Piano Fun

noreply@blogger.com (Newsam) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 22:06:00 +0000

Feb. 3, 2012

On this day in 1959, we lost Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper in a tragic plane crash. If you're old enough, you might remember exactly where you were when you heard the news. I do. I was in fifth grade, and I heard the news at recess. Even then I sensed significance.

Now here's some interesting math (again for you older readers). It was in 1972 that Don Mc Lean recorded his immortal hit "American Pie" which alluded to the tragic plane crash. He referred to it as "The Day the Music Died."

Here's the weird part (to me). The time elapsed between the event and the song was just 13 years. Yet the time elapsed between the song and the present...40 years. Can't be. But it is.

To this day whenever I hear a Buddy Holly song on the radio, I think about what might have happened if he lived. One of the top songs on the record charts at the time Holly died: That'll Be the Day That I Die.

Reminder: 2012 Piano Retreat is now taking enrollments. www.pianofun.com/wordpress

Tip 10: Identify your weaknesses. (And address them.)

noreply@blogger.com (Newsam) — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 22:17:00 +0000

For years I was an undisciplined musician. Or more accurately, I would hover between discipline and otherwise. I'll exclude my days taking piano lessons as a child, because back then everything was orchestrated by adults. The grown ups determined who I'd take lessons from (and when), when and for how long I would do my practicing, what pieces I would learn to play, what I would do for my recitals, etc.

I was just a kid, and my passion for learning music hadn't kicked in yet. Discipline was not an option.

When the music bug finally did kick in, it hit me hard; and it wasn't the piano that kick started it, it was guitar. I started learning guitar about the time the folk music craze hit the culture, circa 1961. So here I was between 14 and 16 years of age, when Peter, Paul and Mary stormed in. Pete Seeger was a big influence. Bluegrass. Old Timey. Irish. I just soaked it all up. Then Bob Dylan came along, and I was mesmorized.

I played guitar constantly. I'd rush home from school, get the homework out of the way as soon as possible, and spend the rest of the evening in my room with my old Silvertone acoustic. Nirvana.

That alone doesn't mean I was disciplined. Obsessed, yes. But not always disciplined. But sometimes I was. I recall about a three month period where I was determined to learn three-finger picking. I was painfully learning it out of Pete Seeger's Folksinger's Guitar Guide. It was days of obsessive pain. The days turned to weeks, the weeks to months. I wasn't really getting it, but I was determined to stick it out.

Then one day, all of a sudden it came to me. I could three finger pick. I was a three month overnight sensation.

That was an example of discipline. But here's the kicker. Unfortunately I did NOT progress much further on guitar for a long time, and here's why. Once I hit the three-finger picking plateau, I kind of coasted. I was happy with my achievement and became complacent. I had attained a certain level of achievement with my guitar playing. And that's what I played. I reinforced my strengths, through continual playing in my new comfort zone. And that's a good thing.

But had I been really interested in improving my guitar playing, I would have addressed myself to my weaknesses (of which I had plenty). I didn't acknowledge my weaknesses. I was in total denial. Although I had plenty of role models to listen to, I did not make much of a conscious effort to play like them. I just kept with my three finger picking.

If you are a piano player (or any kind of musician), it's up to you to decide if you want to get better. Human nature is such that almost all musicians I've ever met, and I've met quite a few, wish to become better musicians. Insane? Maybe. But that's the nature of learning music.

Others might worship you as a musician, based upon your current skills. But you know you can do better. And it kills you, because we all know what it takes to become a better musician, right? Practice, practice, practice.

Actually, there's more to it than that. It's not just practice. It's knowing WHAT to practice. I tell my beginning students that there is no reason ever to practice the piano. Of course they are astonished to hear those words coming from a music teacher. But then comes the punchline. "Just play," is my frivolous follow up. Okay, that's kind of a joke with a little truth thrown in.

The real truth, however, is that making music is a combination of practicing and playing. We PRACTICE so that we can PLAY better. When we PLAY, we have a natural tendency to play to our STRENGTHS. When we PRACTICE, however, we need to practice to our WEAKNESSES. We need to address the areas of our playing where we are weak, and devise a prescription for making ourselves stronger.

So how do we go about that? A good music teacher (make that a VERY good music teacher) can assess your weaknesses AND find ways of addressing them. My hunch is this works better in the field of classical music than in pop, owing to the relative dearth of pop piano teachers and their almost non-existent formal training, especially in the field of pedagogy. In absence of such a teacher, you're going to have to find and correct your weaknesses yourself. Here we go.

It's not easy to distill the essence of musicianship into a finite number of categories. There are just too many subtlties. But for the sake of illustrating the point, let's look at just five:

technique
repertoire
rhythm
improvisation
theory

Chances are if you're like me, you could use some work in all five areas. In that case, you need to prioritize. So take a careful look at your piano playing. Record it. Analyze it. See if some of these symptoms apply to you.

Symptom	Problem Type
hit a lot of wrong notes	technique
don't feel comfortable in certain keys	technique
don't feel in control	technique
not able to predict chords	repertoire/theory
get lost in songs	repertoire
can't take requests	repertoire
just have trouble memorizing	repertoire
tempo slows down	rhythm
tempo speeds up	rhythm
stop and go	rhythm
tied to the sheet music	improvisation
sounding dull/boring	improvisation
lack of intuition	theory
trouble with keys	theory

So once you have listed a few symptoms, you can refer to the chart above to try to pinpoint the problem. And then you can go about working on the solutions by using the chart below. Here are just a few ideas.

Problem Type	Solution
technique	Hanon exercises
	scales
	exercise books
	your own exercises
repertoire	learn x songs per week
	different composers
	different styles/rhythms
	different keys
rhythm	work with metronome
	work with recordings
	rhythm instruction CD's
improvisation	work with recordings
	play along instructional media
	record yourself and play along
theory	study theory books
	learn more songs
	analyze music

The point is, don't just do what's fun to do unless it doesn't bother you not to make progress. We get weak in certain areas, because we neglect to work in those areas. And the reason we neglect to work in such areas, quite possibly, is that it's not very fun to do so. So we end up trapped within a vicious circle of stagnation.

These suggestions are just examples. There are many other areas of music in which we can work and improve. Recording yourself can help a lot. So can getting the opinions of others.

I mentioned that there are resources out there to help you learn. We have a lot of good stuff for sale too. But remember that it's just information. It's there for you when you want it. But first it will be of real benefit to do the prep work and discover what's wrong with your playing, find the right information to help you solve what's wrong, and then do the work that it takes to make the corrections.

Of course when you do discover your weaknesses, it will be very helpful to write everything down in a log. Indicate your weakness, write down the name of the source of information you plan to use to fix it, write a specific game plan for working on the weakness (specify that you will spend exactly x minutes a day on this problem), and finally set a target date for when you will evaluate your success.

Then take the plunge. There is even a chance you'll discover that the sessions spent at the piano addressing your weaknesses will become fun after all. That's called success.

This is the 10th installment in our series of articles on hidden or obscure strategies for improving musicianship. These strategies are not intended to be a substitute for (I dislike this word) "practicing." To the contrary. Spending time playing your instrument is mightily important.

But think of these 22 ideas as strategies you can use in addition to your time in the woodshed. How does one find a label for these strategies? Subconscious? Metaphysical? Whatever word you want to use, go ahead. It's just that these ideas are not often presented to you as part of a musical instrument learning regimen. For earlier articles, check our blog archive.

Tip Nine: Play the best you can afford.

noreply@blogger.com (Newsam) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 16:14:00 +0000

This is the ninth installment in our series of articles on hidden or obscure strategies for improving musicianship. These strategies are not intended to be a substitute for (I dislike this word) "practicing." To the contrary. Spending time playing your instrument is mightily important.

It stands to reason you want to select a high quality instrument, both as a beginner and an advanced musician. This is more critical for some instruments than it is for others.

Take the guitar. You don't want to start a student on a bad guitar. Some guitars, due to warped necks and a host of other problems, are simply unplayable. They physically cause pain to the finger tips. They don't sound good.

And the worst thing is, a beginning student doesn't know the difference. We teachers understand that music students need to be motivated or they won't advance. The musical challenges are great enough as it is, we don't need extra roadblocks like a subpar instrument to derail a student's progress.

A quality instrument doesn't guarantee a student will become successful, but a bad instrument can adversely affect even the most gifted and motivated of students.

The guitar may be an extreme example, but the same principal applies to piano students. A bad piano may not directly cause blisters and carpal tunnel syndrome, but it could have some serious negative effects.

So do you need to run out and buy your six year old a nine foot Steinway? The Steinway salesman may disagree, but the answer to that is no. Then how do you tell a good piano from a bad one?

Everything else being equal, a grand piano is usually better than a vertical piano. Start with that. What, you can't afford a grand piano (or you don't have the room)? Okay, a vertical will do. Now the rule is, the longer the strings, the better. Thus, (again, all other things being equal) an upright piano would be better than a spinet. In fact a spinet should be your last choice (but don't completely count it out).

There are actually a couple of sizes in between spinet and upright. Just above spinet is console. A lot of the smaller Japanese pianos are in this category. Above console is studio (these are institutional pianos, made mostly for schools, churches, libraries, and the like).

The next consideration: how well has the piano been maintained over its life? Was it tuned once a year like it should or once every three presidential administrations? Is it in tune now (reasonably)? Do all the keys work? Any obvious flaws with the frame or the sounding board?

Then there are the subjective evaluations. How does it sound? How does it play? If you are not a piano player yourself, you'll probably need to get an outside opinion if you're shopping around.

I myself started on a crappy spinet. It was all my parents could afford. I still have it. Then as an adult I got an old used upright. Later when I turned pro I got a really nice (for a spinet) spinet. I got that so I could move it around, and take it to gigs. I still have that one too. Then I finally got a nice medium sized grand piano which I really love.

But the grand piano spoiled me. I go back and play the two spinets, and I wonder how I ever survived playing them. People know me as being really cheap in a lot of areas. But I never cheap out on a musical instrument. They are just too important.

So if it's for your child, get the best instrument you can afford. They won't appreciate it early on, but they'll be statistically more inclined to stay with music with something of quality to play on. And they'll thank you later.

As for yourself. You're going to want the best if nothing else than for pride of ownership. Psychology 101 tells us the bigger the investment, the more you'll play. The more you play, the better you get. The better you get plus the better the quality of the instrument, the better you sound overall.

A more expensive instrument may even be more economical in the long run. If you compute the cost in terms of dollars per hour spent playing, a more expensive instrument may actually be cheaper than a cheaper one. Of course there's things like resale value and trade in value to consider too, but we don't even need to count that.

Buy the best. You and your children deserve it.

Piano Camp Frequently Asked Questions

noreply@blogger.com (Newsam) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 22:40:00 +0000

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Q. What is Piano Camp?

A. It's a two day experience of classes, workshops, guided practice, and personal coaching in the art pop piano playing.

Q. Is it for beginners?

A. There will be two tracks, one for beginners and one for those beyond the beginning stage. Absolute beginners are encouraged. The second track (Beyond) is designed for those students who have taken the Instant Piano Workshop designed by Robert Laughlin or those who already have a little background in pop/chord piano playing.

Q. Who is behind it?

A. The workshop is presented by the New School of American Music. They were founded in 1982 and have directly or indirectly been responsible for teaching hundreds of thousands of students nationwide in their One Day Workshops. These workshops are given primarily in college non-credit programs, in almost all 50 states and in Canada.

Q. Who is teaching it?

A. Over 300 piano teachers have been trained to give these workshops. However the bulk of the sessions at Piano Camp will be taught personally either by the designer of the course, Robert Laughlin or by his wife Pam.

Q. What do I need to know already?

A. Nothing really. However, if you wish a head start you can download a pamphlet to study at www.pianofun.com/newsletters.html

Q. Will there be pianos for everyone?

A. We will have four or five keyboards available for campers. And there will be ample time for practice. But I can't guarantee that there will be a keyboard available for everyone all the time. Therefore, I encourage you to bring a portable keyboard with you, if you have one. If enough people do that, there won't be a shortage. But it's the only way I can guarantee you will have an instrument to play 100% of the time. If you cannot bring your own instrument, I will guarantee you'll have access to one of our instruments at least SOME of the time.

Q. How effective is the curriculum and staff?

A. Robert Laughlin, the designer of this program and lead teacher at Piano Camp, has personally given the basic Instant Piano workshop to almost 25,000 students over a span of almost 30 years. The course has been consistently rated as one of the best courses offered by the dozens of college non-credit programs in which it has been taught. This is not just an idle boast. We have thousands of evaluations in our files, and we get unsolicited praises about the course on a regular basis.

Q. Will classical music be covered too?

A. No. Just pop.

Q. What's the difference in teaching or learning classical vs. pop?

A. Classical music revolves around reading music notation, which is a long process with a steep learning curve. Pop music revolves around chords, a much easier system.

Q. Will there be private instruction?

A. The instructors plan on helping everyone out with their individual needs during the guided practice sessions. There you will have one-on-one contact with the instructors.

Q. What is the deadline for the tuition discount?

A. June 22 at midnight.

Q. What about sleeping arrangements for Saturday night?

A. Sleeping is bunkhouse style. The bunk houses have about a dozen single cots with mattresses. You bring your own sleeping bag or bedding. The bunkhouses are segregated by sex. If you wish, you can opt for a private room upgrade for yourself or your family. Those come with a semi-private bathroom. Again, bring your own bedding. More info on facilities and what to bring are at the Walker Creek Ranch web site. Be sure to read the list of essentials before leaving for camp.

Q. Where is Walker Creek Ranch located?

A. Less than an hour north of San Francisco and less than an hour from the famous Napa Valley wine country, the ranch is located on several acres of pristine natural foothill topography. It's currently used as a nature camp for the Marin County school system. Aside from the wildlife, you won't see any neighbors. It's really beautiful and ideal for short hikes and explorations during your free time.

Q. What about meals?

A. You will get lunch and dinner on Saturday and breakfast and lunch on Sunday. It's all served cafeteria style and is actually pretty good. Vegetarian meals are available and they can accommodate special needs. Be sure to inquire ahead of time.

Q. Where can I get more information?

A. These links.

Walker Creek Ranch: http://www.walkercreekranch.org/newpdfs/confguestinfo.pdf

Registration: http://www.pianofun.com/camp/orderform_pc.html

Pianofun Piano Camp Schedule

noreply@blogger.com (Newsam) — Fri, 27 May 2011 23:10:00 +0000

Here's the Piano Camp agenda. Note there are two tracks. Campers are free to take either of the two tracks. Or skip around between the two. Or combine the piano sessions with the VIBO Family Camp sessions where they will offer guitar, percussion, violin, cello, ukulele, woodwinds, vocals, dance, and more. That schedule will be published shortly.

For one low price campers can take up to 11 sessions over the two days, and it includes the Family Song Circle, Faculty Concert, Jam Session, and Talent Show.

Also great food, great people, great environment, fresh air, close to the wine country, and the over all wonderful vibes one gets from an event of this nature.

As you read the schedule keep in mind that the Basic Track is designed for those who have not taken the Instant Piano workshop from Robert. The Beyond Track is for those who have taken Instant Piano and want more information of this kind or those who have a background in chord piano already.

July 23 - 24

Walker Creek Ranch, Marin Co., California

Info on the location.

http://www.walkercreekranch.org/newpdfs/confguestinfo.pdf

Cost and Registration

http://www.pianofun.com/camp/orderform_pc.html

Piano Camp Schedule

	Basic Track	Beyond Track
	(beginners)	(intermediates)

10-10:45 am:	Reading Notes	More notation skills

11-11:45am:	Intro to Chords	Super Exercises

12-1pm: Lunch

1-1:45pm	Keys, Time, etc	Adding Pizzazz

2-2:45pm	Guided Practice	Guided Practice

3-3:45pm	open	open

4-4:45pm	open	open

5-6pm	Q and A	Q and A

6-7pm
Dinner

7:30-8:45pm
Family Song Circle

9-10pm
Faculty Performances

10pm
Jam Sessions

Sunday, July 24

8-9am: Breakfast

9-9:45am	Beginner Issues	Int. Issues

10-10:45am	Arranging Demo	Arranging Demo

11-11:45am	Guided Practice	Guided Practice

12-1pm: Lunch

1-1:45pm	open	open

2pm
Family Talent Show

Piano Camp 2011 Costs and Reg Form

noreply@blogger.com (Newsam) — Wed, 25 May 2011 22:59:00 +0000

Click on the link below to view all the costs of Piano Camp. They're all in the Registration Form.

http://www.pianofun.com/camp/orderform_pc.html

To quickly summarize, the cost to attend camp
(tuition) will be $150. That's for a total of 12
sessions over two days, plus the song circles,
faculty recital, jams, etc.

In addition there is a cost for food (of course)
and lodging. See the form for all the options and
details. But it's really reasonable. And the food
is good. I can attest to that.

There will be eight full sessions in Piano Camp
(just devoted to piano), plus dozens of other
courses offered through the Family Camp. You are
welcome to take any courses in either of the two
camps. It's all included in this one price.

Now for some good news. There is a 20% discount
for children and very young children attend free.
And I managed to finagle an early bird discount
for everybody else. If you enroll by June 1 (next
Wednesday) you can take the entire camp for just
$118. After that it goes back up to $150.

You could easily pay $118 just for two or three
private piano lessons. But here you can soak up
two whole days of nothing but piano. Or you can
mix these piano sessions with the other sessions
from family camp.

The camp will be very informative and very fun.
The bulk of the sessions will be taught by yours
truly.

More info shortly. But now here is the
registration link.

http://www.pianofun.com/camp/orderform_pc.html

Other Info

Dates of Camp: Saturday, July 23 and Sunday, July 24

Info on the location.
http://www.walkercreekranch.org/newpdfs/confguestinfo.pdf

Proudly Announcing Pianofun Piano Camp

noreply@blogger.com (Newsam) — Wed, 25 May 2011 22:45:00 +0000

This is the most exciting thing we've done in a
long time. Maybe ever. I'll send you detailed info
very soon. But this is what I can reveal now.

The dates: Saturday, July 23 and Sunday, July 24
The location: Walker Creek Ranch, near Petaluma in
Marin County, Northern California.

The agenda: Eight sessions of just piano, over a
two day period. Includes guided practicing with
one-on-one coaching. Two curricula. One for
absolute beginners (including children) and the
other for those who have studied the Instant Piano
Course or who have some previous experience with
pop chord style piano.

Lodging and meals provided (or you can opt to take
care of that yourself).

Held in conjunction with the Vibo Music Family
camp where you and your family members can opt to
take other courses in topics such as guitar,
ukulele, percussion, dance, jazz vocals, violin,
cello, from a staff of first rate teachers.

Plus you are welcome to participate in family song
night, listen to a faculty concert, participate in
a community band, and an evening jam session. All
of this in a safe, nurturing environment, in a
beautiful, natural setting, just minutes away from
California Wine Country.

I'll get you more information very soon. In the
mean time you can reserve the weekend on your
calendar.

Saturday, July 23 and Sunday, July 24

Info on the location.
http://www.walkercreekranch.org/newpdfs/confguestinfo.pdf

Oh. And the cost will be very, very reasonable. So
reasonable you'll be able to bring the entire
family.

Here are some of the features of just the Piano
Camp.

Two Basic Tracks: Beginner and Beyond

BEGINNER TRACK
The beginner track is for those who know little or
nothing about music or the piano. We also welcome
those who have studied only classical (notation
based) piano and who want to learn the chord
system from scratch.

Goal: To enable the beginner to play any song on
the piano with two hands by the end of camp. (Yes,
you heard that right. Any song, two hands).

BEYOND TRACK
The "Beyond" Track is for those who have already
studied the Pianofun Instant Piano method or who
have had some basic background in chord style
piano and want to hone their skills.

Goal: To learn strategies to improve your piano
playing skills and knowledge of chords. We will
also explore many of the tricks, techniques, and
sneaky little secrets used by pro piano players.

There will be a total of eight sessons on just
piano out of the 11 slots the camp offers. There
will be a minimum of two piano instructors, one to
handle mostly the beginners, the other to work
with mostly the intermediates.

Campers are free to combine Family Camp classes
with Piano Camp classes and participate in the
Family Song Circle, listen to the Faculty Recital,
the jam sessions, the ensembles, and everything
else the camp has to offer.

It's actually a great opportunity to learn more
about piano while your kids (or grandkids) take
some really fun music and dance lessons from the
skilled instructors.

And best of all, there will be NO ADDITIONAL COST
FOR PIANO CAMP. It's all included.

So mark your calendar: July 23 and 24.

Info on the location.
http://www.walkercreekranch.org/newpdfs/confguestinfo.pdf

Thoughts on Note Reading

noreply@blogger.com (Newsam) — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 01:10:00 +0000

Question: I'm getting frustrated with learning to read music. Do you have any hints on how to solve this problem?

Spend a few minutes a day, just reading music. I know it's a struggle at this point. If you work on it extensively, it will get better. Progress may seem slow at first, but it will get better.

At the same time use your other senses to figure out a melody. Your memory is one. Repetition is the key to that. Play the same song ten times a day every day, and in a few weeks it should sound close to perfect. You're learning it.

I assume you are only trying to play songs that are familiar to you at this time. Familiarity is another one of the senses. If you know the song, depend on your familiarity when trying to recreate it on the piano. Remember that reading music is just a tool. Don't get hung up on the fine points of deciphering notes on a page. That isn't the goal. That's just a means to an end. Curtail the reading, and start using your heart.

Your intuition is another sense you can use. Take a guess. And if you hit a wrong note, don't react to it. Just keep going. It's much better to protect the integrity of the flow of the song than to micro manage the correct playing of each note.

This too gets easier and more accurate with time.

Some noted jazz players will tell you there aren't any wrong notes. There are just ways the artist controls the contrasting dissonance of the melody. This concept isn't as New Agey as it sounds. But it will be a while before you get to this level of controlling dissonance.

Here's something else you can start to do in about six to nine months. Begin learning the major scales in all twelve keys. Volume Two of Hanon or any scale book can help you with that.

You are at the beginning of your journey. And you have a long way to go. And you'll never arrive at your destination. You just keep getting closer to it. Make sure you have plenty of fun along the way.

Resources:

Free Pamphlet on Note Reading:

http://www.pianofun.com/downloads/notes.pdf

Free Newsletter Subscription:

http://www.pianofun.com/newsletters.html

Instructional CD and booklet:

http://www.pianofun.com/catalog/detail_NTR.html

Tip Eight: Play Music You Hate

noreply@blogger.com (Newsam) — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 23:55:00 +0000

Tip Eight: Play the Music You Hate

This is the eighth installment in our series of articles on hidden or obscure strategies for improving musicianship. These strategies are not intended to be a substitute for (I dislike this word) "practicing." To the contrary. Spending time playing your instrument is mightily important.

When put into the context of Tip Seven (Play the Music You Love), Tip Eight might seem contradictory. But it makes sense. Here's why.

Let me give you a personal example. I started learning the piano (for the second time) when I was about 23. Unlike when I started the first time at age six, I knew exactly what I wanted to accomplish. A large part of what I wanted to learn was blues and boogie woogie.

Later I took a liking to some other styles, so I guess I was somewhat open minded.

But there was one thing I wasn't so open minded about. And that was the key. And you get three guess as to which key I favored. Of course, the key of C.

Now my teacher was OK with that. My teacher wasn't exactly a music teacher and had no training in pedagogy. I just showed up every week, told him what I wanted to learn, and he showed me. If he had any ideas as to what he thought I SHOULD be learning, he kept them to himself.

So I pretty much stayed in the key of C with my blues and my boogie and my country and my swing and my improvising. And I got pretty good at it after a year or so.

As long as I played in the key of C.

Eventually I got good enough to play in a band. And guess what? Did the guitar player play everything in the key of C? No way. All of a sudden I had to learn to play in a vast assortment of keys. Strange, exotic keys. Guitar keys, like E major and A major. And I was required to modulate (change keys in the middle of a song) sometimes.

In a way it was like starting all over.

But of course mastering all keys is something every musician has to do. I hated it at first, but avoiding it was no longer an option. So I made the adjustment (somewhat at the expense of my audience).

I had the same sort of experience with some specific songs. Being someone with more than his share of opinions, there were some songs I truly detested (don't ask me to name names here please). But a lot of these same songs were big favorites of my audience. Again, as a working musician in a band, I no longer had the option not to play them.

Here's the fun part. I discovered a lot of the songs I didn't care for were musically similar. I never really noticed that until I was forced to play them. And then I had the "aha" moments.

"Aha Moment No. 1" was that the songs I didn't like often shared the same attributes.

"Aha Moment No. 2" was that by avoiding these songs, I was not exposing myself to certain specific musical experiences (such as certain particular chord changes).

"Aha Moment No. 3" was that by playing these songs I had heretofore avoided, I was learning and growing musically.

I still might not care for these songs to this day. But now I know what's in them, and I play better overall from the experience.

So the lesson? Hard keys can be your friend (although I still avoid F sharp like the plague). Crappy songs (subjective opinion) can take you on musical voyages you would never find on your own. And music can have a lot of surprises that you can learn to like.

What's Easy. What's Hard.

noreply@blogger.com (Newsam) — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 06:37:00 +0000

I talked last time about learning to control difficulty in the playing of music. As musicians we have choices as to how we want to approach playing a song, and how difficult we want it to be.

As a teacher of pop piano, I find it interesting to realize I teach very conflicting concepts. First I show people how easy it is to play a song. Then I challenge them by making it more difficult. (If only I could make up my mind.)

But we should also acknowledge that individual songs themselves have an intrinsic level of difficulty to play. Many provide barriers to learning.

Generally speaking, the more chords a song has, and the faster the chords change, the more difficult the song is to learn to play.

Some argue that some songs have "difficult" chords, but that's not exactly true. I always maintain that all chords are easy to play on the piano. But if a chord is unfamiliar to you, then it's intrinsically going to be difficult, because you don't know it yet. And your hand doesn't know it yet.

Here's some examples of what I mean. Silent Night. Very easy. Just three chords and most pop piano players, even the beginners, know what those chords are.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas is more difficult. It has maybe up to 18 different chords. Some of them (like the major sevenths) are challenging, because you may not know them yet.

Now consider The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire). Very difficult. Lots of different chords coming at you a mile a minute. And the song changes keys several times, adding more challenges. It's a real killer of a song to try to learn.

But one really cool thing is that as a piano player, you have some great opportunities to exert your control and influence. It's always possible to take an easy song and make it harder. And it's always possible to take a hard song and make it simpler. The former strategy is for beginners. The latter for experts.

When you make the transition from one strategy to the other, you have matriculated from beginner to expert.

Sometimes you find a song that you just cannot seem to be able to master no matter what. When you do, don't despair. Just give up (for the time being) and move along. There's no rule that says you have to be able to play everything. You can always come back to it later.

Control the Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Newsam) — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 22:45:00 +0000

I played a couple of gigs recently. Last week it was a piano gig accompanying a singer. Then yesterday my loving spouse and I played Christmas songs at a local Christmas tree farm owned by some friends. I played guitar in that setting, while she covered clarinet.

I got some insight from those two very different experiences, and I want to pass it along, because I think this insight could be of value to all aspiring musicians.

The lesson is: control your challenge.

The fact is, all music can be played simply. It can also be played complex. You get to choose how you do it.

Case in point: At the Christmas tree farm gig I was reading out of a book of Christmas carols that I had just received a week or two earlier. Unlike the scope and presentation of my own book of Christmas Carols, The Season, this new volume is a fake book that was edited by some real jazz fiends. And I'll admit many of the songs were a real challenge to me in that form, even though I'd become very familiar and comfortable with the same exact songs with easier versions.

The main challenge lay with the fact that the chords were often advanced and unfamiliar, and the changes came at a furious pace. I had to use all my concentration and technique to keep up with it.

Now there was a third person who joined us for a few songs, a beginning clarinet student my wife teaches. She (the student) had only been playing clainet a few weeks and was at a very beginning level. But she struggled through, and played very well.

And then I realized I was kind of a beginner too. Even though I've played guitar for over 45 years, I was very much a beginner as far as this advanced book was concerned. I was just a beginner at a more advanced level.

The upshot? We gave it our best, revealed our flaws, and in general made a lot of people happy with our music. Luckily the gig was very informal, nobody got paid (well, we did get a free Christmas tree), and the environment was very forgiving.

Thus, we felt more relaxed and were more open to taking chances and exploring new things. A win win. Had the gig been more formal (like the piano gig a few days earlier) I would be less enthusiastic about pushing the envelope in public.

No matter what the occasion, be it a performance, or jamming with friends, or just playing by yourself, you can adjust your risk threshold accordingly. The more formal it is, the fewer risks you take. Control your challenge. But be sure to take the risks at home when you are just playing for the fun of it.

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Beatles

noreply@blogger.com (Newsam) — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 23:53:00 +0000

Did you catch the news this week? Apple iTunes seems to have worked out its differences with the Beatles and is now offering The Beatles record catalog for downloads. It's been a long time in coming, but this is an amazing example of how people have a way of ironing out their differences when there is several million dollars at stake.

All cynicism aside, it's quite a newsworthy event. And if you are any kind of fan of The Beatles at all, you'll want to see some of the video Apple is making available as a part of their promotion.

Of particular note is a film of The Beatles' first US concert, presented in its entirety. The concert was given two days after the boys' historic appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in February of 1964, and took place in Washington, D.C.

Even though the concert was a sell out, it was in front of an audience of only 7,000. That's paltry by today's standards. And some of the technology involved in staging the show was laughably low tech, as you will see when you view the footage. Go see it by logging into the apple.com web site or the iTunes store. See it now, as it probably won't be up forever.

If you are fortunate enough to be under 55 years old, you probably don't remember the hysteria that accompanied The Beatles' first US tour. I do remember it, and it was unbelievable. There was nothing to compare it to, before or since. No one else in show business ever created such a buzz. Not Elvis. Not Sinatra. Not any of the pop stars to come along since, blond or otherwise.

I was just a teenager then, and I remember that not a day went by without a front page story on The Beatles in the San Francisco Chronicle. It was all anyone could talk about.

It was reported that during that hour of the Ed Sullivan Show, not a single crime was committed in all of New York City.

And this was all before anyone knew The Beatles were good. Or at least we had no idea how good they were to become. But they kept on proving themselves, reinventing themselves, and then burning out, almost as rapidly as they came on the scene.

If you are over 75, you probably didn't care for them when they hit the scene. I know my parents didn't nor did any "old people." (Def.: anyone over 30). That hair. They don't even sing in tune. Too loud.

They (the old folks) were proven wrong ultimately. We young uns, 11 to about 18, had it right. How did we know? How did we create Beatlemania, and how did we get the media to blow it completely out of proportion?

I don't know. But I don't think we'll ever see anything like it again. But now at least we get to relive those heady days of Beatlemania.

Enjoy the downloads. I know you will. Even if you're under 55. Even if you're over 75.

P.S. Feel free to comment and/or leave your own remembrances below. I'd love to read them.

Tip Seven: Play What You Love

noreply@blogger.com (Newsam) — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 20:43:00 +0000

Tip Seven: Play What You Love

This is the seventh installment in our series of articles on hidden or obscure strategies for improving musicianship. These strategies are not intended to be a substitute for (I dislike this word) "practicing." To the contrary. Spending time playing your instrument is mightily important.

Understand that these ideas are in no particular order, either of chronology or importance. In fact this one may be among the most important of the 22. So here it is.

Actually, I'd like to start this by posing a question. Why do piano lessons fail?

I'm talking mostly about the teaching of children here. Those of us who are 50 and older were much more likely to have had childhood piano lessons than are members of the successive generation (whose parents had to think up alternative forms of child abuse).

So if you were one of those who took lessons as a child, let me ask you this. Why did you stop? What is the reason you are not performing in the major concert halls of the world today?

Here's a wild guess. It wasn't fun for you. Think about practicing. Was it something you wanted to do, or was it something you had to do? Did you look forward to giving piano recitals? I didn't. Nor did I know of anyone in my group who did.

Yeah, it wasn't fun for me. I hated to practice. And I finally wore my parents down and was able to quit. You know what happened then? Interestingly, after the obligations of piano were dismantled, I found myself spending hours at the piano just fooling around with it, playing what I wanted to play, unencumbered by the pressures of weekly judgement and the fear of recitals.

Radical concept: Playing music is supposed to be fun.

Adult learners can spend hours and hours, learning, improving, perfecting, striving do it because at some point, there is an emotional payoff. Certainly accomplishing goals musically is incentive. But I doubt most adults would put the time that it takes to accomplish those goals if doing so did not bring them *pleasure at the moment*.

We all play because it's fun to play. Even when things are challenging and frustrating, we work through those frustrations, because we enjoy the process.

So why is that? Why did I spend hours every day as a teenager teaching myself guitar, when just a few years earlier I had to whine and whine in order to get out of taking piano lessons?

Here's my theory. Music is fun to play when you are playing music that you like. And of course the more you like it, the more you want to do it; and the more you do it, the better you get. It's basic economics, the incentive principle. Being able to choose the music you play makes it fun to do.

Now think about childhood piano lessons, if you had them. Did you get to choose the songs you had to learn each week? Probably not. Your teacher assigned them to you. In fact you didn't even get to choose the genre of music you had to play, did you? Chances are it was mostly, if not entirely, classical music.

Classical music is great. I love it. Sometimes. But I don't recall any of my own kids ever voluntarily playing classical music on the radio or CD player when they were growing up. It wasn't their thing. Thus, I suppose, being limited to a steady diet of it wouldn't have been much of an incentive to learn an instrument.

Perhaps if they had teachers who could teach them to play the stuff they were into, it would have been a different story. Who knows?

But how is this relevant to us?

My piano students are all adults. They come to my seminars, not because their mothers make them do it. Nor will they "practice" because their mothers set an agenda.

My students come to the seminars because they think they have a shot at learning the piano, whether it's their first attempt or their umpteenth. Since I myself got a late start, I know that their success will be shaped by how much time they spend sitting on the piano bench. And that won't be determined by their mothers. That will be determined by their own enthusiasm.

My promise to my workshop students is that they will learn how to play "any song, in any style of music (except classical)." Seems like a tall order that completely flies in the face of conventional wisdom. But it's really not so hard.

I strive to provide students with the information it takes to understand the concepts of playing music. The reality is that the internal structure of all songs is the same. You basically have a melody and chords. A piano player plays melody with the right hand, and plays the chords with the left. Easy concept.

However, information alone is not enough to insure success at learning the piano. The concepts may be easy, but then you have to condition your hands to make the right moves.

One needs to work things out at the piano, to be sure. But you don't need a coach all the time. You mostly need the time to go over things repeatedly, and work things out. By giving you the power to choose your own songs, your own repertoire, your own direction, I think that's the best thing I can do to help insure you will spend time at your piano.

Then you've got to deal with things like key signatures, time signatures, note time values, accidentals--all mostly music notation issues. So we address that, and usually come up with some great shortcuts. Once you understand that music can be broken down into this idea that its all melody (one note at a time) and chords (one or two chords per measure) you are essentially empowered with the wherewithal to play any song you want. Of course you will be playing it at your level of accomplishment, but you get to choose the playlist.

So that leads us to this tip: Play songs you like. Play songs you love. You get to choose, so play songs that will inspire you to play more. The more you play, the better you get. Who wants to argue that one? Once you learn the basics, you are free to choose the songs you play. And nobody knows what those songs should be better than you.

So that's Tip Seven: Play music that you love.

Coming soon, Tip Eight: Play songs that you hate.

Seriously.

Tip Six: Get Connected to Others

noreply@blogger.com (Newsam) — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:53:00 +0000

This is the sixth installment in our series of articles on hidden or obscure strategies for improving musicianship. These strategies are not intended to be a substitute for (I hate this word) "practicing." Spending time playing your instrument is mightily important.

But these 22 ideas are strategies you can use in addition to your time in the woodshed. How does one find a label for these strategies? Subconscious? Metaphysical? Whatever word you want to use, go ahead. It's just that these ideas are not often presented to you as part of a musical instrument learning regimen.

Understand that these ideas are in no particular order either of chronology or importance. In fact this one may be among the most important of the 22. So here it is.

In a word: interact.

That's right. Play music with other people. Does this mean form a band? It could. Don't laugh, playing in a group may be easier than it seems at first glance. And it has the potential to accelerate your learning by orders of magnitude.

There are two types of people in the world. There are those who play music better than you, and there are those who do not play as well. That's it. The trick is to find both types of people to play with. But although you will be picking from both groups, try to choose them as close to your playing ability as possible. If you play with people who are incredibly better than you or worse than you, there will be frustrations.

You want to be among a group of people you can teach to as well as learn from.

Keep in mind a few of the ground rules for ensemble playing.

1. Everyone will play a lot fewer notes than other wise. The more people in a group, the fewer notes each person plays.

2. You need to pay closer attention to dynamics (loudness). Remember that two people playing softly together could produce the same decibels as one person playing moderately.

3. Have an idea what the outcome should sound like. Perhaps have a recording and get everyone to agree that the goal is to sound like the recording.

4. Try to have at least one person in the group who has some experience in group playing. Sometimes groups consist of musicians who solely read music notation. But just as often that's not the case. You may find yourselves playing from a lead sheet (like a fake book). So you need to know what it is your instrument is supposed to do. Just as each player on a football team has a very specific job to do, so is the case with the player in a band. If the music is written out note for note, it's clear what everyones part is. But if you're playing from chord sheets, it's not so cut and dry.

If you are the piano player, you need to understand that you won't be playing too many melodies, if at all. The piano player in a group is usually part of the rhythm section, which means you play chords. Sure, it's not that simple. But basically, that's what a piano player does. Chords, chords, chords.

5. Strive for a variety of different instruments. What if your quartet consisted of four piano players? Or four drummers? Or four tuba players? Not good. Each different instrument has a particular function in a group setting. Diversification and balance is what you want.

6. Find your unique spot. This may be tough to explain. In an effort to diversify, there is a place within the music that is just for you. To find it, you must first listen to what other instruments are doing. Is there a rhythm guitar player strumming chords in a certain pattern? Let him have it. Find your own pattern. Don't try to double down his. Is the bass player playing a boogie woogie pattern? Then you lay off. Find something else to do with your left hand. There will be a place for each member of the ensemble. It might be good to discuss the over all strategy with the band ahead of time. Gently make (and graciously accept) suggestions.

Here's the most important lesson of all. Playing with other people forces you to depend and develop that part of the anatomy that is typically most neglected. Your ears. Playing solo is always better when the musician listens. Although many times they don't, it's still doable.

When you play with other people, however, listening is essential. You have to listen to everybody all the time. And it's hard to do sometimes.

Look at it this way. As a part of a group, your job is to make the over all music sound better. Don't add notes to the ensemble just because you can. Your job is to make things better, not louder or busier, and you can only do that if you are constantly monitoring the sound the group as a whole produces.

I can't give you specifics on how to listen better. But the more you play with others, the better you get at it, assuming you are striving for a better group sound and not just playing for the benefit of your own ego.

How do you find people to play with? An ad on Craigslist is a good place to start. A 3 by 5 card in a music store or some community bulletin board. Be sure to indicate what kind of music you would like to play, and give some examples. There's no place for a Led Zeppelin guitar player in a polka band.

Indicate your musical experience, perhaps the specific musicians you're looking for, and your desired goal. Whether the goal is "fun, friendship and mutual admiration" or to win Grammy Awards, just the simple act of playing together is THE NUMBER ONE WAY TO ACCELERATE YOUR PLAYING SKILLS.

Quote me.

Tip Five: Reverse Goal Settling

noreply@blogger.com (Newsam) — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 23:55:00 +0000

This is the fifth installment in our series of articles on hidden or obscure strategies for improving musicianship.

You may have heard this one before. It's almost a cliche. All the personal improvement gurus talk about this one. Earl Nightengale espouses it. So does Brian Tracy, Tony Robbins. All of them. It's a powerful tool, if you use it right. Does it work for learning music? Yes. But I've got a little twist for it.

I'm talking about goal setting. All those human achievement gurus are always harping on goal setting. You've probably heard it all before. Set a specific goal: "I will double my income in 12 months." That's a perfect example. You have a specific goal with a number attached to it and an allotted time period in which to get it done.

Then you must write the goal down. That's what they tell you. And read it on a regular basis. Every day. Then you do the visualization. That's all a part of it. You actually imagine the aroma of the leather seats in your brand new luxury autombile that you will own once you have doubled your income in 12 months thanks to your careful goal setting.

Aaaahhhh. Smells beautiful doesn't it?

So does all this goal setting, visualization, affirmation stuff really work? I think it does. Or at least I think it can.

Does it work for learning an instrument? That's another story.

First, it's a little more difficult to quantify a goal as far as musicianship goes. "I wanna be a lot better," is kind of vague. So is "I wanna be able to improvise." Or, "I wanna play like Oscar Peterson."

Those are tough goals to attain, even if you write them down.

What makes it harder is that your progress comes so gradually, and it's very hard to measure progress in music. I suppose you could use a metronome and measure success in terms of how fast you can play "Donna Lee" or "Tico Tico."

But there's a lot more to music than playing things fast. We all know that.

So how does one set goals, get them on paper, and measure progress?

By doing everything backwards.

To evaluate your progress, instead of writing down how you want things to be in a year, instead, chronicle how things are now. And then store it in the archives.

For example, pick out three tunes you're working on right now, any scales or exercises you're working on, and perhaps a representatve selection of the chords you now use. Assemble all these things at your piano. Now comes the scary part. It's scary, but it really works, so listen up.

Get a recording device of some sort, click the "record" button, and spend the next several minutes playing those songs, scales, exercises, and chords into the microphone. Try to relax and goof around a little too while the tape is rolling. (I know they don't use "tape" anymore, but try to humor me here.)

Just get a good representation of how you play now, warts and all. Then file the recording away for at least six months. Make it six months to a year. Then after that time period has elapsed, pull out the old recording device again and repeat the process. Three new songs, whatever scales and exercise you're working on, chords, goofing off. Record it and lock it up.

But. Don't forget to play the recording you made the year before. Peer into the past to listen to how you sounded back then. You won't remember otherwise. If you play a little every day, you'll be so much better in a year. But you'll never know it until you actually play your archived recording of yourself.

Now you'll see, hear, and experience the goal. "I wanna be a better piano player in a year." You'll actually see those results, once you review your original recordings. Repeat the process once or twice a year to get the best results.

Like I said, it's a little scary to record yourself at first, but you can get used to it. All serious professionals do it.

Of course, have goals. We can't peer into the future to see what we are to become. But we can peer into the past to see from whence we did come. And that often can provide you with the impetus, if not the downright inspiration, to keep on task.

Try to learn a new song every week. New scales. New exercises. Explore books. Take a private lesson every once in awhile. Enroll in a music camp. Play in a band. Do any or all these things, and put in 20 to 60 minutes at your piano every day.

And have fun listening to those old recordings to see how bad you really were compared to how good you are now.

P.S. To get a glimpse of my 18 month master plan for learning pop piano, click on the link and download the Study Guide (Success Manual) that comes with the Integrated Home Study course. It may inspire you to set up a few goals of your own.

Tip Four: It's About Time

noreply@blogger.com (Newsam) — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 16:55:00 +0000

This is the fourth installment in our series of articles on hidden or obscure strategies for improving musicianship.

Obviously, spending time playing your instrument is extremely important in developing your talent. However, these articles explore some of the subtler more psychological angles to gain musical advantage. Sometimes you have to trick your mind or body into acquiring the behaviors you need in order to reach the musical goals you want.

So here is Tip Four. It's all about time.

You need to find the Golden Time. You need to carve out that little segment for your piano playing each day, and make it a sacred priority.

Here's the trap. You decide to pick up a new hobby, learning piano or whatever. So making time for this new activity is something new to add to your already busy schedule. You don't have a busy schedule? Yes you do. Everybody has one.

So now you've got to squeeze an extra 45 minutes into your daily routine. So what do you do? You tell yourself, OK after the day is over, after the chores are done, the dishes are washed, the kids are in bed, hey that's going to be my ME time. And I'm going to spend my ME time practicing the piano.

Wrong.

Doesn't work. When day is done, your body is programmed to go into shut-down mode. Your brain is starting to disengage. Resistance is futile. That's not the time, not if you have a busy day schedule for tomorrow.

You need to find a special, specific time to do the ME time. And then make it your priority. So when is that going to be? That's the challenge isn't it? The answer will vary, depending in part on how dedicated you are.

We've heard about would-be authors who decide to write a book, so they set their alarm clock for 4 am instead of 6. And they spend those two hours every morning writing their manuscript. The rest of the day is as usual. Work, family, social, etc. But they carve out their writing niche. And two years later their novel is done.

You want to play piano on cruise ships in two years? That's one way to do it. Set that alarm clock. (How counter intuitive for a musician)!

I look back on the early days of my piano studies and I see how powerful this time management stuff can be.

I've told the story repeatedly about how I got hooked on playing the piano when I was 23. And I started taking lessons then. The part of the story that you may not know is that at the time I started these piano lessons, I didn't even own a piano.

I was working full time as a clerk in a camera store in East Oakland and lived in a little one room hovel that was attached to a garage. We're talking tiny. And I had no piano to play. But I was paying for weekly lessons, and I was determined to succeed.

So for the first six months, every day, six days a week, I drove to my parents' house just to do my 45 minutes of practicing. It was a perfect situation. I got to use a piano, they got some attention from me, I got dinner every night and a chance to do my laundry once a week. And the money I saved on meals and laundry helped pay for my piano lessons. And I was saving up to buy a piano of my own some day.

The point is I had to make a concerted effort EVERY DAY to drive the five miles to the parents' house just to make my piano commitment. After a few months I knew my passion was real, and I saved up $85 and bought my first piano at a yard sale. But the pattern was established, and that 45 minutes a day became sacred to me.

Can you find your time? Even if it's just 15 minutes a day, that's enough to get yourself into a pattern, which then becomes a habit, which then becomes a routine, which then becomes your desired behavior. Playing piano.

Two True Stories

noreply@blogger.com (Newsam) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 21:40:00 +0000

Here's a couple of very short true life stories.

Short Story One

I retired from "show biz" a long time ago. But I still like to play music, of course, and I like to play with other people, which sometimes results in playing out in public.

Last night my little band had one of our gigs at a local restaurant. This is a real specialty band. We play exclusively Brazilian tunes that were written like between 1920 and 1960. It's not samba, it's not bossa nova. It's a precursor to those styles. The style is called choro. Pretty obscure stuff.

The music is all written out, kind of like classical music, except with chords too. I prefer to memorize the music. I have more fun if I don't have to worry about following along in sheet music.

But the chord changes are really hard to learn. There are so many of them. But there is a tool I depend on for memorizing these songs. It makes things easy.

Short Story Two

Same location, the local restaurant, same time, same characters. Pam, my spouse, plays in this band too. Clarinet. She's good. In between our regular choro sets, we had a special guest join us o the band stand, Pam's father. He's going to be 92 on Monday, and he still plays guitar every day. We got Buck to join us for a few songs. He came up, 92 years old, plugged in his electric guitar, and wailed away.

Pam and I accompanied him, and one of the songs he chose to do was a song I had heard of, but had never played before. And I had no music. Yet I was able to play the chords as if I had the music right in front of me. There was a tool I used that enabled me to do that. Same tool.

What was the tool? It was the Circle of Fifths. The trick is in knowing how to use it. Anyway I couldn't wait to write out these stories, and send them to you.

Click below to find out more about this tool, and to order my special presentation for less than ten bucks, no strings attached.

http://pianofun.com/circle/promo_OF.html

Comments on Your Comments

noreply@blogger.com (Newsam) — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 14:59:00 +0000

All right, we're getting blog comments now. The way it should be. And since recent comments from the community have had a common thread, let me see if I can address them all in this one entry. Most of what I'm saying here pertains to comments posted on the previoius blog entry: Tip Three-What's Important

It's true a large part of mastering pop piano is getting over the hurdle of learning chords. With 12,000 chords (or more) to deal with, which ones are essential, and which ones can wait?

I already addressed part of that question in my previous comment. Learn the 12 majors, 12 minors, and 12 sevenths. That prepares you to play any song as long as you have the Chord Simplification Flow Chart that is in the back of the book you get when you take my Instant Piano three hour workshop.

Then I suggested learning the 12 basic chords that lend themselves best to the key of C. You can find those in my previous post as well as in my book How to Play Piano by Ear.

Here's another strategy. Learn new chords as you learn new songs. Make a list of songs you want to have in your repertoire. Then make a pact with yourself to learn one new song a week.

Go through each song and make a list of the chords you don't know from that song. Then do the research and learn the chords.

Play the chords with the left hand in the order they appear in the song. Chords may be difficult by themselves. But learning to change from chord to chord is even more demanding. So do this exercise for 15 minutes a day, and you will probably be able to keep up with your one-song-per-week goal.

As for the question of playing everything in the key of C. That might work as a short term strategy. But don't jump to the conclusion that C is the most important key. It isn't. But it's the easiest. And that makes it easy to fall into a "key-of-C" bias. Not good.

The Master List of 12 important chords (The Top Twelve List) I listed in a previous comment only works for the key of C, by the way. But in the course I teach how to transpose that list into other keys.

As I was learning piano I played almost exclusively in the key of C for the first five years. Nothing to be proud of. But I got good. In the key of C. Then I joined a band. The guitar player liked to play everything in the keys of E and A. I was pretty lost for awhile.

Once again, if you learn one new song a week, and you don't just choose them because they are in the key of C, then you will learn to play in all the important keys pretty fast too.

Hayden, you mentioned the Study Guide being only available to those who have the 18 month course. The fact is anyone can download that from our web site for free. http://pianofun.com/catalog/detail_HSC.html. But it doesn't help too much unless you also have the course (unless you just are curious about what you learn in the course.) Go ahead and download it if you want.

Now here is the best way I know of learning the basic chords, because it helps you with not just the chords themselves, but with changing the chords, AND in recognizing the most common chord progressions in life.

It's called the Circle of Fifths. Or the Circle of Fourths. Same thing. If you've taken my "Piano by Ear" workshop you have that chapter in the book. And more importantly you have the CD called "Circle of Fourths Practice."

If you have that, and you have gone through it, I'd love to hear your comments about it here on this blog.

If you have it, but haven't gotten around to it yet, maybe now is the time.

If you don't have it........ Hummm. Let me think about that for awhile.

Play on, and thanks for the interaction. Tip Four is coming up soon.

Tip Three: What's Important?

noreply@blogger.com (Newsam) — Tue, 25 May 2010 21:53:00 +0000

Time for Tip Number Three in our series of 22 not-so-obvious, outside-the-box ways to improve ones musicianship other than practicing ones butt off. One of the biggest drawbacks to this crazy Information Age in which we currently live is that there is simply too much damn information. The problem is not that we have a hard time finding information. It's that we have a terrible time trying to manage it.

The key to information management is to know what information is important and what isn't. It's to prioritize. And this is very true when it comes to learning the piano or any other instrument. There is so much one can do. Where do you start? Do you learn scales? If so, which ones? Do you try technic exercises? What songs should you learn? What helps, and what is just a waste of time?

You can easily obtain a catalog of over 12,000 chords. But you can't learn them all at once. Which ones do you learn first? Which are the most important?

But with so much information now at our disposal how do you sort the wheat from the chaff?

Making this decision is one of the primary roles of the piano teacher. A teacher (or anyone who has already traveled the road that you want to travel) can be qualified to make those decisions. One could argue that music teachers might be superfluous. It's true that many great musicians are self taught.

But a teacher (or some authority) can be very valuable in helping you sort out the "important" pile from the "not-so-much."

Of course employing a teacher to help you sort things out, in and of itself, leads to an opinion too: the opinion of the teacher. That's why it's so important to choose a teacher very carefully, if you choose to use one.

So now the question would be, how do you find the right teacher? Here's what I think is important.

1. the teacher knows the information you want to learn

2. the teacher is able to perform the music you want to learn

3. the teacher has excellent two-way communication skills

And this last one is the kicker. Two way communication skills. Yes, the teacher must be able to transmit information to you. But he must also be able to listen to you, to find what you want to know, to discover what you already know, to know what gaps you have and how to fill them.

In other words, the teacher needs to know what it is you don't know, and then remedy that by providing the information that's important and only the information that's important. We just don't have enough years in our lives to fill in all those gaps with random, unstructured information.

My own piano education is kind of unusual, I guess. When I was 23 I found a pro piano player (age 18) with whom I studied for a year. Then he moved. Since that time I've had lessons with dozens of different players. With a few I studied for several months. But with the overwhelming majority of them I just had one lesson. Maybe two at the most.

And one super positive benefit I got from taking just one lesson from so many people is that I uncovered a few choice beliefs that they all shared. A consensus. And those beliefs constitute what I consider to be the "important" things in music.

And these beliefs form the central core of what has come to be known as my teaching system: the workshops and the coursewhere. I haven't got the time to learn everything there is to know. And I certainly don't have the time to teach everything there is to know.

Some things musically just don't matter as much as others.

And knowing which is which is half the battle.

Tip Two--Have Role Models

noreply@blogger.com (Newsam) — Fri, 14 May 2010 20:25:00 +0000

How do you become the musician you've always wanted to be? Of course there's the old Practice Practice Practice route. You've heard that before. But are there some hidden strategies that can make you better, besides putting all those hours in the wood shed?

Last time we talked about cultivating enthusiasm. Today the secret is...have a role model.

Sure you want to be a good piano (or something else) player. But that's a pretty vague goal. Here's a more targeted goal: Who do you want to sound like?

Pick a person, and start striving.

Hopefully you're not going to choose Bill Evans or Oscar Peterson if you're a beginner. Their stuff is really hard to approach. But there's got to be someone out there whose piano stylings resonate with you. I cannot tell you who to pick. But I can give you an example from my own life.

I was in my early twenties, fresh out of college, when I decided to learn to play piano. (No, music was not my major in college.) I happened to have a chance meeting with a guy who played bass in a band that was playing regularly, once a week, in Berkeley, California. It was a six piece western swing outfit that had a piano player. At the time I had no idea what western swing was. But I immediately fell in love with the sound the band had and found myself coming to their gigs every Thursday night at the Longbranch Saloon on San Pablo Ave.

I loved the sound of the piano player so much that I decided I wanted to learn how to play like him. Yes, I found a role model. So one evening during a break I introduced myself to the guy and asked if he gave lessons. The answer was no.

OK. So I asked him again the following week. Same response. And then I asked again and again until he finally relented. I showed up for the first lesson. He gave me a book of Hanon exercises to play. I thought he was pretty sure I wouldn't show up the following week.

But I did. And I kept coming back every week for a year, until the band finally moved to Austin, Texas to find their fame and fortune. So I had my mentor in Floyd. I was his only student for one year, and I had one year to find out everything I could from him during that time.

Over that period I acquired several role models to emulate. The first, I believe, was Jerry Lee Lewis. You could spend a lifetime learning to play like Jerry Lee perfectly, but his music was simple enough to understand and to try and mimick. Sometimes it was just three chords per song. At least that's what it was in his early rock n roll days.

I soaked up all those old rock n roll songs from a Jerry Lee Greatest Hits LP, with guidance from Floyd. Then I bought everything by him that I could lay my hands on. By then Jerry Lee was doing mostly country. OK, so now we had songs with four or five chords. But I voraciously devoured the music. I listened to the recordings morning, noon, and night.

I played along with them. I asked Floyd how to do certain stuff, and figured out certain stuff on my own. But I'm positive that just by listening to the records, some of Jerry Lee's playing style crept into my playing style.

Months later in a similar fashion I latched on to the music of Count Basie. It would be folly to imagine that I could acquire Basie's technique (chops) in my first year. But after buying tons of Basie records and soaking them up, I was starting to pick up his nuances a little bit. A few months later I got to see the Count and his orchestra in person with special guest Ella Fitzgerald. Wow. Even more incentive.

As an interesting side light, my teacher's band recorded a Count Basie song on their second album and Floyd picked up his first Grammy Award for his effort.

So on it went. I've had a lot of these role-model/mentors over the years. Some of whom really influenced my playing. Others (such as Bill Evans and Oscar Peterson) I've listened to a LOT and unfortunately never picked up anything from. (Or if I did, it's subtle. Very subtle).

But whether or not you learn directly from your CD mentors, just surrounding yourself with the music as much as possible can give you some incentive to hit the piano every day and dare to play along. And if you're playing, you're learning.

So who do you want to sound like? Whoever it is, try to soak up as much of that one artist as you can. Listen, listen, listen. Get ahold of the charts to their songs, and spend equal amounts of time learning from the paper and learning just by listening to what they play. At the end of the day, all of us use the same basic chords, chord progressions, forms, rhythms, and melodic structures. It's all learnable. It's just that learning by listening can be a lot more fun than from sheet music. Try it.

Mastering Piano without Pain: First Tip

noreply@blogger.com (Newsam) — Mon, 03 May 2010 19:55:00 +0000

Practice Makes Perfect. That's what they tell you. Do you believe them?

Certainly time spent at the piano is essential for growing your skills. There is no doubt about it. But there's more to learning music than just practice. And how are you going to remember to practice? And what are you going to practice? And what about the quality of your practice?

I believe there are a lot of key factors that help insure the time we spend at the piano is profitable, and that we learn the most in the shortest amount of time. I jotted 22 of these factors down last week, and I want to cover them for you one at a time.

These are the hidden strategies. The inner game. The zen. The a-ha.

Tip One. Be Enthused.

What if you're not enthused?

Then get enthused.

Music might be the most emotional force in the human race. OK, the second most, but it's still very powerful. Think of how music influenced your life between the ages of 16 and 22. Think of the records you bought, the concerts you attended, the music videos you watched. Were you ever obsessed? Good.

What drove that? Emotion. Time to harness that emotion and to put it to work for you. OK how?

When I give a piano workshop, I promise the participants that after the one session they will be able to play any song they want. So I suggest they start making a list of the songs they want to play. This would be a list of songs THEY want to play as opposed to a list of songs that I want them to play. See the difference?

It's just the opposite of how piano lessons worked in the old day when it was the piano teacher who chose the songs you were supposed to learn. I realize that those who come to my seminars are not there because their mothers made them come. And their moms aren't going to make sure they practice 30 minutes a day.

My students are only going to grow as piano players if they play consistently. And they are only going to play consistently if they genuinely want to be playing at the piano. And they are only going to want to play if they are playing music they enjoy. Chances are that music has at some point had a strong influence.

So what songs, artists, groups, or styles of music have had a strong, positive, emotional influence on your life? It may have been a long time ago, but if it was there then, it's probably also there now for you.

Make a list. If it isn't classical music, chances are I can show you what to do to be playing these songs in a very short period of time. Three and a half hours is what it takes me to do this at the workshop.

Get emotional.

See you next time.

Coming Soon: (At Least) 22 Tips for Successful Learning of Piano

noreply@blogger.com (Newsam) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 21:40:00 +0000

I tell my workshop students that I started to learn piano when I was 23 years old. It's true. That's how old I was when I decided I WANTED to learn about the piano and found someone who could teach it to me.

In actuality it started much earlier than that. My music lessons probably started the day I was born. That was the day I first heard music I'm pretty sure. Don't ask me exactly what was the first music I heard. I don't remember.

But there must have been some radio on somewhere in the nursery at St. Mary's Hospital. Or if not, I'm sure my mom must have started singing to me within hours if not minutes of my birth. The fact she was a professional stage singer had nothing to do with it. We naturally sing to our children. We can't help it.

So that was my first music lesson. Day One. And I've had a music lesson everyday since. I believe we get a music lesson every time we hear music played. Maybe it's just the subconscious mind that gets the lesson, but that counts.

By the age of four I learned to play records (78's I'm afraid they were) on the folks' Packard Bell phonograph. I still remember my favorite records. Tex Williams (Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette), Jimmy Durante, Spike Jones, Chico Marx, Oscar Levant (Malaguena).

Formal piano lessons started at six. They started again at seven. Then I started over again at seven-and-a-half. Then eight-and-a-half. By age 10, my piano career was over when I finally persuaded the parents that piano was not for me.

After all that time and with all those teachers I managed to conquer John Thompson's Teaching Little Fingers to Play, and got as far as page 19 of the John Thompson First Grade Book. Not exactly protege material.

Toward the end I was barely practicing 10 minutes a WEEK. Or maybe it was 10 minutes a MONTH. Piano was not what I wanted to do. So I was allowed to quit.

A funny thing happened after I stopped taking formal lessons. From then on you could not pry me away from the piano. I was playing around with it all the time. No direction, no lessons, no formalities, no practicing. Just play play play.

Later my attention turned to guitar and shortly after that to girls, but those basic years until about age 10 or so were very influential. And were very important to me.

What's the point of this?

By the time I was 33 I figured out how to present the one day piano workshop to adults, and since then I've taught the class to over 36,000 people (I think). It stands to reason that over that time, some people would come to regard me as an expert in the field of piano teaching.

Whether that's true or not is up for discussion.

But over that time, I've come to recognize certain key factors that contribute to ones development and success at the piano.

Earlier today I was staring out the window daydreaming when I decided to see how many of those key factors I could write down. Within three minutes I got to 22 of them.

So if you're interested, I'd like to share these factors with you over then next few issues. I'm sure that by the time I'm done I'll think of several more. These factors are often so subtle that we don't think about them. Yet they are very powerful. And often very simple.

Some of these key factors will surprise you. Maybe all of them will surprise you. And not a single one has to do with "practicing" as we know it. Stand by.

A Warning About Fake Books

noreply@blogger.com (Newsam) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:24:00 +0000

I talked about fake books in the last newsletter,

and I mention them in all my workshops. I even

encourage people to go out and buy them, as they

are great motivational tools. I mean with 800

songs on your piano's music rack, why bother with

television? (OK, there's all those curling matches

going on in the Olympics right now, but they will

be over by next week).

But there's a warning that needs to be sounded

regarding the fake books. Warning, warning,

warning. DO NOT buy any music book that is

intended for B flat or E flat instruments, fake

books or otherwise. It will say right on the cover

if it does.

Oh Lordy. Now I'm going to have to explain this.

This is tricky territory. If you play trumpet or

clarinet or tenor sax or soprano sax, you will

want the B flat version of a music book. But B

flat is not for piano players. Why not? OK. When

one of the above mentioned instruments sees a C

note in the music and fingers a C note on the

instrument (what he has been told is a C anyway),

the note that comes out is a B flat.

And why is that?

Oh rats, I knew you would ask. See what I started

here? I've got to put an end to this inquiry.

"Because it does."

There, that's all you need to know. And likewise

when an alto or baritone sax (there may be others)

fingers a C, out pops an E flat note.

How did this happen? I'd rather not even think

about it. I know it's insane. But using the B flat

and E flat versions of the music is the only way

these particular instruments can read the music

and still be in the same key as everyone else.

So look for the label "For C Instruments." That's

you Mr. or Ms. Piano Player. Or if there is no

indication at all on the cover, then you're

probably going to be safe.

Maybe we'll chew on this topic in a little more

detail later, if anybody is interested. In the

mean time, please direct your questions, comments,

responses, etc. to the blog page so that everyone

can benefit.

Fake Books and iPhones

noreply@blogger.com (Newsam) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:41:00 +0000

Do you know what a fake book is? About half the students who end up taking my Instant Piano workshop do not. I explain that it's a book of music that has only the single-note melody line and the accompanying chords. Thus a fake book is a perfect source of music for people who learn my method.

It pretty much eliminates the need for anyone to have to learn any but the simplest level of music notation reading. In fact, one of the secrets of my method is that it avoids the student having to take years of lessons in order to read.

Fortunately, fake books are now quite abundant. You can find them in most music stores, on line, in libraries, and even in large book stores such as Borders. But I just learned of another source.

The most famous fake book for jazz players is a volume that is paradoxically titled The Real Book. It's the bible for jazz musicians. For years it was underground, only available through the shadiest of sources because, in the tradition of early fake books, there were no licenses granted to publish the songs, thus no royalties were getting paid, and a lot of people and lawyers were unhappy about it.

Then Hal Leonard publishers came along a few years ago and published a legit version of this iconic tome. But here is what I recently found out. There is an iPhone app for the Real Book. And it only cost $8, and it comes with hundreds and hundreds of songs. Plus it has a lot of other features such as the ability to transpose these songs into any key.

Now get this. Last month in Hawaii, Pam and I were jamming at a restaurant with this band we had me the week before, The Hot Club of Hulaville. They have a big repertoire of gypsy jazz songs, but someone requested a song the band didn't know. So all four members got out their iPhones (that's right, they each had one) and looked up the song and read it right from their phones.

That concept was unimaginable 10 years ago. But it was pretty funny.

If you have an iPhone, you can get the program from the Apple App Store. Be aware, there is no melody line in the songs so it isn't like the real Real Book. Chords only, so you need to know the song pretty well in your head. Still. A must have for jazz players.

If you're in the SF Bay area, I'll be presenting my Instant Piano workshop this weekend and next.

Feb 20, College of Marin, 415-485-9305

Feb 21, Solano College (near Fairfield), 707-864-7115

Feb 27, College of San Mateo, 650-574-6149

This is very short notice, so you better call today if you're interested.

More info on the web site.

http://pianofun.com/seminars.html

Mexico and Its Music

noreply@blogger.com (Newsam) — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 02:15:00 +0000

Well we just got back from spending two great weeks in Mexico, and of course a large part of that trip involved listening to music. I know very little about Mexican music, but I like to listen to it, and I often think about it.

Mexican music is so recognizable and is so much a part of their culture. I have to smile when I see a young Mexican man driving an ultra spiffy muscle car down the boulevard, with all the windows rolled down, and the car stereo at full blast. And what you might hear, even if you're a block away, is the sound of an accordion blasting away to a 2/4 polka beat. How funny is that.

I've been to Mexico enough times and have traveled to enough places to be able to recognize some of the different styles of Mexican music according to the region of origin. The accordion/tuba laced norteño music of Northern Mexico is quite different from the horn and violin flavored mariachi music of Guadalajara, which is very different from the harp influenced music of Vera Cruz, which is in turn much different from the music of the Yucatán.

But it's all distinctly Mexican. And it's so cool that there seem to be dozens of standards that everyone knows and feels free to sing along to.

It makes me wonder why we don't have something similar in America. I mean our American culture has contributed to more than its share of music, but there doesn't seem to be one style or group of songs that we all relate to. But upon further thought, there are some exceptions.

We all seem to know the classic Christmas Carols, for example. And there are at least two regions of our great country that exhibit their own unique musical tradition. One is Southern Louisiana (not just New Orleans, but the bayou country as well), and the Cajun areas around Lafayette. And the other is Hawaii.

Hawaii is full if music, and once you get beyond the tourist layer of "Tiny Bubbles" and the like, you get a rich collection of tunes that all the locals seem to know and love. We've been very fortunate to have been invited to participate in many Hawaiian jam sessions. The songs are fairly simple to play and to pick up by ear, having only four or five chords at the most. But they are really soulful, and the locals treat them with reverence.

I'm thinking about that because we will be in Hawaii starting next week, and will no doubt get to re-experience these jam sessions. If you are lucky enough to live in Hawaii or are lucky enough to be there over the next couple of weeks, consider taking my Instant Piano workshop. I'd love to meet you.

I'll be holding the workshops in Kona, Hilo, Honolulu, and Kaneohe. Also How to Play Piano Piano by Ear at every location except Kona. Find the schedule here.

http://pianofun.com/schedule/Laughlin.html

Aloha and mahalo,

Robert