Piano Key1

I’ve been playing the piano for over 14 years now and I’ve learned a few things. Just a few things that help me stay focused on what is important to me when sitting down to play. Following in no particular order are three “secrets” I’ve discovered:

Secret #1: Only Play What you Love

For those of you who don’t know, I play and teach New Age piano. I don’t play classical or jazz. Not because I don’t like these styles, but because when I sit down at the piano, the New Age style is what is inside of me. Of course, I could play classical and jazz, but I just don’t want to and neither should you if that’s not

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There are 88 keys on the piano keyboard. Most pianists use about 1/3 of this number most of the time. Why?

Well, if you’re playing sheet music, the answer lies in how the composer used the piano. If you’re creating your own music, the answer lies in experimenting with the possibilities.

Now, most of my own music is played near the middle of the keyboard. It’s not planned that way but this is the area of the piano I naturally gravitate towards when sitting down to play. Of course, I do and have used most notes available on the piano and it would be a shame not to. But I allow the music to tell me where it wants to go. If

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Piano chord charts are used to help you keep track of chord changes. And the cool thing about them is that you can use them for improvisation and composition. Here’s how.

Let’s say you have an 8-bar phrase to play. There are no chord symbols yet so you don’t know what chords you’ll be playing. You just have 8-bars in front of you. The first thing you need to know is the time signature. For our purposes here, we’ll keep it simple and use 3/4 or 4/4 time.

Now let’s select 4/4 time for our 8-bar phrase. Now we know the meter but what about the chords? Here’s where we can jot down chord progressions for either improvisation or composition. For example,

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What a great instrument the piano is - white keys, black keys, and 88 tones make it incredibly versatile!

Most students take it upon themselves to try and master this instrument. They begin to learn note reading and go through a series of books before they are ready to play the music of the masters.

If only they realized that a world of free improvisation was waiting for them on the black keys, they too could experience the joy of improvisation right away. They might even forget about note-reading for a while and actually enjoy themselves as actual music was being made.

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Let’s get right to it. What is the one factor that will have you playing the piano freely and easily?

It’s not technique. Most students can learn the technical aspects of piano playing extremely well and still sound wooden and lifeless. In fact, the most technically advanced students can sound extremely sophisticated when you hear them. The quick as lightning runs - the facile arpeggios up and down the keyboard may dazzle the ear but if the playing lacks spirit, the music will suffer for it.

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