Instruments Articles

Step by Step / Updated 10-27-2023

When the singer needs a good intro, who’s going to play it? The drummer? Probably not. You are. A piano or keyboard intro is a great addition to a song. And it can’t be any old intro — it’s gotta be good. The audience has a tendency to talk between songs, so it’s your job to shut ’em up and announce the start of the new song.

Step by Step / Updated 10-27-2023

The band is building up to the final chord, and it’s time for the big finish. Why not add a little piano or keyboard as a finale? The singer belts the last lyric, and it’s up to you to drop the curtain. Quick! Grab a handful of these finales and you’re sure to receive an encore request.

Step by Step / Updated 10-27-2023

The key to making good, accurate jumps on the piano or keyboard is the same whether the jump is big or small: Maintain a comfortable, balanced hand position as you jump from the starting hand position across the keyboard to your landing destination. Jumping with an overextended pinky and your hand outstretched like the descent of a giant hawk upon its prey is very common. Instead, the image you want to keep in mind is of a frog jumping from lily pad to lily pad. A frog starts and lands with its body centered over the lily pad, contracting to the same closed, restful shape. Your hands are frogs. As they jump from one position to another, they should look the same before and after the jump. You can practice this skill with every exercise.

Step by Step / Updated 10-27-2023

You can use the pedal on the piano or keyboard to achieve different effects with your musical sound and add a whole new dimension to your playing. Give these exercises a try for some practice.

Step by Step / Updated 10-27-2023

To expand your piano expertise, you should try some broken chord exercises. Broken-chord patterns are common in accompaniment figures and can help make you a well-rounded player. Check out these four patterns found in a wide range of styles.

Article / Updated 10-26-2023

It’s important not to neglect the left hand while learning the piano. They may not be the most exciting things to play, but by working on left-hand scales you unwittingly master the following music essentials: Reading the bass clef Playing with the correct fingering Using nifty patterns and harmonies Realizing how much you miss playing with the right hand Start with some major and minor scales by reading and playing the following scales left-handed. As with right-handed playing, remember to use the correct fingerings as indicated by the numbers above each note. How and when you cross your fingers is very important for obtaining a smooth sound and comfortable left-hand technique. C, G, and F major Here are three major scales for the left hand. You can use the same fingering, both up and down the scale, for all of these. Applying the major scale pattern, you play a scale with no sharps or flats (C major scale), one sharp (G major scale), and one flat (F major scale). A, E, and D natural minor You use the same fingering pattern in the three natural minor scales as you do in the three major scales. A harmonic and melodic minor These scales offer a good opportunity to practice your crossovers and pass-unders in the left hand. The scale patterns change at the same point you shift your hand position. Listen for smooth transitions and an even touch throughout each scale. If you’re unsure of how to play these, you can watch a bunch of left-hand scales being played in Chapter 11, Video Clip 2.

Article / Updated 10-25-2023

Want to get that blues sound in your own piano playing? The blues is a style of music all its own. Heck, it even has its own scale. Here, you don’t apply the blues style to an existing song, but rather create your own blues from scratch. That’s right: You get to be a composer. Whether your dog left you or your boss has done you wrong, playing the blues is as easy as counting to 12. Clues for the blues Two important elements in the blues are form and rhythm. When you have these down, add a few more essential elements, like grace notes or tremolos. Then you can make any of your songs sing the blues. To play the blues, you use the following elements: 12-bar form Swing or shuffle rhythm Seventh chords Tremolos Sad story to tell (everybody’s got one) 12-bar ditties Most blues uses a widely recognized structure called the 12-bar form, aptly named because each musical phrase of the song is 12 measures long. The 12-bar blues has a chord sequence that repeats over and over, usually with different lyrics and perhaps some melodic variation, until you genuinely feel sorry for the storyteller. Melody notes, rhythms, and lyrics may differ from one 12-bar phrase to the next, but the chords usually stay the same. The chords most often used in the 12-bar form are all seventh chords; they are as follows: The I7 chord: Chord with the first scale note as its root note The IV7 chord: Chord with the fourth scale note as its root note The V7 chord: Chord with the fifth scale note as its root note These three chords appear in the same order and for the same number of measures every time the 12-bar phrase is repeated. To play your own 12-bar blues, just follow these easy instructions, playing with either hand or both hands. When you have the chord progression memorized, try playing the chords with the left hand while your right hand plays a simple melody, riff, or blues scale. Play a I7 chord for four measures. Play a IV7 chord for two measures. Play a I7 chord for two measures. Play a V7 chord for one measure. Play a IV7 chord for one measure. Play a I7 chord for two measures. Repeat Steps 1 through 6 until you have your audience singing with you. Here’s an example of 12-bar blues that uses chords only. They may be just chords, but you should still play them with conviction. Changing it up All blues players realize that the same chords over and over can become repetitive (to both audience and musician), so they substitute other chords within the 12-bar form. For example, try a IV7 chord in measure 2 and play a V7 chord in measure 12 as a turnaround. Check here in Chapter 17, Video Clip 1 to watch a blues piece with chord substitutions.

Article / Updated 10-25-2023

The beat may go on and on, but piano music can be quite dull if every note you play is on the beat. By changing up the rhythm a bit and playing some notes off, around, or in between the main beats, your songs take on a whole new life. Ultimately, the best way to understand swing is to hear it. Listen to a sample of swing in Chapter 8, Audio Track 16 while you look at the four measures of music. The eighth notes are played with a swing feel; the notes are the same, but the rhythm has a slightly different, swingin’ feel. Instead of straight eighth notes played as “1-and, 2-and,” you hear a long-short, long-short rhythm. The most accurate way to notate this long-short rhythm is with a quarter-eighth triplet. But rather than write a ton of triplets, the composer gives you a big heads-up along with the tempo indication above the first measure by telling you to “swing,” either in plain English or with a little symbol. When you see the swing notation, you should play all the eighth notes in the music as swing eighths. You can still count them as “1-and, 2-and, 3-and, 4-and,” but the notes on the beats are longer and the notes off the beats are shorter. Swing, the classic rhythmic feel, is so popular that it has its own type of bands and dance moves. Listen to some of the music of the big-band era, like the Duke Ellington Orchestra or the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. They really had the whole world swingin’. You can also hear an example of swing-style eighth notes. Listen to “By the Light of the Silvery Moon.” in Chapter 8, Audio Track 22 Shuffle feel has the same long-short swing eighths as swing time, but the shuffle beat is more readily associated with rock and blues-style music. A shuffle feel is characterized by a heavier beat than swing, which is lighter on its feet. Listen in Chapter 8, Audio Track 23 to “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad,” a song with a shuffle feel.

Article / Updated 10-25-2023

The piano is not limited to classical music. Hop in your time capsule and travel to a time when Elvis was still king, The Beatles didn’t have solo careers, and avocado green was a popular appliance color. Rock ’n’ roll burst onto the music scene in the 1950s and 1960s with a pair of swinging hips and masses of screaming groupies. The big names in rock freely acknowledge their debt to the blues artists. Rock ’n’ roll wouldn’t be possible without the 12-bar blues, which provided the structural framework for many hit songs of the ’50s, ’60s, and beyond. Rocking ingredients Pull out your bag o’ tricks and find the following musical ingredients to make any song rock: Rockin’ intervals Glissandos Chords Lots and lots of pyrotechnics for your elaborate stage show (plus lights, makeup, big hair, a smoke machine — all the necessities) Slamming and jamming Jerry Lee Lewis practically invented the classic rock piano sound. For this style, all you need is an opening glissando, fast chords, and lots of energy. Pour these elements into the 12-bar blues form and you’re ready to roll. Check out this rockin’ bass line that follows a typical blues chord progression in the key of C. Watch this rockin’ bass line being played on the piano in Chapter 17, Video Clip 2.

Article / Updated 10-25-2023

Even pop musicians need pianists. Arguably, every song on the radio is a popular song because few radio stations play songs that listeners don’t like. Country, rock, rap, Latin, and many other styles of music are popular with one audience or another. But most people know the term pop to be the category for Top 40 songs and superstar ballads by such artists as Beyoncé, Justin Timberlake, Prince, and a multitude of others. Pop music can be rhythmic, romantic, nostalgic, funky, sad, and about 1,000 other adjectives. Here, you concentrate on the one style of pop music perfectly suited to the piano: the slow and smooth-sounding pop ballad. Popular picks To play a pop ballad, you need a small arsenal of musical ornamentations, including the following: Right-hand intervals Chord arpeggios Damper pedal Dimmer switch (essential for setting the right mood) Topping the charts To add a little pop romance to any song, take a simple melody and add the ever-so-sweet sixth below each right-hand melodic note. The new melodic line should look like this. For some reason unknown to many a trusted and frustrated musicologist, the sixth adds an element of romance to a melody. This trick of adding the sixth may look difficult, but it’s not. All you do is find the sixth below the first melody note and freeze your hand in that position. Your pinkie always plays the top note and your thumb always plays the bottom interval note. As you play up and down the melody, your hand lands on the correct interval every time. Watch this demonstration of a nifty pop strategy played on the piano in Chapter 17, Video Clip 4.