3
Course Meals On Keyboards
Chord style piano,
or playing by ear as it's often called, is the principal method by which pro keyboardists
and other musicians do their day-in and day-out work and for a number of reasons
it's perhaps the best musical approach for songwriters. So in a moment let's take
a look at why and why that's of benefit.
And at the end of
the article three courses are keyed up that are among the best for aspiring to
even advanced keyboardists to check out.
Get Those Voicings
Out Of Your Head
Each of these courses goes over the fundamental
approaches to making your songs sound richer and emotionally spot on for the type
of feeling you're attempting to convey with your song.
Getting
the pro sound and emotional quality you want out your chords is achieved not only
in their construction, such as is it a triad or a 7th chord, but in how you order
the notes, where you play them on the keyboard and where you play them in relation
to the chords before and after.
This process of constructing
the order and placement of the notes you play is called voicing a chord.
To
illustrate voicing this let's take a standard Am7 chord played on a keyboard in
its usual position wherein you would play an A note and then include the next
C up to the right and the very next E and then the very next G all played with
one hand, this would be the standard voicing. To voice this chord differently,
for a slightly different and richer sound, involves using the same notes but moving
them to different positions on the keyboard and splitting up their playing into
both hands.
So, to "voice" this Am7 chord differently
you could play the A and E much lower on the keyboard, with your left hand, and
then the C and G higher up with your right hand. Now, not only have you changed
the standard order of the chord notes but you've split up where they're played
and into two hands. So, same chord, slightly richer and different sound.
That
is a simple example and there are many others. It all boils down to varying the
ordering and positioning of chord notes to give you a variety of richer sounds
- and certain ways of doing it will give you the optimum sounds you'll learn.
Get
Right With Your Rhythms
All of the three courses get into
various rhythms that go from straight forward ballad to rockin' grooves.
They're
not hard to learn and it just takes practice. Aside from your chords your rhythm
is another communication device in conveying the feel of your song, is it a soulful
heartfelt ballad or an energetic dance beat that kicks up everyone's energy.
Like
learning to play chords you can slowly incorporate your leaning of rhythms and
get them up to the desired tempo as you get more familiar with them.
Get
In Style
All of the above translates into what style of
music you're playing and you can even combine styles or just a little lick from
another style to make your playing and writing more fun and interesting.
Again,
as this is all fundamental to chord style playing each course gets into at least
the basics of different popular styles and how they play out in today's contemporary
music.
No Need To Read - Music That Is
Perhaps
the most common theme running through all of these courses is the idea of playing
like a pro without having to know how to read music. Your musical knowledge will
be no less in understanding music theory, in fact maybe even better than those
classically trained.
You will have the option of learning
to read and write chord charts though but they're just nice helpful, music shorthand
that are easy to grasp once you understand the concepts.
You'll
be free to play without the restriction of being page bound. In other words you
won't need to have sheet music leading you in your playing of every single note.
It will all be in your heart, head and fingers.
Check out Play
Piano Today here, Killer
Keyboards Made Simple here and Learn
Piano In 30 Days here.
MasterWriter
