having piano lessons and want to learn more

[leighbeynon]

ive been having lessons for 1 year now, i can read sheet music and play quite basically, my teacher gives me 4-5 songs each week to learn and each week i move on or if they arent up to scratch keep practising,

my main aim is to compose neo soul / rhodes lead chord progressions
and eventually create my own music,

im no where near this now of course, but is there anything else i can do to help myself move on?

im trying to practise 1 hour a day more where possible,
my teacher has also given me scales to work on and memorise

from what i understand its mainly 7th,9th 13th and inversions of these chords i need to learn, is this just a matter of time? should i just give it alot more time? i realise alot of people learn piano/keyboard from 5 or 6years old

i do have book with all chords and its a system of how to memorise all chords, shapes and names, just dont want this to conflict with my lessons,

i talked to my teacher and he says you dont need to memorise chords they can be constructed from scales, why learn chords by memory ?

[Bobbotov]

I think knowing all of the chords is essential to having a firm foundation on how music is constructed. I disagree with your teacher in that chords can be constructed from scales as I can play a number of different chords under the same scale. I can play a C scale with Cmaj, Am, Dm, G6, Em7, Fmaj7, etc. All giving a completely different feel to the scale. Or try playing a minor scale over a major chord (i.e. Em scale over Cmaj, B7, A, etc.)

Chord progressions are contingent on knowing how to move tones between chords and how they underpin melody, establish cadence and create resolutions. Understanding chords allows for the freedom to substitute chords which can greatly influence a melody changing the whole mood. Understanding chord construction allows you to invert chords for different voicings which also influence the mood of a piece. Understanding chord structure will allow you to experiment with modulation from one key to another which has a tremendous effect on changing the mood of a song. Learn the circle of 5ths as it is a powerful method of moving through all chords with natural, pleasing resolution. Playing the same melody over a major or minor will have tremendous mood impact. Try "Mary Had A Little Lamb" with major chords and then with minor chords.

The other important factor to consider is rhythmic structure. Know all the time signatures (2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, 6/8, etc) as well as poly rhythms (6/8 over 4/4 for example) and learn how to move from one time signature to another within one piece.

One other important aspect is ear training. Try to play by ear as much as you can so that you can learn to "hear" all of the above without sheet music.

And you are right - give it more time. No one gets all of this at once and I am still learning after forty years.

[leighbeynon]

plenty to think about here !!

i know that learning different sheet music pieces will help develop my technique,
help me read music fast and get used to shapes of chords, time signatures etc,

maybe it would help me to memorise chords, as i want to be able to compose my own progressions, and do this without sheet music,

i envy people with perfect pitch who can just play exactly what they hear,
its amazing i think

[VicDiesel]

i talked to my teacher and he says you dont need to memorise chords they can be constructed from scales, why learn chords by memory ?

Well, learning that Am is A-C-E should not be a memorization exercise, but you should _have_ it memorized. That's probably a matter of just playing a lot. Get some lead sheet (melody plus chords) from the interweb or your local library, and just play until you can produce the chords without thinking about them. Initially you'll have to consult your scales (though, how do you derive F#dim from a scale? First F# major scale, then lowering the 3 and 5? Or stacking two minor thirds on that F#?) but obviously that's far to slow in real life. But after you figure it out a bunch of times explicitly, you'll start recognizing and remembering chords.

Basically, there's no substitute for practice. And that's a form of memorization too.

Victor.

[leighbeynon]

yeah i have a book which basically is laid out showing all chords and a system,

starts with all maj triads, and makes you play each triad in order of the circle of 5ths, then it gets you to extend to 7ths, 9ths etc
by getting you to count from the 5th or flatten the 3rd etc

i might get this memorised and get used to how they all sound also

[Bobbotov]

>i envy people with perfect pitch who can just play exactly what they hear,
its amazing i think

Can you discern a major chord versus a minor chord by ear? Most people can. Can you discern a Diminished or Augmented? That is called relative pitch. Perfect pitch will then tell you what notes make up the chord. The two work together. If you do not have perfect pitch then when you hear a chord you can use whatever instrument you play to find the chord root and voila, you know the exact chord being played. For basic ear training listening to the chord roots is a good start. The chord root is usually the bass note but not always depending on how the chord is voiced.

For melody the important thing is hearing intervals. When two notes are played (even though you do not know the exact notes) you can train yourself to hear the intervals (i.e. chromatic, 2nds, 3rds, 4ths, 5ths, etc.) When you find the tonic you will automatically know what the next note is based on the interval.

Hearing complex chords like in Jazz takes a lot of practice but not insurmountable.

I have heard from people with perfect pitch that the notes have a color. If someone plays an F# it might be blue to them. Coincidentally, in Jazz for the key of C, F# is the flat fifth and is called a "blue" note. I do not have perfect pitch but I manage somehow So can you.

[Ogg Vorbis]

>
I have heard from people with perfect pitch that the notes have a color. If someone plays an F# it might be blue to them. Coincidentally, in Jazz for the key of C, F# is the flat fifth and is called a "blue" note. I do not have perfect pitch but I manage somehow So can you.

F# is more mauve.

[Max Headroom]

im no where near this now of course, but is there anything else i can do to help myself move on?

You said you're practicing more and learning scales. Both are good.

i do have book with all chords and its a system of how to memorise all chords, shapes and names, just dont want this to conflict with my lessons,

I don't know how it would conflict with your lessons. Why do you think it could?

i talked to my teacher and he says you dont need to memorise chords they can be constructed from scales, why learn chords by memory ?

I think he means that you can take any scale and you can manually derive the list of all chords that are in that scale. You don't need to memorize lists or anything like that. You just need to know the methods of how chords are generated from their scale. Knowing the method is nice because you don't need to refer to a book or chart when composing music in an unfamiliar scale. (Although refering to a book or chart might be quicker at first.)

However, just knowing how to derive chords doesn't mean you can automatically play those chords well. You'll still have to practice any chord you want to use, so learning them when you can is probably a good idea.

Since you want to compose, you should probably read up on some music theory. This will help you know what to do with all those chords you learn. See, chords are like building blocks. You don't build a house by randomly tossing bricks in a pile. Similarly, you don't build a song using random notes and chords. You want to give your house and song some sort of structure. There are a bunch of guidelines to help you do just that. Try to find a book on music theory that discusses the specific styles you want to compose in. If you can't find one, pick up a book on general music theory and give it a shot. Try your local library and see what they have on hand. You'll probably learn a lot about how to build a melody, harmony, chord progressions, rhythm, etc. These are all tools that will help you compose.

Keep in mind that playing and composing are two very different things. You can be very good at one and not so good at the other. It seems to me that a person must practice both the physical act of playing as well as the mental act of learning the theory of it all.

[leighbeynon]

some great advice here, i think ill keep up the practise and still look at chord structures in my other book, as i dont think it can hurt,

and yes the reason my teacher says i dont need this book as he believes in learning scales and then constructing chords from the scales, using 3rd, 5ths etc etc

many thanks leigh

[buckshead]

I think that you need to be able to play chords without thinking, its just practice and it becomes routine.

[sjm]

If you want to write your own stuff, IMO, you need to ditch the sheet music and learn to improv.

Practicing scales is nice; practicing scales by playing in a certain scale over your own (improvised) accompaniment is much nicer and is much more productive to learning to do you own thing.

That's not to say that learning a few chord progressions won't help - IMO, chord progressions (e.g. I-IV-ii-V or whatever) are much more useful than anything else, as they can provide you with a very rough base line from which to take things in your own direction. But you'll have trouble creating your own style if you just regurgitate other people's music. Writing your own music is not the same as being able to play sheet music; naming all the chords; or playing scales perfectly. Another, better alternative to playing from sheet music is to play standards in your own style, using the chords as just a basis. You could play "All Along the Watchtower" with a ragtime feel, for example. All you retain is the basic chord progression (all 3 chords) and develop the rest yourself. You can also begin substituting chords (either willfully or by trial and error). Some music theory can really help here.

Technique does of course help if you want to be able to play stuff yourself. But it's not actually a prerequisite to writing music, especially in the days of computer sequencers...

Learning the names of chords has the advantage that it helps you to communicate (and document) what you're doing - but unto itself, it's not actually essential to creating/writing music. There are loads of very talented musicians out there who know little music theory but will have no problem improvising over your stuff once they've heard the first four bars. Conversely, there are people with years of training who are out of their depth if you say, "just jam along in C, and watch for the change to minor at the end of the chorus".

Disclaimer: All my opinion of course. YMMV.

[tokmik]

I can play by ear way better than I can sight read, and its not something you can learn from a computer program. There aren't any tricks to it, you just have to get to really become accustomed to the piano, know where everything is so it can't surprise you with anything, and then listen really closely to the music. Also, when you listen to music, try to dissect it as much as you can, separating every instrument in your mind, and then you can easily single out one and listen to only what its doing, even the bass. Then when your at the piano, when you here the note, just play around with the keys til you find the correct one. I hate to sound like a teacher, but the only way to get good at it is through practice.

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