Comment by mmcconnell1618
Comment by mmcconnell1618 5 days ago
Learning to play individual notes from sheet music only helps you learn one song. The breakthrough for me was thinking in musical structure.
- There are 12 keys on the piano just repeated - A scale can start on any of those 12 keys - The "home" key of the scale get labels with a roman numeral one, I - The rest of the keys in the scale get roman numerals ii,iii,IV,V,vi,vii - The I,IV,V are all upper case to represent major chords, the lower case for minor chords - Most pop songs use I,IV,V from a scale. In C-major scale, C, F, G major chords. - You can start on any key on the piano and if you play the same sequence of I, IV, V, you'll get the same song, just transposed into a different key. (the scales are slightly different due to even temperament for advanced ears)
So, learn songs by the chord structure first. It is easier to remember and you'll start to recognize patterns in other songs and unlock them faster.
After playing guitar for 25 years, I quit guitar and got a digital piano.
I practiced enough to learn to play Satie - Gnossienne No. 1 in the right hand and then sold the piano.
My fav music is Chopin, Satie, Ravel, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Ligeti on piano.
The distance between starting from zero on the guitar, to anything ever composed for the guitar is a 100X less than starting from zero on piano to Ligeti.
Learning to solo on electric guitar, play the flute, play the alto sax to me makes so much more sense than trying to learn to play piano or classical guitar as an adult. Classical guitar is hard enough. Piano is just a whole other level to that.
A monophonic instrument is just going to be so much better bang for the buck in terms of time woodshedding. Or a percussion instrument.