“How long have you been playing the piano?”

People ask me all the time “How long have you been playing the piano?” 

If you’ve been playing the piano for any length of time people probably ask you the same question they ask me, “How long have you been playing  piano?” It depends on what you mean by playing the piano. I started taking lessons when I was 7, but like most kids I didn’t like it. I hated it. It was boring. It was more like forced labor than playing, but when I was 14 and a freshman in high school I was asked by a member of the high school combo if I would fill in in their combo. They had a jazz combo. I guess the senior had graduated, and they had no option except to ask me. They knew I played a little piano, just read music, but I didn’t know anything about chords, or improvisation or anything like that. I said, “I don’t know if I can do that or not.” The sax player, a guy named Mike, he said, “Hey, Duane, just learn the 1, 4 and 5 chords, and you can get by for now.” I didn’t have any idea what that meant, 1, 4, 5, but he showed it to me.

They are just 3 easy chords. If you’re in the key of B flat it’d be the B flat chord, and the E flat chord and the F chord. I think we played Moon Glow, if I recall. We did play Moon Glow. Boy, I haven’t played that for years. I had to learn a few other chords other than 1, 4 and 5. One, 4 and 5 you can play the blues. A lot of songs are based on 1, 4 and 5, the blues pattern, 12-bar blues pattern. The theme was Moon Glow, so I had to learn that as well. I found out that once I started learning chords then a whole new world of music opened to me instead of just being black notes on a printed sheet. Then I understood what was going on in the sheet that I saw. I was able to add things. It happened gradually, but it happened fairly rapidly through high school years. By the time I got out of high school then I majored in music, and progress was pretty rapid.

Playing the piano is so much fun and so satisfying that I hope that no matter how long you’ve been playing the piano that you have learned chords or are in the process of learning chords. When I say chords I mean more than chords. I mean music theory as well. In other words, a lot of people are scared by that term music theory, but it really just means how music works. What are the ins and outs of music? How are melodies formed? How do chords progress, that sort of thing. Learn all you can about music theory and chords, if you want to get good on the piano. That’s my little sermon for today on piano playing. We’ll see you tomorrow with another little tip like this. Bye-bye for now.

I’d like to tell you about a little book that I wrote a few years back. It’s called Piano Chords and Chord Progressions, the Secret Back Door to Exciting Piano Playing. It’s a terrific resource about chords. If you want to know more about chords you ought to latch onto this book. It’s just barely over $10 bucks, $11 bucks, I think it is. It covers all the chords and the chord progressions that I talk about in my videos. It’s not a substitute for videos of course or DVDs, but it’s a great summary and is so inexpensive that it’s well worth your while to get. Here’s a table of content. You can just look down here and see all the things it covers. It starts out with major, minor, diminished, augmented, 6th, 7th and on to 13th chords and suspensions, and alterations and then gets on to chord progressions and so on.

It’s a very thorough book, and it’s got a lot of illustrations. I’ll just toggle through a little bit. There’s the back cover. It’s worth your while to get, so hope you take advantage of that. Thank you. Bye-bye for now.

Click on this link to watch this video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EI-cDoTbvSo&feature=youtu.be

Here’s a great little book on chords and chord progressions on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Piano-Chords-Chord-Progressions-Exciting-ebook/dp/B0076OUGDE/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404158669&sr=1-1&keywords=piano+chords+duane+shinn

***For lots more good stuff on piano playing come on over to my website at https://www.playpiano.com and sign up for our free piano tips – “Exciting Piano Chords & Sizzling Chord Progressions!”

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