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piano basics

Learn To Play the Piano today…Choose Your Way!

by Tania Gleaves on February 2, 2012

You should be proud of yourself … you’ve gone from wanting to learn to play the piano to researching how to go about it.

Depending on your musical abilities, your attention span, and your personality, one learning method will work better than all others for you. Let’s look at some of the many ways you can learn piano.

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Traditionally

The traditional method guides a student by using the most basic fundamentals as a foundation, then slowly introduces increasingly complex lessons. The benefit of a traditional learning experience is that the student gains a greater understanding of the keyboard, music theory, the relationship between notes in the scales, and so many other details that make sense out of an unfamiliar skill. And when it comes to performing, you will eventually gain the proficiency necessary to play your desired piece of music as the original artist or composer intended. The drawback to this method of learning is that it takes a significant time commitment and great patience to get up and running.

By Ear (Aurally)

Do you “have an ear” for music? Can you translate what you hear into notes and chords on an instrument? If so, you have a talent that significantly streamlines the learning process. Learning by ear eliminates the task of learning to read music. But to be effective at playing by ear, you still ought to learn how to place your fingers in the appropriate patterns, learn the names of the notes, etc.

Chord-Based

If you’re the type of person who’s looking to play as soon as possible (is today soon enough?), then the chord method is for you. Each chord is a basic note combination that provides enough audible information to sing along to. Even though the actual song you are “covering” may contain a complex series of notes, chords represent enough of the music to get the party started and have some fun. The great thing about this method is that learning chords takes relatively little time. That said, chords tend to oversimplify music. A song’s distinctive melody, or a signature run of notes that lend to a song’s popularity, cannot be expressed in a chord. Put another way, you could mix together bits of steak, potato, green beans and a dinner roll; compress them into bar form; and eat the conglomeration for dinner. You would get most of the nutrition of the ingredients, but wouldn’t enjoy the bar nearly as much as you’d enjoy all the elements of the entrée separately on a plate.

Pattern-Based

This learning method teaches you shortcuts that supposedly mimic most popular music. I say supposedly because some argue the pattern-based method disregards the actual nuances in a song that differentiate it from other songs. Yet, it is another popular way to reach your piano playing goal more quickly than more traditional methods because you can learn a few key playing patterns and then proceed to sound like a professional with little other training. It’s more complex than the chord method, so it enables you to sound more like the original artist. However, like the chord method, it tends to oversimplify the music, and a trained ear in your audience will pick that up.

As you probably discovered, if you want to learn to play the piano, you can take your time or you can be up and running by dinner time. Think about the kind of player you want to be, choose your method, and then proceed to other pages on this site to get to the next step in becoming a great musician!

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Piano music is much more beautiful when it’s played with free piano chords because chords create harmony. Built from single notes starting with the first note or root of the simple major triad chords are the result of playing a root note (also called the tonic or degree I), a third tone above the first (major third or degree III), and a fifth tone (perfect fifth or degree V). This odd-numbered combination is called a major triad but its sound is far from being “odd.” The minor triad chords are formed simply by lowering the fifth one-half step (flat Free Piano Chords   Theyre The Path To Beautiful Music5):

Click Here To Get Free Piano Chords Tips!

major minor chords Free Piano Chords   Theyre The Path To Beautiful Music

If you’re familiar with the work of Bela Barok, then you know what we mean. Bela Bartok was a Hungarian composer whose work is known for its “odd-numbered” chords as well as its “even-numbered” chords.

There are approximately 12 different root keys that you can use to build a chord, and there about 600 chords that you can learn to play by using free piano chords. As you practice them, you’ll discover some interesting patterns that make a few of them more memorable than the others.

Here some of the more common ones played in the Major and Minor triads:

Root Key Major Chord Triads Minor Chord Triads
C C, E, G C, Eb, G
C# / Db C#, F, G# C#, E, G#
D D, F#, A D, F, A
D# / Eb Eb, G, A# Eb, F#, A#
E E, G#, B E, G, B
F / E# F, A, C F, G#, C
F# / Gb F#, A#, C# F#, A, C#
G G, B, D G, A#, D
G# / Ab G#, C, Eb G#, B, Eb
A A, C#, E A, C, E
A# / Bb A#, D, F A#, C#, F
B / Cb B, Eb, F# B, D, F#

To find more free piano chords, you need only to search for them on the Internet! It’s easy to find free piano chords online and some of the better ones will have the following:

  1. display all 50 chords (or more)
  2. visually demonstrate the keys that should be played
  3. literally send each chord to your computer’s speakers as a sound file.

Working with audio will help train your ear to recognize a chord the moment that it’s played. And with enough practice, you should be able to identify a chord in any music (jazz chords, gospel, blues, rock, etc.) with little difficulty.

So if you’re looking for something a little different from the all the static music books out there, then you should enjoy the interactive quality of free piano chords online. There’s so much more to explore in the world of music and it’s great to live in an age where technology and music mesh together to broaden our understanding, skill, and appreciation through tools like these. And we can certainly sympathize with those individuals who learned piano in the pre-Internet era.

Even though the former pre-Internet approach is the same as the approach of the masters, few of us can deny the fact that technology is an enabler. Taking advantage of today’s accomplishments makes us no less of a musician. So enjoy!

Click Here To Get Free Piano Chords Tips!

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A Guide to Piano Instruction Books

January 30, 2012

Although you could certainly try to learn piano by just playing around with the keys, a better method is to invest in some piano instruction books. There are a wide variety of books available on the market, so how do you know you are making the right decision? Here are a few hints on finding [...]

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Top 10 Ways To Improve Your Sight Reading

January 25, 2012

Looking for the top 10 ways to improve your sight reading? 1. Learn every bit of notation that you can get your hands on. The more notation that you learn, the easier it is to interpret the notes you see. Don’t just stop at the basics. Go on to learn intermediate notation and advanced notation. [...]

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The Play Piano Roadmap – Your Journey From Beginner To Advanced

January 19, 2012

Whether you already play piano or want to learn, I’m glad you stumbled across this page. It means there’s one more person out there looking for a better way to add music to his or her life, or perhaps to improve on an already established skill set. Either way, welcome. The good new is, I’ve [...]

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Basic Piano Fingerings for the 12 Major Scales

January 13, 2012

Here are the piano fingerings for all twelve major scales, in circle of fifths order. The numbers correspond to the fingers of the left hands (LH) and right hands (RH): Click Here And Learn Basic Piano Fingerings Fast! The numbers above the notes on the treble staff are typically for the right hand and numbers [...]

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Piano Intervals

January 9, 2012

Introduction Piano intervals are differences in pitch. If you think of the C major scale, each one of its keys is an interval between its lowest note and its highest. That includes whole notes and half notes, mind you.. The smallest interval is obviously the half-step (called a minor 2nd) and the largest interval is [...]

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Piano Music – A Guide To Finding A Perfect Fit

January 5, 2012

Finding piano music isn’t difficult at all. The problem with finding it however is finding appropriate pieces to play. The music that you want to play should reflect your current skills so that you don’t feel overwhelmed or unchallenged. Good music should not only encourage growth in your playing ability, but also confidence as well. [...]

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Musical Key Signature – The Major And Minor Keys

December 18, 2011

We have had lessons about musical key signature and by now you already know the differences between each key signature. You have also learned the different techniques on how to easily memorize the different names and different characteristics of these music key signatures. This time we will teach you how to determine the different major [...]

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Top 5 Ways To Develop Your Piano Rhythm

December 9, 2011

Learn the basic rhythms. As one of the top 5 ways to develop your piano rhythm, learning the basic beats found in any kind of music will help. The more rhythms that you listen to in fact, the easier they are to identify and emulate. We have for example, the standard four-beat rhythm that counts [...]

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