This week I’ll talk about what you should and should not be learning as a ” beginner ” piano student.

From lesson 1 you should be learning to read the treble clef notes and practicing your 3 note chords.  This will enable you to play what are called ” lead sheets”.  Lead Sheets are a written melody in the Treble clef, one note, and a chord symbol above those melody notes. 

If you are only reading notes, you are taking the long road to learning piano.  There is plenty of time to learn to read the Bass clef.  What a beginner needs to do is get a ” big ” sound in a short period of time. Learning all 60 of your 3-note chords enables the student to be playing 4 notes simultaneously in a matter of days!  ( 4 notes consisting of 3 in the left hand chord and 1 in the right hand melody line). 

As many of my adult students recall their piano lessons as kids, they frequently comment on how boring and arduous lessons were. Playing songs is exhilarating!  But most students don’t have the patience to wait 2 years to play their favorite songs.

There is no reason why a student can’t be playing songs like Yesterday, Misty, As Time Goes By , Moon River etc.. after a month or 2 of lessons.  Well actually there is one reason why they can’t and that is if they are taught to only read the notes. 

95% of all piano teachers teach only the written note.  And 95% of all piano students can’t play a song after 6 months of lessons. Now that is a travesty. 

Beginning students beware.  Don’t be caught in the vicious circle of weekly boring rote lessons! Take from a jazz teacher and learn life-long concepts that will enable you to play quickly and with an understanding of how music works!  You owe it to yourself!

That’s right!  The first 100 students to call me at 800-32-PIANO or email me at www.pianoweb.com  will receive a free half hour piano lesson.  It doesn’t matter where you live because your free piano lesson will be conducted over the phone.

That’s right!  I teach jazz/pop piano to students from around the world over traditional phone lines. ( I also use skype and my skype name is ” pianowebman” ).  If you have always wanted to learn to play the piano, or have taken ” traditional lessons” and want to learn a different way, then this is your once in a lifetime opportunity.  There is no obligation, in fact you can even ” gift ” this free piano lesson to someone you know .

All you need to own is a computer, a phone ( preferably a cordless landline phone with a headset, $10 at Walmart ) and a piano or electonic piano. I must warn you that you will need to speak english in order to get the full benefit of this free piano lesson.  I haven’t quite mastered Mandarin, and I’m still working on Spanish and French.

 This is not a ” gimmick”.. I currently teach more than 30 “distance learning” piano students.  In fact this week will be the 5th anniversary of the founding of my Distance Learning Jazz Piano Institute.

Beginning in April 2002, I’ve had the privilege of teaching students from Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, England, Ireland , Spain , Canada and the United States of America. 

It’s easy!  Just pick up your phone, insert your headset, and study with a master jazz pianist/teacher without ever having to leave the comfort of your own home.

 Please note, this offer is limited to the first 100 callers and the caller must mention  the words…….     free piano lesson…..in the subject area of the email or in a voicemail in the event that I’m teaching and cannot pick up the phone.  In the event that you can’t leave a message at 800-32-PIANO I may be reached on my cell phone at 847-401-1721. If I don’t answer please leave as many details, i.e. phone and email address and best time to reach you, as possible.. thank you

Sincerely

Mark Miller  Founder & President Distance Learning Piano Institute

Concepts are lifelong.  When you understand a concept, you are able to recall or use that concept at any given time, whether it be today or 5 years from now. For example, I understand the underlying concept behind addition. If I stopped adding today I could add numbers 5 years from now. 

So why is it that so many former piano students ( typically adults who studied in their childhood ) can’t play the piano.  I believe it is because they were not taught concepts.

Take for instance Major Scales.  I often wondered why the G major scale had an ” F# ” in it.  Well, if you know the concept of how major scales are constructed , then you know that you must ” sharp the F key” in order to maintain the ” whole - whole - half -  whole -  whole whole - half- step ” pattern by which all  major scales are constructed. As a ” Traditional piano student” from age 6 to 16, I was never taught this concept. It was always ” just play your scales”.  As a jazz piano student at age 20 I  began to understand the ” why’s ” behind the language of music.

Why is a major chord called major ?  Why is the minor chord called minor ?  Why is the augmented chord called augmented?  There are reasons why chords are named certain ways.  The major chord is called major because all the notes are generated from the major scale. So if we want to build a C major chord, we start on the C Key and play every other note of the C major Scale.  The C major scale is all white notes so the C major chord is C, E, G.  Similarly, if you know the Db major scale and you want to find a Db major chord, start on Db and play every other note of the Db major scale. By the way the ” concept” for building chords is :  Chords are built tertially, in other words every other letter of the starting notes respective scale.  So if you are building a Dmaj7 chord, you start on D and go every other note of the D major scale thus generating the notes  D, F#, A and C#.  As you can see the major scale is a very important set of notes to know. In fact the major scale is the basis for naming intervals, building chords, improvising, playing melodies and last ( and I believe least importantly) to build finger dexterity. 

What are the notes of an Augmented chord?  Well the word augmented means to ” increase ” . So to build an augmented chord you ” increase” the distance from the root of the chord to the fifth of the chord by raising the 5th up a half step.  In the case of C Augmented ( written C+ ) the notes are C, E, and G#.  So we have ” augmented or increased the distance from the C to the G by half step.

What are the notes of a diminished chord. Well, this is the opposite of an Augmented chord.  Instead of ” raising or increasing ” the distance from the Root to the 5th… we will be ” decreasing or diminishing “the distance from the root to the 5th.  So in  a diminished chord we lower the 5th of the chord by half step . (By the way the diminished chord is based on the minor triad ) .  A C diminished chord, written Cdim or Co consists of C, Eb, and Gb.

My basic point is that there is a logical reason why chords are named the way they are named.  And once you understand the concept you can build any chord.

So, even if you learned one concept a week, you should expect to be playing all your 3-note chords in a month. So why does it take years to play 3 or 4 notes simultaneously in traditional lessons.  Because most teachers don’t teach concepts.

There is a great book titled  ” How To Play The Piano Despite Years of lessons”..and in it the author questions why there are so many pianos in America and why so few people know how to play them!  I think the answer is because ” Traditional ” piano lessons teach by rote, not by concepts or ideas.

I guarantee that with my unique concept-based piano lessons, you will be playing songs in days not years and you will acquire  the concepts needed to enjoy a lifetime of creative , emphasis on the word CREATIVE , music making! 

I thought it might be fun to share with you the progress of some of my distance learning piano students.  With students as far away as England and Spain and as close as Chicago, I feel very fortunate to be able to teach these students some of the knowledge I obtained from my former jazz teachers Alan Swain and Tony Caramia.

Ray Foulkes has been studying with me for over 5 years now!  He resides in Romsey England near Southhampton.  Ray has mastered his Open Position Chords and is able to transpose several tunes into any of the 12 different keys!  Ray is learning ” block style” voicings now as well as how to arrange songs with more complex chords , i.e. Dominant 11+’s, 13ths and Quartel voicings.  Ray was interviewed on BBC Radio Wales in November 2005 and you can hear him performing by clicking on the link at www.pianoweb.com

Ruth Rothstein is my youngest student at age 84 !!  Ruth always wanted to learn to play piano and speak spanish… Well I don’t know about her language skills but I do know she can play a mean leadsheet! Ruth began distance lessons in August 2005 and now has a repertoire of over 25 songs.  Maybe more importantly, she can sightread a song/leadsheet in minutes, and get a relatively ” big sound”‘ now that she has mastered her triads!

Jim McVicar is one of 2 students from Santa Rosa , California.  Jim had studied off and on for years before I began teaching him in January 2006.  It is such a pleasure to hear him playing songs like  ” That’s All ” and ” Misty” and ” The Nearness Of You”  on his beautiful Yamaha Grand Piano!.  He plays many of the songs with ” advanced closed position” voicings.. voicings that only a very few professional jazz pianists know or use. Some areas of concentration that Jim is learning now are: open position voicings ala Alan Swain, so called ” scalar fills”, quartel chords, and some ” beginning improvisation” techniques.

Carol Rosofsky is one of 3 distance students who live in Chicago.  You know they say ‘ the teacher learns more than the student”.. well this could not be more true.  Carol has helped me to ” think out side the box”.. as a teacher.  I often need to/ want to change my paradigm when teaching Carol.  She is more of a “ hands on  learner ” and I’m more of a  conceptual learner. This past week’s lesson was one of her best.  I felt so proud when she asked to ” play her 11+ chords around the circle again!”.  As Carol remarked ” I think I’m getting this”..

Betty Walkiewicz is my dear student from Portland.  Like many adults, Betty took a year or 2 of piano as a child but always wanted to get back to it as an adult. After seeing an article in Costco magazine she called me in January 2006 and she began taking lessons from me.  Betty has already mastered her closed position 4-note chords and recently even impressed herself with her ability to play Moon River nearly perfectly the first time through. As I reminded her, this is the power of knowing all your chords!  She often comments that she  ” just loves to get a new lead sheet ” from me via email.  It’s like getting a gift in the mail.

Noel Romey is a graduate student at the University of Arkansas.  He is visually impaired but that has not stopped him from studying one of his passions… jazz piano!  Noel is transposing tunes into multiple keys and really enjoying the creative side of jazz piano.  Areas he excels in are:  Reharmonization of  ” Standards”, improvisation and music theory.  Noel is an inspiration to me as a teacher!

 June Cantwell called me 6 weeks after an article in the Riverside County , California  Enterprise newspaper.  I was surprised to be getting a call so far in the future from when the article first ran. But June later told me that she cut out the article and waited to call me because she knew she would be vacationing and didn’t want to start til she knew she could have consistent lessons.  Never having played before, June is now playing 6 -note chords in open position after less than 2 years of lessons. As I reminded her in the last month, she is playing out of a book that I studied in after 10 years of piano lessons! Does she play these professional sounding chords perfectly every time.. no.. but she knows the theory and I’m certain these chords will be second nature in the upcoming months. Go June!!

Look for more interesting comments on piano students in the next days and weeks. And thank you to all my students over the years for all there questions.  There quest for knowledge has made me want to improve my skills as a teacher and professional jazz pianist!