Duane Shinn (that would be me) has good news for you if you want to play the piano. He (me) has little fat hands & stubby little fingers - not at all suited for playing the piano - more suited to making mud pies or some such. I am also fairly uncoordinated with just average musical ability - certainly not a great piano player. But I've learned a ton about music over the years and people tell me I'm pretty decent at explaining how music works & how to progress more rapidly on the piano. Over the years I have developed about 150 techniques for conquering the piano. Most professional pianists can do these techniques, but very few can explain them in a way people can understand. I specialize in making complex techniques simple. I invite you to watch a few of my free videos and see some of these for yourself before making any decision about taking any of my courses.
Do you know what chords are used most frequently in a song? Of course, any individual song could differ, but if you took all the songs and put them in a computer and had the computer figure out which chords … Continue reading →
If you want to play hymns straight out of the hymnbook as is, go to it. But most hymnbooks are written for 4-part voices — not for piano — and it’s a shame to waste all those 10 fingers of … Continue reading →
This is an article by a busy adult student of mine who is learning to play the piano right along side four of her children: Many folks these days are commitment-challenged and that can hinder one when learning piano. On … Continue reading →
This podcast is part one of a two-part series on the blues scale — what it is, how it is used, and how it is formed. Listen how to include a minor 3rd, diminished 5th, and minor 7th to add … Continue reading →
In addition to the normal notes of a chord, you can add notes called “color tones”. They are called that because they add color and interest to a song. Some of the color tones you can add are 6ths, 7ths, … Continue reading →
Everyone who has ever taken a piano lesson knows what a scale is and has probably had to practice them endlessly. The most common type of music scale is a major scale, but every major scale has a relative minor … Continue reading →
Everything has intervals. Runners measure their success by the interval between their start and finish time. In math, an interval is the distance between two numbers (integers for you math wizzes). Although music is often seen as artsy and not … Continue reading →
How To Turn a Chord Into a “Cascading Waterfall Run” It’s pretty easy to take most any chord (4 note chords are easier than 3 note chords, generally, simply because of the way your hand is constructed) and turn it … Continue reading →
Before we talk about musical form, we have to talk about symmetry. If we were to describe symmetry in one word, we would probably pick balance. Our bodies, for example, have symmetry. We have two eyes, both of which are … Continue reading →
There are literally TONS of things you can do to make your piano songs come to life and be far more interesting. In this short video I demonstate just three of those many ways, including a filler you can use … Continue reading →
