Everyone can also learn to play by note. Some can go farther than others. In any event, musical comprehension is expected to accompany this note playing. But eventually the note player reaches his limit. He will do well to investigate what ear playing can contribute to his further progress.

How to Start Playing Music By Ear

Take the time to listen to your favorite songs and recordings. Then try to sing or whistle the melodies. The ability to do this is the first step, and a repertoire of tunes learned in this manner will serve as a storehouse of pieces to be played by ear at the piano.

Then, the student should play the tunes that he knows over and over again and in a variety of ways: use the left hand as well as the right; play the tunes with both hands together one octave apart; play them starting on different pitches or, in other words, in different keys.

Use a Piano

Any tune can be played beginning on any note on the keyboard; but it is easier to begin on some notes than on others. Try beginning on various notes, and you will find that there are three different notes with which you can begin which will not require you to use any black keys.

Do not expect, however, to play the tune right off. If you can do this, the piece is too easy for you. Play as far as you can and then try to find the next note. If you do not find it in a few tries, you will probably save time by going back to the beginning and thus come onto the difficulty with a running start. If it still does not come, play up to the note that you cannot find and then sing or whistle the correct pitch. You will then be able to match the tone you are singing. If it still does not come, lay it aside until tomorrow or some other day. Try some other piece and you may find that you can play this piece another time without any difficulty.

Criticisms for Learning to Play Music By Ear

Many people criticize the learning of music when it is done by ear. The chief criticism of the approach to playing the piano by ear is based on the contention that students using this approach never learn to read music with facility, even when they begin the study of notes. The opposite result is true, however. The note reader tends to play note by note, while the approach through the ear nurtures a grasp of the entire phrase and clusters of notes. When this skill is transferred to the visual sense, it will facilitate faster reading of music.

Jimmy Cox
http://www.articlesbase.com/art-and-entertainment-articles/how-to-start-playing-music-by-ear-quickly-89528.html

In essence, this is what classical piano students do. It is very important and monotonous for students who are learning to play the piano to practice everyday, this takes discipline which you do not see in children or parents. Both of these attitudes create artificial limitations for students that hinder their ability to grow and develop musically. Here’s the message piano students need to hear — “Your effort matters and it makes a difference.

However, about a third of parents do too much and try to take over responsibility for their child’s progress, which hinders their child’s ability to develop positive learning skills on their own. To help their children learn and accomplish their goals, parents need to focus on the process and content of the learning rather than the final product.What the young student doesn’t understand is the piano learning process.

Private lessons have good and bad connotation associated with them, sometimes children create a dependence on the teacher and it is hard for children to overcome this and children are not encouraged to develop their own independence when it comes to learning the necessary skills, on the other hand having the one on one teaching is very beneficial to the child because more can get accomplished in a shorter period of time. Plus, there is no point in having your child spend 30 minutes practicing incorrectly without learning their pieces when the material can be mastered in 10 minutes with good practice habits.

Because parents are in charge of their children’s schedule and curriculum, home school students can set their own pace and spend more time on music than in the public or private schools. Music is even more fun when you can share it with others. Young children have the ability to learn music theory and are able to learn concepts on the keyboard as the children grow and develop their musical ear.

If your children know their alphabet and how to identify numbers and count, they’re old enough to start learning music theory. With the rise of the internet more adults have learned that taking piano lesson does not have be taught in classrooms or studios it can be taught over the internet, this helps with today’s busy schedules and adults do not have to be locked into a schedule.

Well, you might find this hard to believe, but encouraging your child taking piano lessons to practice doesn’t have to be a struggle. They do want to be sure, however, that their young child is old enough to benefit from formal musical training.

One of the choices that parents have when their child is beginning piano lessons is whether to enroll their son or daughter in a private or group lesson.

Over time this will make sitting down at the piano to practice feel more natural to your young child or your older beginner and make learning easier. Establish a routine practice time.

Set meaningful goals that will last, focus on the “What” and the “Why. Writing down the goals and dreams that first motivated you to give your child the gift of piano lessons provides a reminder that will keep your energy focused over the long

David Marc Fishman
http://www.articlesbase.com/education-articles/so-many-ways-to-learn-the-piano-95455.html

There are sites galore teaching everything about music from chords to trombone lessons to drum lessons to music theory lessons to guitar lessons to piano lessons, and a whole lot more. Many are free while others charge a very reasonable tuition. But think what a bargain that is; no travel, no traffic jams; no rescheduling lessons; no missed lessons; and because the lessons are online (or in some cases on CD’s and DVD’s) they can be replayed over and over until the lesson is thoroughly learned, which is not the case in a personal lesson or a college classroom. You have one chance to understand, and if you don’t, you’re immediately behind the curve and have to do extra studies to catch up. Not so with online music lessons.

Back just 15 years ago if an individual wanted to learn music, about the only places he or she could do so would be from a private teacher, a music school of some sort — private or public or correspondence, or self-taught from a music book. All of which is fine, but slow if an individual is really chomping at the bit to learn, and learn fast.

But today there are literally hundreds of sites on the internet from which any ambitious person can access and learn virtually anything they want about music. There are sites dealing with music instruction for beginners as well as college-level sites that deal with figured bass and advanced music theory and composition issues, as well as improvisation and arranging music.

For example, there are piano lesson sites that teach how to improvise — all styles of improvisation including jazz, rock, gospel, new age music and more. There are piano instruction sites that shows you how to play piano sheet music as a map, instead of having to sight read the printed music as it is written. By learning how to do this, you can create your own free piano sheet music by creating a song and then notating it in a music software program such as Finale using piano tabs, piano chords, and chord symbols. A person can learn to play piano notes by the fist-full by learning piano chording music styles.

Learning to play the piano, learning to read piano music, learning piano songs from classical music to popular music is one of the most fun things a person can do. There are piano lessons online using major chords, minor chords, 7th chords, and all kinds of chord progressions. Learning to play the piano music of your dreams using piano chords & piano chording techniques is now within the reach of anyone with an internet connection! And don’t forget harmony and music theory — including scales and fingering of scale and chord passages in musical scores and sheet music — it’s all available online. Music history and music appreciation is important too — guys like Bach & Mozart & Beethoven & Chopin knew what they were doing — and we can learn much from them and stand on their shoulders simply by accessing the biggest library in the history of mankind — the cyber library of the internet.

Here are just a few of the phrases you can search online that will lead you to sites where you can learn music online (I have used piano and guitar as an example, but obviously you can search for anything from singing lessons to drum lessons to harp playing and everything in between):

* piano lessons
* music lessons
* guitar lessons
* guitar chords
* piano chords
* how to form chords
* chord piano
* play guitar
* play piano
* learn guitar
* learn piano
* guitar playing
* piano playing
* learn music online

You will find that if you type “music lessons online” into the Google search box, you will come up with something like eight million results! “Piano lessons” will call up about a million and a half, while “guitar lessons online” will bring up over two million search results.

With this abundance of material online, there is no excuse for anyone who really wants to learn music to not avail themselves of the opportunity, especially when they realize that this is the first time in the history of the world that this riches of knowledge has been available with just the click of a mouse.

Duane Shinn
http://www.articlesbase.com/music-articles/learn-music-fast-online-81525.html

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learn to play piano with Rocket Piano at http://www.rocketpiano.org.uk/

The Various Ways to Learn the Piano

Before you do anything else, it is essential to know that there are two ways of playing a piano. These are:

1.Chords
2.Note reading

It is a good idea to know what you want to do when playing the piano. If you are happy enough playing music other people have written, all you have to do is learn how to read the notes. However, on the other hand, if you are more creative and you would like to write your own inspiring music, an understanding of chords is a must.

If you want to learn to play the piano fairly fast, it may be a wise choice to take a chord based approach. If you learn the chords on the piano, you can learn the sounds they make and, therefore, make your own music. You can always learn note reading afterwards if you choose.

The Pros and Cons of Learning from a Teacher

Finding a qualified and reliable instructor is the key to having successful lessons while learning to play the piano. You could learn at home or at the instructor’s studio. There are advantages to both, so it all depends on where you would feel most comfortable. A lot of people try to find an instructor that is local to where they live.

When you are looking for an instructor, you will need to have a goal in mind. It could be that you want to play for fun and want to learn how to play from music sheets. However, if you want to be more creative, it may be a good idea to look for instructors that will give you chord based lessons.

If you hire a piano instructor expecting to make your own music and they teach you nothing but reading notes, you will obviously not be able to reach your goal. Make sure that you know exactly what you will be achieving. Otherwise, you could be wasting a lot of money on something that you, basically, do not want. Also, it can be a huge waste of money to learn something that you could learn online for a cheaper price, and it is just as effective.

Learning online

As mentioned earlier, learning online is a lot cheaper than piano lessons and it is just as good. It can be a great benefit to learn online as you can do it in your own time and at your own pace without someone breathing down your neck. It can also help to save time, too, so the benefits are quite good when learning online.

The only real disadvantage with learning online is that a person may not have enough motivation to learn properly. Also, with an instructor, if there is something that doesn’t make sense, they can get help. When you are learning online, it may not make much sense and there is no instructor there to ask for help.

You can also learn how to play the piano with piano learning DVDs and computer software designed to help.

General Guidelines to Learning the Piano

Overall playing the piano should be something that is fun and it should certainly not reduce you to tears all of the time. If you take your time learning and have regular practice you will eventually achieve what you want. You should not give up if it is something that you have wanted to do for a long time. There may be times that you get frustrated, but just keep going and you will be able to play the piano just as good as anyone else can, and even write your own music in time.

Kevin Sinclair
http://www.articlesbase.com/article-writing-articles/how-will-you-learn-to-play-the-piano-72208.html

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The note C on your piano is found on many places on the piano keyboard. C is always to the left of two black keys on the keyboard. Let’s find the middle C on the piano.

The middle C is often called C4 as it is in the fourth octave of an ordinary upright piano or grand piano. It is sometimes called the keyhole C as it is at the same horizontal position as the keyhole on some pianos.

In this piano lesson we will call it C4 and the C to the left of this note we will call C3 and so on. We will now continue this piano lesson by learning the song Amazing Grace. Let’s take a look at the lyrics to the first verse:

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now am found
Was blind, but now I see

We will play this song in the key of F-major. You don’t need to know exactly what this mean but it still is in F-major anyway.

We will start with the first line:

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound

Here is the notes to play to this line:

C4 F4 A4 F4 A4 G4 F4 D4 C4

In this piano lesson we will use a type of piano tab that doesn’t indicate the length of the individual notes. You will probably figure out this by yourself as you know the melody!

I feel confident that you are able to do this!

Let’s continue with the next line:

That saved a wretch like me

C4 F4 A4 F4 A4 G4 A4 C5

We will now take a break in this piano lesson and amuse ourselves with three piano chords that you can play with your left hand as you play the melody with your right hand.

The first piano chord is called F-major or just F and it is played with these notes in this song:

F: C3 F3 A3

The next chord is Bb-major. It is played with these notes:

Bb: D3 F3 Bb3

What is the note Bb3?

Well, the ordinary note B3 is immediately to the left of the note C4. Bb3 is the black key immediately to the left of the note B3. Okey?

The third and last chord we will use in this piano lesson is the chord C7. It is played in the following way:

C7: C3 E3 Bb3

If you want to use these chords in the song I recommend that you learn them by heart first. Now we will continue with the piano lesson.

I once was lost, but now am found

A4 C5 A4 F4 A4 G4 F4 D4 C4

We finish this part of the piano lesson by playing the last line of lyrics.

Was blind, but now I see

C4 F4 A4 F4 A4 G4 F4

Our piano lesson on Amazing Grace is completed as far as the piano melody is concerned but if you want to use your left hand to play the chords as you play the right hand melody you’ll find the bonus text here:

I will notate the melody as I did before but at certain places among the notes I will place the piano chords you already have learned after a slash.

When you see a note with a slash and a piano chord after it you are supposed to play the note and the chord at the same time.

Here is the Amazing Grace melody with piano chords:

C4 F4/F A4 F4 A4 G4 F4/Bb D4 C4/F

C4 F4/F A4 F4 A4 G4 A4 C5/C7

A4 C5/F A4 F4 A4 G4 F4/Bb D4 C4/F

C4 F4/F A4 F4 A4/C7 G4 F4/F

That’s it! I recommend learning the Amazing Grace melody with or without chords by heart. You will then have access to it whenever you will find a piano or keyboard to play.

Peter Edvinsson
http://www.articlesbase.com/music-articles/piano-lesson-learn-to-play-amazing-grace-113601.html

Beginner Blues Piano..

One might ask, “What is blues piano?” Well, the answer is simple. It’s a form of music that is played on the piano. It’s also one of the easier styles to learn and once you master this style of music other styles will be easier to learn. I guarantee that by the time you are done reading this you will know a great deal about beginner blues piano.

The first thing you need to learn is 12-bar blues. This a common progression in blues piano playing. In order to play this, most people will use seventh chords. When playing a song it is usually broken down into three sets and each set is broken down into four bars. You should start out playing on the “C” key. If you do this then your fourth key should be “F” and the fifth “G”. For instructional purposes think of “C” as “I”, “F”, as “IV”, and “G” as “V”.

Now, the first set will be played as follows I, I, I, I. The next set will be IV, IV, I, I. And the last set will be played V, IV, I, I. These should be played using your right hand. In order to come up with the correct sound you really should learn to play seventh chords.

Now that you know what your right hand should be doing, it’s time to learn your left hands positioning. Your left hand will follow an 8-note pattern. This pattern goes like this: I, III, V, VI, VIIb, VI, V, III. Now the actual notes that you will be playing with the C chord are: C, E, G, A, Bb, A, G, E. While the F chord notes will be F, A, C, D, Eb, D, C, A. And for the G chord is: G, B, D, E, F, E, D, B.

Before you begin playing look at the notes on the piano and familiarize yourself with their positioning. If you already know the chords and notes of the piano, blues piano lessons will be easy to master. The first thing you should concentrate on learning is the 12-bar blues in key C. Once you have it down in this key then try playing it in others.

If you learn blues piano first it will give you a good foundation that will help you move on to the genre of music that you long to play. Once the foundation of piano playing has been established you will find that it is much easier to learn new styles of piano. Just keep in mind that learning a new style can be challenging, but once you learn them you will be able to play with ease and elegance.

Finding a good teacher to help you can actually be beneficial to your learning of the piano. If you can’t find a good teacher in your area don’t worry because there are always other methods. You can always go online and find some very good information on blues piano lessons or find a DVD to play at home. A lot of time the DVD will come with an informational book to help you out. If you are serious about wanting to learn blues piano and stick to your routine and practice you will soon find that you are playing like a pro.

Just remember that you won’t learn to play overnight. It will take time and patience, but the end result is quite rewarding.

Lauren Paltrow
http://www.articlesbase.com/music-articles/learn-to-play-blues-piano-1191028.html

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Any pianist who wants to learn how to play jazz needs to have charts they can reference frequently. You’ll first learn the basic intervals and how chords are built. You’ll also learn how these chords are used differently in each song you play. Once you have mastered the basic intervals of jazz chords, you’ll then be able to move on to advanced chords such as 9ths, 11ths, 13ths, drop voicings, and blues chords.

An online piano course will teach you all the functions of chords including clusters, polytonal clusters, and substitutions. You’ll be provided with numerous charts that you can use for help during practice or when you need to quickly reference a certain jazz piano chord. When you learn to play these jazz chords, you’ll also learn how to play with more harmony, variety, and passion.

Learning online is a great option when you’re starting out on the piano. You can learn at your own pace without having to plan around the schedule of a piano teacher. Online lessons also challenge you at your own playing level. This means that when it’s time to learn those jazz chords, you master one before moving on to the next.

The piano is a wonderful instrument full of history and culture. If you are interested in learning to play the piano, look into taking some lessons to help you learn the basics of all chords, including the most popular jazz chords. No matter where you decide to play the piano, you’ll be ready to play any song once you have the theory basics solidly behind you. You may find that family and friends are asking you to play more often!

At Hear and Play, located at http://www.hearandplay.com, we offer you the programs you need to learn how to play jazz music on the piano. Our online courses are designed to move you along at your own playing level so that you can easily learn and master each jazz piano chord. Contact us today for more details.

Iprwire Staff Writer
http://www.articlesbase.com/advertising-articles/learn-popular-jazz-piano-chords-online-43628.html