Hi All!

In this post I'll be talking about an unconventional approach that can help you both better understand music and learn it in a faster and more convenient way, by challenging a 'piano-learning status quo': Using the 'single note'-approach as 'the basics' and first step in learning.

Could a 'chords-as-a-first-step'-approach to learning music, only going to the next step: 'extracting' single notes from chords, AFTER learning and knowing your chords, very well be the best way to go, when wanting to learn how to play pop-piano?
Most definitely.

Strange? Sounds a little "run before you can walk"-like? Read on and you might just change your mind (and learn some very cool stuff to play with it).

To see the methods as explained in this post in action (I highly recommend reading the whole post first), I invite you to watch the tutorial below that will teach you the intro of the song 'Hall of Fame' by the popular band 'The Script'.

It's a perfect demonstration of 'single note - chord relationships' and the possibilities for creating an impressive piano piece 'derived' from chords and using patterns + remembering consecutive single notes by looking at them as chord notes.

 

Hall of Fame

 

 

Learning; the logical way.

For a proper introduction, I'm gonna 'go back in time' a little.
Back to when you were still in your diapers, drooling on everything that entered your little baby-crib at age….......     - six months. Give or take.
So just a little while back. 😉

 

Auditive and communicative development.
-How we learn to 'play' with words (and can imitate the same process for learning how to play music)-

 

First you listen.

Slowly you start to recognise, 'learning' sounds.

Then you imitate. You learn to use the 'outline', the structures, of words. Being able to produce, to speak, to 'play', way before 'fully' understanding. For 'fully' understanding, you'd have to know what these 'words' are made of: 'letters' and maybe even how to use them to write.
You might also have to know a few synonyms and how (or even 'why') sentences are built the way they are, right? You're not exactly an expert yet.

Understanding 'fully' here, appears to be far from necessary to be able to 'use', to 'play', to babble.

At first, playing with words might be a bit shaky of course, saying 'daahaaa' in stead of 'daddy' or even 'father', but you manage. You play.

As you imitate, you learn, you listen, learn some more and improve as you do more. More and more.

Better and better, and as practice again proves to make perfect, you even start to actually talk.

 

It's only after you know how to speak pretty decent, somewhere around age four, that you first get to know about letters, the sub-partials or 'building blocks' of those words.

A seemingly more 'basic' variable then the actual words they together form, one might think.

 

Isn't it strange that we do not start the learning process of 'how to speak' at this more basic variable of 'letters'?

Isn't learning by imitating sounds, using words before letters and thus: first learning to play with 'outlines' before going deeper into the level of their building blocks, an irrational, illogical way of learning?

Well, it seems to work pretty fine for … every one of us.

 

So if this method works so well for learning something as auditive as 'speaking', could we maybe simulate this process to achieve the same for another very auditive concept like, say... music?
Well yes ma'am. (As mentioned, guitarists already figured this out quite some time ago):

 

Start with learning -and keep approaching- music through chords and harmonies.

 

• Learn chords that are the 'outlines' for playing music. Daaddaaa.

 

• Add (basic) patterns, imitate, listen and learn how to actually play, to 'babble', to 'talk'.

 

• Then learn to use chords in as many different ways you can (inversions, different voicings etc.), combine different patterns and start building real sentences.

 

• Make them a little more difficult (learn and add some chord extensions, sus4, 7's etc.) and learn to replace words like 'dada' with 'father'.

 

• Break 'em up, learn how to use different combinations of the above variables, DO, practice and start to actually 'play'. 'Speak', sound good, and actually be understood.

 

Breaking chords up using patterns is your first step in going into deeper levels, as you'll see that, like letters that sound consecutively, (and not at the same time) yet still form a word, also consecutive notes, still actually form a chord.

Looking at 'consecutive' (played after each other in stead of at the same time) notes this way -> which CHORD they actually form together, will ENORMOUSLY simplify memorising songs and all of your piano parts. (also see the post 'Using Chords to see and simplify note relations').

This also works vice versa: creating your own, single-note melody-line-piano parts with notes derived from the harmony; from chords combined with patterns.

See all of this in action and learn to play with it? Take a look at the tutorial for 'Hall of Fame' and while learning, keep the above story in the back of your mind.

I guarantee that (if you know your chords) it'll both speed- and ease-up the learning process drastically! (if you don't know your chords, you might want to consider taking our course).

 

In the comments below, please tell me a song that you know, that has a 'single-notes' piano-part or -riff and try to tell us what 'relation' these single notes have to the harmony (chord) at the time they are being played (is it a root? a '5th'? a '7'?). AND what chord is formed by a couple of those consecutive notes?

This is a really good exercise for getting to know musical, harmony-structures and chords.

 

Have fun playing, and see ya next time!

 

Cheers, Coen.