Beginners Piano Lessons

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Hiya, welcome to my blog all about beginners piano lessons. I’ve only been playing the piano for about a year now, but I love it. This is why I wanted to write about learning to play the piano. Because it’s so much fun and you don’t have to feel intimidated by it. Well, I actually started off looking for keyboard piano lessons for beginners because I don’t actually have a piano. I have a keyboard, but it’s full sized and sounds excellent. Plus it doesn’t take up much space.

My grandmother had a piano but when she left us about 2 years ago, it was sold in the estate. That’s why I started learning how to play piano, so that I’d be reminded of her. I used to love seeing her play the church organ and sing at church. So I figured that the best way to remember her was to learn how to play her favorite piano songs. I was intimidated at first, I guess that’s why it took me so long to start. Other than my grandmother, nobody in my family has a musical bone in their body. Though in the last 6 months my dad has started to play too, because he wanted to learn how to play Kenny Rogers’ songs!

Well, I saved up for a keyboard and then when I was 19 I started looking for beginners piano lessons online. YouTube had a bunch, but it was hard to find the right ones I needed and having to search through all the stuff out there was so difficult and took so much time. It was horrible. This was about a year ago and I almost gave up looking for online piano lessons for beginners.

But then I came across this awesome course that makes it so easy to learn how to play piano. The lessons are spaced out over a full year, although you can access any of them at any time. It’s just to handy to have all the piano lessons in one place. And the great thing is that these beginners piano lessons really do take you from the beginning to learning some fun and relevant songs quickly. Within my first month I was playing Pink’s “Dear Diary”. Now I’m playing Alicia Keys and a whole bunch of other great songs.

Now I wouldn’t get to play with the philharmonic orchestra, but that’s not what I want anyway. I just wanted to learn some of my grandmother’s favorite songs. And the great thing is I’ve come so much further than that. And I love playing those old songs that my grandmother used to sing. I played some for my mom’s birthday recently and she burst into tears. Happy tears. My dad was really proud of me and that’s why he wanted to start taking beginners piano lessons.

He’s just finished learning “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers. He’s been playing for several months now and he’s always stealing my keyboard to learn the next Kenny Rogers’ song he likes! So don’t be intimidated, if my dad can take piano lessons for beginners and come a long way in such a short time, I figure anyone can.

But it’s important that you choose the right beginners piano lessons for you. I’m partial to the course I found, because it works so well. And it makes it so much fun. And remember, you don’t actually need a piano, you can use a keyboard like I do.

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Some Tips And Advice On Learning Jazz Piano Chords

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Jazz is a specific music genre that is typically played using the piano but also guitar to some extent. However, for you to understand jazz fully, you need to be acquainted with several jazz musical pieces to learn how this genre differs from the others and how this is linked with blues. By listening, you’ll also be familiar with the tunes and sounds of jazz piano chords.

Learning jazz piano chords is important if you want to be a master jazz pianist because it will assist you in excelling in improvisation — the core element of jazz. After tedious lessons and practice, your aim should be: to create a free-flowing harmonic and melodic jazz piano musical piece. It is like being able to compose a piece of music with a new set of chords different from the original piece, all through the power of auditory skills.

Jazz pianists concluded that in learning how to play jazz piano, you have to master chord voicing. This is more complicated than the usual piano chords you see like a flat (b) or a sharp (#), and a number or a letter in all 12 keys. The first phase of chord voicing is learning the four basic chords, namely the minor, major, augmented, and diminished. I assume that you are already familiar with the basic chords of a piano before you start with your interest in jazz.

Jazz piano chords are a few variations of minor, major, and the 7th chord. A 7th chord may either be a semi-tone (example Cb) or higher (example C#).

Going back to chord voicing, the most basic of all is the shell voicing, which is characterized by the jazz piano chord’s root, 3rd, and 7th which are called the guide tones.  A sample key C shell voicing progression is D-7 G7 Cmaj7. As soon as you have mastered the root tones, you can begin chord voicing progression by doing the 4 notes voicing, or seldom called the closed position or Mehegen voicings, which include bottom notes. As your learning progresses, study two-handed voicings and the final and advanced component — the fourth voicing. Fourth voicing is also called quartal voicing and played on the pentatonic scale.

I know it is challenging to visualize the chords without an actual piano sheet, but at least you have an idea about the steps you need to accomplish in order to learn jazz piano. I suggest as you begin to take piano lessons, study the theories, chords, notes, alternations — everything, by heart so that when it’s time for you to level up in jazz piano, it won’t be so hard.

Categories: Jazz Piano

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