sacred Christian Chants that are still practiced.

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One of the most daunting tasks for beginners is composing music. Just the thought of it creates scary scenarios that demand perfection. But what if you actually knew what you were doing? Instead of fear, joy and a spirit of adventure would guide you to a finished piece of music. Let’s look at how we might compose a small ABA form for piano.

The first thing I do is draw out 8-bars on a piece of paper. Any paper will do. You don’t have to have ruled sheet music paper to compose at least not the way I teach it. The reason I tell students to begin with 8-bars is that it’s a very good space to work in. In fact,

8-bars is quite enough to give you your first (A) section. As an example, look at the lesson piece “A Peaceful Path.”

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