The "Civil" War Between Old and New

Playing By Ear and Standard Piano Lessons are in a “Civil” War. Standard Lessons dominate the world but there’s a revolution brewing between traditional lessons and neo-piano methods based on learning chords.

Standard Piano Lessons start with reading music, note recognition and progressive sightreading.  Later, lessons turn to advanced pedagogy, interpretation and fingering of difficult pieces. The method follows hundreds of years of proven, entrenched standards and disciplines.  Classical music is taught with near-exclusivity.  Standard lessons are great if you want to learn classical music but they don’t teach you how to play by ear.

Unstoppable!

The piano-teaching industry is an unstoppable force made up of publishers, organized teachers, and schools worldwide.  It’s rooted in 16th century theory and has grown for hundreds of years to become the Titan it is today.  It’s extremely good but would be better if it incorporated some of the 21st century chord technologies that neo-piano methods use to get faster results.  Because the institution is so big, change is slow, especially because there is no central authority that leads the industry.  The easiest path is to not change at all . . .but change is inevitable.

vs.

Playing By Ear begins by learning command of the basic chords and focusing on specific concepts.  From there, you add your experiences over a lifetime.  You stumble upon a useful pattern or discover a concept-in-theory out of need.  You know what you are doing.  You don’t need written music to play (but often appreciate having a lead sheet of some sort to follow).

Neo-piano students are learning to command the piano quickly through some of the online, chord-based, neo-piano methods that are leading the charge.  But not all neo-piano methods are equal.  Some supposed “neo” methods are just standard piano lessons in a box.  There’s nothing new there.  You have to sort through 99.8% of rubbish online to find useful information.  If you don’t know what to look for, you might easily miss it.

Where Is the Best Place to Get
Information On Playing the Piano?

Right here.  That’s my goal.  Between this blog and a developing website, you’ll get the best compiled information made available to you in one place.  This will include the Best of Youtube, Best of Classical, Best Blogs, Free Music, Free Lessons and links to the best sites online.  There will be interviews, guest blogs,   Podcasts, giveaways and special promotions.  All is going to take a little while to build but it’s coming and I’m very excited about it.

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Joseph Pingel is a pianist, teacher and musicologist.  Click here to get the free companion book to this blog.  See his other sites at www.KeyedUpPiano.com and www.PlayByEarCentral.com. 

© 2011 Keyed Up Inc

History of the Guitar - The Beatles

Playing by ear on the piano is the same as playing the guitar.  Both require you to play chords as a condition of mediocrity.  Both can be learned with about the same amount of effort.  Yet, the piano is not viewed or taught that way.

There’s no reason it shouldn’t be the #1 instrument, but the piano takes a back seat to the guitar which dominates music as the modern-day-sensation instrument of choice.  It wasn’t always like that.

The Guitar Did Not Come to the Forefront

of Our Attention Until 1964. 

 In 1964 the Beatles took America by storm with an intensity that only a few artists per century ever reach.  In the 1930s it was Sinatra.  In 1956 it was Elvis.  In 1964 it was the Beatles.  These overpowering music forces were met with stiff resistence.  The kids loved it and the parents wanted to ban it.  It was the start of the boomer rebellion. 


Let me synopsize the Beatle experience:
1.    They were the first “stadium” band
2.    They were cute, white and respectful young men
3.    They were from mysterious England
4.    Their wore their hair long (actually tame today)
5.    Girls would not stop screaming.
6.    They wrote, sang and played their own stuff
7.    Their music was like nothing we had ever heard

We couldn’t get enough of them.  In 1964, the Beatles had six #1 hits and rocked our culture to the core.  They recreated the music business practically overnight.  Before the Beatles came along, there were only a handful bands that wrote, sang and played their own music.  Almost overnight, anyone with a guitar could become a star.

The Beatles Got Our Attention

The Beatles single-handedly caused an entire, industry-wide,  music-scene explosion.  From 1964 forward, guitar bands came out of the woodwork from England and the United States  playing folk, rock and blues.  Everywhere you looked, somebody was playing a guitar protesting the “man,” the war, civil rights and exercising civil disobedience.

 The Girls Will Tear You Apart

In 1967, a group called The Byrds had a song called “So You Want To Be a Rock and Roll Star” that typified the current music scene.


Part of the lyric went:

“just get an electric guitar and
 take some time and learn how to play.
 Then in a week or two if you make the charts
  the girls will tear you apart”

That made it sound easy.  It wasn’t long before everyone was learning three chords and playing the guitar quickly.  They didn’t have to become stars.  A lot of guys were motivated by the idea that if you could play, you could get the girls.

The guitar was linked to simplicity, quick results and sex. That was the perfect recipe for motivation.  That’s how the guitar became the modern-day-sensation instrument of our time.

The Time Machine - The Rise of the Piano 

If we reeled back 300-plus years to the dawn of classical music we’d find that the piano was the modern-day-sensation instrument of that time.  Back then, like the guitar today, the piano’s rise to popularity was driven by the current music scene that we call “classical” today.


However, in the classical era you really had to work hard to become a “Rock Star.” It wasn’t perceived as an overnight thing because to be a good follower required lots of practice.  I’m sure the motivation to get the girl was probably still there. We haven’t changed much in that regard.

Back To The Future 

Fresh back to the future we find ourselves confronting the fact that classical isn’t the driving force it once was.  Popular music today is based on improvisational styles which cannot be taught using the classical approach.

It’s a dilemma, entrenched in a 300-year old tradition, that views deviations from the status quo with great resistance.  The classical approach won’t teach you how to jam and there’s no indication that anything is going to change that fact.

Today our focus is on becoming modern-day rock stars and play like Elton John.  We want to jam with friends and write our own songs.  We want to play by ear.


The piano must be reinvented to become the NEW MODERN DAY SENSATION instrument based on today’s standard of popular music and teaching technologies.  To do that, you must apply the same mind set you would to learn the guitar.

It’s as simple as that.  Take a lesson from the guitar and drop all the baggage you think is associated with the piano.  It’s a chord instrument and that’s where you should eat, sleep and breath if you want to get good.

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Joseph Pingel is a pianist, teacher and musicologist.  Click here to get the free companion book to this blog.  See his other sites at www.KeyedUpPiano.com and www.PlayByEarCentral.com. 

© 2011 Keyed Up Inc

The Greatest Cassius Clay Sings Stand By Me

Do You Want To Be Great?

I aspire to be as great as I can be without killing myself.  I have advanced play-by-ear abilities and sight-reading skills.  I don’t play professionally nor do I want to.  What I love the most is to explore the journeys of my extensive sheet-music collection.  That’s what I love.  The journeys.

I love reading other peoples’ music, learning their styles and reading the lyrics of gifted pros (pun).  How to interpret what the composer is trying to convey so clearly.  Show me sheet music and I’m off.  Thousands of pieces played at times.  There’s nothing that rivals the thrill that reading music gives me. 

 . . . and playing by ear, you can’t ever get away from that.  It’s always a reality.  You play everything by ear, even the stuff you read.

Reality says there comes a point in peoples’ lives when they are preoccupied with work and lovers and things other than the piano.  The question is whether you can withstand a 6-month lull in playing and still come back to it like you never left.  That’s command.  How do you get that good? 

The first thing is to understand that 

Command really isn’t that good.  

As a level, it’s high but really, compared to others that know their chords and play with style, it’s only the beginning. 

A person in command doesn’t necessarily possess great fingering skills.  However, they do possess strong chording skills and that puts them in a power position.  They have command of the piano just like someone who plays a guitar.  The concept for the two instruments is identical.  Learn the chords and the sooner the better.

Do you want to be great?  Great enough, for sure.  Never-forget-it great.

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Joseph Pingel is a pianist, teacher and musicologist.  Click here to get the free companion book to this blog.  See his other sites at www.KeyedUpPiano.com and www.PlayByEarCentral.com. 

© 2011 Keyed Up Inc

Listen to Gilligan's Island Stairway To Heaven

To play piano by ear is to play with creativity.  Click on this rare song to listen while you're reading this.  It's better than Zepplin, lasts half as long as the original and uses the art of imitation and creative license.  The overall affect is for the listener to say "Hey, they ripped the theme from Gilligan's Island.  I thought I heard that before . . . " but it's not the truth.  Far from it.  It's the nature of music to be misleading and this song really takes you on a fun ride.

But let's be realistic on this song.  The cadence to the Gilligan lyric is easily altered to conform to the cadence of Stairway.  The Gilligan theme style is a sea shanty that somehow conforms to the ethereal, slow-burn chord progression of Stairway.

Outside of a common chord progression,

the songs are nothing alike. 

The nature of music says you can take any song's lyric, rhythm and chord progression, modify it slightly and spit out a completely different version of the same song.  Such is the case for Gilligan.  Think of other songs that this applies.  The Byrds singing Dylan songs.  Joni Mitchell's Woodstock vs. Crosby Stills and Nash version of the same song.  There are many many more instances where the differences from the originals are like night and day.

Led Zeppelin sued Little Roger and the Goosebumps over this song to cease and desist.  It's funny to note however, that Robert Plant called this his favorite cover of their famous song.  

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Joseph Pingel is a pianist, teacher and musicologist.  Click here to get the free companion book to this blog.  See his other sites at www.KeyedUpPiano.com and www.PlayByEarCentral.com. 

© 2011 Keyed Up Inc

A Strong Right Hand To Command The Keyboard

To play by ear with authority you need a strong right hand.

“Strong” in a way that is not only proficient, but wise." 
 

 

We're “Right” Most of The Time  

There’s a science here somewhere, but my opinion is that most people are right handed, right legged and pegged generally right-minded. 

Learn Chords On Your Dominant Hand

Your dominant hand is easier to train and learns to play chords as a reflex.  I suggest you learn chords on your strong-suit hand; that's where you're going to find the most long-term comfort. 
 
There are positives of being either handed.  Music is written for  "righties" but "lefties" are often ambidextrous and can boost their playing with superlative bass-hand skills. 

Giving You The Down Low

Play a basic octave span (or single note in the bass) and work on your right hand exclusively in the beginning.  Don’t try to learn all the chords at one time.  Just concentrate on the chords of the song you are playing.

Then play more songs that use those same chords and really drive those movements and positions into the indelible part of your memory.

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Joseph Pingel is a pianist, teacher and musicologist.  Click here to get the free companion book to this blog.  See his other sites at www.KeyedUpPiano.com and www.PlayByEarCentral.com. 

© 2011 Keyed Up Inc

The Master Speaks

I am the master.  You may be a master too. 

Whatever you already know is your plateau.  It may reach to the heavens in knowledge and dimension but your plateau is just one of many.  There are mesas and mountains of brilliant musical minds.  Every musician has one, high or low in proportion to their passion.

I've got different experiences than you.  My plateau is from a different vantage than you perceive.  I like my music and you like yours.  You can probably play rings around me, you see.  But can you jam . . . and if not, “Why?”

You haven’t learned to command the instrument.  

Command is a state of ease in playing the 24 basic major and minor chords and their inversions.  That’s a specific goal that can be reached quickly if you put your mind to it.  Learn those chords and you get it.  That’s the fast track and it’s a fact.

All you beginners, same thing.

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Joseph Pingel is a pianist, teacher and musicologist.  Click here to get the free companion book to this blog.  See his other sites at www.KeyedUpPiano.com and www.PlayByEarCentral.com. 

© 2011 Keyed Up Inc

Matrix Theory - What is a Beat?

Play by ear fans, could there be any more of an obvious question than this?  I hear some groaning  “We’re not in kindergarten anymore, ya know.  A beat’s a beat, alright?”  Okay, you may be on top of this but right now we can't assume anything.  Let's delve into your full understanding and clarify a few things.  The conversation usually follows this line of reasoning:

Me:     “How long does a beat last?”
You:   “It varies in speed.  It depends . . .”

Me:     “Depends on what?”
You:   “How fast the song is.”

Me:     “How do you know how fast the song is?” 
You:   “I know the song.  I’ve got the record.”

Me:     “What if you didn’t know it?  How would you know
             how fast to play it?”
You:   “I suppose I’d guess.”

Me:     “Based on what?”
You:   “I don’t know . . . maybe the size of the beat note?”

Me:    “Let’s explore that.  Comparatively, if the beat note is represented by
            a half, quarter or eight note (2/2, 4/4 or 6/8), which beat-note
            will be the fastest?

You:   “The eighth note in 6/8.”

Me:     “That’s a good guess.  Why do you say that?”
You:   “It’s a smaller note and just looks faster.”

Me:     “Okay, so, what’s a beat?”
You:   “I’m not sure I really know.”

Matrix Theory

See how this non-clarified 101 concept is the cause of so much uncertainty?  You cannot allow simple questions like this to go unchallenged.  In no uncertain terms, you must understand what a beat is.  But just try to get a straight answer somewhere.  Here it is. 

There are 3 things you must know:

The Fact:           

Regardless of the size of a beat note (2/2, 4/4 or 6/8) in our example above, they are all the same in duration.  No one beat note is faster than the other.  In this way, a beat is a beat.  All beats are equal in time and space.

How Fast Is It? 

A beat is a reasonable time frame that pulses evenly.  1/8th of a second is not a reasonable pulse nor is a 5-second delay. “Reasonable,” as a benchmark of speed, is about 1 second.  Forget about the note size or the time signature.  A beat, as a concept, stands alone at approximately 1 second.

The Impression: 

Your perception that the 8th note is to be played the fastest is not all wrong.  You unwittingly may be picking up on something that’s not so obvious.  A composer that uses a lot of 8th and 16th notes in a song may be visually inferring to you that the song is to be played faster.  With every piece of music you look at, the composer relays a subtle message regarding implied speed.  Some do it better than others.

Examples:

•  A song is written in 2/2 with a lot of half notes. 
        Does this look fast or slow?  Slow. 

•  A song is written in 6/8 and is black with 8th and 16th notes. 
        Does it look fast or slow?  Fast.

So when you consider what a beat is, you must temper your understanding between the fact that all beats are the same and your impression of speed that is being inferred by the composer.  Between those two things you will find the optimum pulse on either side of 1 second.

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Joseph Pingel is a pianist, teacher and musicologist.  Click here to get the free companion book to this blog.  See his other sites at www.KeyedUpPiano.com and www.PlayByEarCentral.com. 

© 2011 Keyed Up Inc