Piano Student’s Mom Jumps In Lion’s Den
"My 6 year old daughter really loves the piano and wants to learn to play, but when I try to help her she gets very upset with me. What should I do? Help!"The piano mom who asked this question has jumped into a Lion's Den that I call the parent trap. If this is you, don't feel bad, I'm the angel who can help you out. But first, let me explain how this trap works.When parents move out of the parental role and into the role of piano teacher, young children can become confused and anxio...
Learn Piano Picking Out The Melody To Your Favorite Songs
When my students are learning to pick out the melody I tell them to first begin with a song they know.(First it is important that you know the letter names of the white notes on the piano and the C scale - for more info see www.thepianobyear.com)When you are picking out the melody to a song, choose something easy like Happy Birthday to You or Row, Row, Row, your Boat. This gives you some great practice without being too difficult. Here's the thought process for picking out the melody to Row, Row...
Piano Lesson: It Is Easy To Compose Piano Sheet Music
Why is it easy to compose piano music?Because you have to start from where you are. This should be fairly easy; Otherwise you have not started from where you are.A suggestion is to start writing piano pieces for beginners in a progressive order. The idea is that as the pieces get more complicated for the player they will also become more complicated for you to notate and compose and you will subsequently learn as you write.How is composing beneficial for your piano playing?1. Your compositional ...
Successful Black Key Improvisation
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...
How To Be Creative At The Piano
So you want to be more creative when playing piano. Many students wish they could just sit down and improvise their own music but don't know how to begin.They think if they can't play a fugue like Bach, they are untalented. Or, they think the music that comes out of them must be sophisticated or it's not worth anything. Fortunately, there is a style of piano playing that bypasses this academic snobbism and allows the beginning (and advanced) student to be more creative.The New Age piano style is...
How To Create An Original Melody
Here's a method I use that works. First, sit down at your piano or keyboard and just improvise. I suggest improvising first because music that is created in this way is at its freshest. It's not adulterated or thought up. It is pure inspiration. Now, there will come times during improvisation where you may say to yourself, this is nice and I'd like to develop it. You see, now you have an original melody to develop.The trick is you don't need a lot of material to begin with. JUST TWO BARS IS ENOU...
How To Make Your Piano Playing Come Alive… Without Using Any Hype!
Have you ever listened to your favorite pianist and wondered why their music felt so alive? What was it you wondered. Was it technique? Maybe, but probably not. Technique can allow you to play difficult passages. It can't give you the X factor that careful listeners can discern.Perhaps it was the personality of the performer that drew you in. Personality is great but will only take you so far as a pianist. After all, if they can't see you, it's just the music that's heard.So what is it? What is ...
The Open Position Piano Chord
Chords. They're amazing. There's no doubt about it. Especially when it comes to piano playing and the Open Position Chord. Here we can use both hands to create music with. The chord is broken up into its main elements and its voicing is spread out which gives it a nice open sound. The sound that's perfect for the New Age style.To use the OPC requires little more than fingering the chord itself because once the chord is played, music comes out. All that's required now is to be able to experiment ...
Learning Piano Without Years Of Lessons!
So, you want to learn the piano. But you don't want to spend years learning how to read music.That's understandable. Learning piano doesn't have to be the hard chore so many believe it to be. In fact, it can be quite easy IF YOU START BY LEARNING CHORDS!For example, in the lesson Reflections in Water, available below, we have four chords and a scale to create music with. We don't need to read music and we don't need piano tabs either. All we need is to learn how to finger one chord position and ...
The Joy Of Spontaneous Expression
Do you remember finger-painting as a child? How fun it was. How exciting to be able to dip your fingers into a color that called out to you and put it on paper. The excitement of it all came from the feeling that you were an explorer, looking into uncharted territories of your own creative source.Now music can be that way too! All that is necessary is to understand that you don't need any special talent or ability to create music with. Two chords are enough to begin experiencing the joy of spont...
by 