Piano music

Music scales are a vital part of a student’s musical education. They help the student understand the patterns of sharps and flats in the tremendous array of music that they can play on the piano. And they train the student in fingering techniques and fluency in playing.

So often, though, students find it a nightmare to master all the scales facts and fingering patterns they need to learn for their examinations. All this would be so much easier if students noticed the clear patterns that exist in the structure of piano scales.

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The idea that studying music improves the social development of a child is not a new one, but at last there is incontrovertible evidence from a study conducted out of the University of Toronto.

The study, published in the August issue of Psychological Science was led by Dr. E. Glenn Schellenberg, and examined the effect of extra-curricular activities on the intellectual and social development of six-year-old children. A group of 144 children were recruited through an ad in a local newspaper and assigned randomly to one of four activities: piano lessons, voice lessons, drama lessons, or no lessons.

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Imagine being able to sit down at the piano and create your own unique music without years of study. Now imagine being able to do it within 1 hour! It’s possible when you learn how to play the open position piano chord!

The OPC is a special way of forming chords at the piano. You use both hands right away to create a modern sounding chord that’s perfect for today’s contemporary styles. It’s called “open position” because of the way the notes of the chord are spread out.

The left hand plays the root, fifth, and seventh notes of the chord while the right hand takes the third and seventh again. The sound is amazing but this isn’t the biggest benefit of

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Ah the Soundscape. That indefinable rush of notes that envelopes and soothes. The first classical composer to really embrace this type of music was Claude Debussy.

In fact, a whole style of music (Impressionism) was coined based on his music alone.

It’s a lush style that tries to steer clear of too definable a melody line. Instead, textures and rhythms are explored. Some students think this style is the hardest to learn but I think it’s actually easier to play this style than the straight melodic style embraced in the classical period.

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So, you want to learn how to play piano by ear. You think this skill is reserved for those with “special” talent. You’re wrong about that!

What does it mean to play by ear? Simply that the musician understands the fundamentals of diatonic harmony. To understand this, you just need to know a little about chords.

For example, in the Key of C Major we have 7 chords. These are: C Maj. D min. E min. F Maj. G Maj. A min. and B half-diminished.

Notice that these chords are lined up in order and that they are triads. Most harmonic theory in the western world gives a number to these chords using roman numerals. Simply put, we can call the C Major

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