Best Piano Shortcuts To Better Piano Playing

Are there really any piano shortcuts that work, or do they just delay learning?

Click on this link to watch this video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MsxMagNKZU&feature=youtu.be

Good morning. This is Duane and I’d like to share with you today seven shortcuts to more creative piano playing. Let me tell you in advance most shortcuts turn out to be long-cuts. In other words, if you try to take a shortcut in learning, it bites you in the end. It really does because if you learn a pattern, for example, and you memorize it but you don’t understand why the pattern moves the way it does, that’s a shortcut. Okay, so you can do the pattern faster but in the long run, it’s going to hurt you because you don’t understand the concept of what the pattern is.

That usually has to do with chord progressions. In other words, if you don’t know why a chord moves like that, then you’re in trouble. You can memorize it but it’s not a shortcut that’s helpful. If you want to learn to improvise and play, arrange songs and so on, there are certain shortcuts that you can take but those shortcuts are really a branch of knowledge, a branch of learning that really come from understanding. Let me just share with you seven shortcuts to playing more creative piano.

First of all, you need to learn chords. I’ll go through these quickly. If you don’t know chords, you need to learn chords. There’s a zillion courses available for you to learn chords. They’re free on the internet. I have courses you can take, and so on, but learn chords. That’s the first shortcut.

Secondly, you need to learn color tones. Color tones is where you add a 6th or a 7th or a dominant 7th or a 9th or a Major 9th or a minor 7th or minor 9th, because that’s when playing gets interested when you add color tones.

Then too you learn chords upside down, learn inversions so you’re not always playing a chord in the same way. Instead of playing a C chord like that, you can play it like that too, can’t you? When you combine that with color tones, then of course you get all kinds of interesting voices like that. You need to learn inversions.

You need to learn to voice a chord too. Voice a chord. That’s a chord that just is stacked up in 3rds, but there’s other ways to do it. You can leave the 3rd out and play it up here, can’t you? If your hand’s big enough, you can play that all at once. Mine’s not so I have to roll the chord but that’s a way to voice a chord. When you include color tones, then of course you can do things like that. Get two hands involved and you’re voicing a chord. In the left hand, you have the color tones. In the right hand, you’ve got the root and the 5th. In the left hand, you have the 3rd and so on. Learn to voice chords as well.

Next, you need to learn how to add runs and fills. In other words, once you know a chord, then you need to know how to run it up the keyboard or break it up in various ways like that. There’s all kinds of ways to break up chords. There’s 2-1 breakups, there’s 3-1 breakups, there’s straddles. You can learn chords and learn how to do runs and so on.

Then you need to learn to improvise. Improvising, that’s a scary word, I know, but it really just means to make up your own melody. If you’re playing “Happy Birthday,” can you make up another melody to that chord? Sure you can, and so on. Learn to make up a new melody to improvise.

Then you need to learn chord symbols. You need to know that that stands for C Maj 7th stands for C Major 7th, and C m7th stands for C minor 7th, and so on, so learn chord symbols. Again, there’s courses galore on that sort of thing that you can learn.

There’s my seven quick tips or shortcuts to more exciting piano playing, but remember they’re not really shortcuts. They’re just ways to understand what you’re doing on the keyboard so that you can get better maybe faster than if you just took traditional piano lessons.

That’s it for today. If you enjoy this kind of thing, come on over to PlayPiano.com and sign up for our whole series. Hope to see you there. Bye-bye for now.

For a Kindle book on Piano Shortcuts, click here: http://www.amazon.com/Shortcuts-More-Exciting-Piano-Playing-ebook/dp/B00QXWYMFS/ref=sr_1_fkmr2_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1442354044&sr=1-2-fkmr2&keywords=kindle+books+to+purchase+-+piano+shortcuts

Click on this link to watch this video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MsxMagNKZU&feature=youtu.be

***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!”

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

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