Seven Advantages Of Easy Beginner Piano Lessons

If you are thinking of beginner piano lessons for children or adults, who do you ask? The following are a list ofthings that learning piano properly can teach you:

1. You find out the proper way to train your ear and learn how to play melodies with your right hand
2. You learn how to play scales with both hands in all twelve keys, and in both directions up and down the keyboard
3. You learn all about major and minor modes and how to apply them to any key
4. You begin to understand the concept of the 1—4—5 chord progression that ALL popular music emulates, with the use of substitution chords if not a straight out blues progression
5. You begin to appreciate the proper way to express chords using both hands, utilizing the root and fifth in the left hand and the third and seventh tones in the right as a basis
6. You develop the ability to diagnose and interpret music you hear on the radio as being composed of specific root keys and fourths or fifths before the bridge resolves back to the root
7. You learn to understand that most popular songs are extremely basic in design, and you recognize the patterns you hear are repeated over and over

The above mostly refers to popular music, but can be applicable to classical music at times as well. Classical music usually entails the use of a theme (motif), for which variations are used repeatedly throughout the piece. It is very exciting how to learn to recognize these types of patterns and bolsters your ability to appreciate the complexity of the writing when you understand what the composer intended. Listening to Beethoven, for example, is very much heightened by a basic understanding of themes as well as tonality.

A quality teacher, whether it be in the form of a private teacher or a well-developed system to learn keyboard online, will enhance your understanding of the above and enhance your learning experience. Becoming a discerning listener is what separates the musician from the masses.

If you think about the musical place your favorite artists are in, whether it be Elton John, Billy Joel, or even the band Blues Traveler, their concept of harmonic progressions are far advanced when compared to the average listener, and rightly so. These musicians have progressed from “playing tunes” stage to where they can identify major and minor progressions instantly. In other words, they know what works and what doesn’t in the same way you (hopefully) know what colors of clothes go together.

Music history shows us that in the beginning of recorded music, (written music) only specific types of intervals are considered acceptable. Gregorian chant is a good example of early recorded music, and only major fifths, thirds, and octaves were considered appropriate intervals. Major fourths were taboo, and weren’t accepted for many years. Eventually, fourths, sevenths (both major and minor) were considered usable and led to the use of minor thirds. The music you hear today would have given people of this period convulsions, (and rightly so-just joking).

Over time, more and more laxness was pervasive in the allowance of advanced progressions, ending up where we are today. Today, anything goes, literally. You can write music that involves pulling a chair across the floor (John Cage), or combines the use of tuned recorded laughs (sampling), it is all acceptable, but not necessarily enjoyable. It totally depends on your state of taste and mind.

Fortunately, there exists today so many musical genres that there is something available for every taste, however good or bad it may be.