Piano Tutorial & Tips

Piano chord charts are used to help you keep track of chord changes. And the cool thing about them is that you can use them for improvisation and composition. Here’s how.

Let’s say you have an 8-bar phrase to play. There are no chord symbols yet so you don’t know what chords you’ll be playing. You just have 8-bars in front of you. The first thing you need to know is the time signature. For our purposes here, we’ll keep it simple and use 3/4 or 4/4 time.

Now let’s select 4/4 time for our 8-bar phrase. Now we know the meter but what about the chords? Here’s where we can jot down chord progressions for either improvisation or composition. For example, you may want to begin something in the Key of F Major. Having made that decision, you know that you have 6 chords to use right away. These are F Major, G minor, A minor. B flat Major, C 7, and D minor.

All that’s left to do now is begin your piece in the Key of F Major. We usually start with the F Major chord itself so you now know that your first bar or 2 will be the F Major chord. But now a problem arises - how do you fill up the rest of the space? By using an 8-bar phrase to begin with, you don’t have to worry about filling up a lot of space and taking forever to complete a section of music.

For instance, let’s suppose we want to chart out an 8-bar phrase for improvisation purposes. We know what chords we will be working with. Now it’s just a matter of fooling around on the piano and playing with the chord choices. You may want to place a chord change at every 2-measures. You can even use 2 chords for the entire 8-bar phrase such as F Major and B flat Major.

The whole point of the piano chord charts is to have a tool that will help you navigate what chords to play and when to change chords.

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We take piano lessons for many different reasons. Many of us wish we can play piano for many different reasons, or started lessons as a child and quit.`

Whatever the original reason, it’s clear that piano lessons are about more than playing music. Whether you’re a child or an adult, the learning that takes place at the piano keyboard will reach into practically every corner of your life. Here are three life lessons that are cultivated at the piano.

Piano Life Lesson #1: Setting and Reaching Goals

How many goals have you set and never reached? From making better food choices, to completing an ever-ending project, to learning a new skill, many times we fall short of achieving our well meaning goals.

When playing the piano, every new song is literally a new goal. When we can see (or hear) the end result it’s easy to be clear about what you want to accomplish. Every time you complete a song, whether it be a beginner’s song,intermediate or advanced, the goal reaching process is being internalized. Your brain does not know how small or big the goal was, it just knows that the goal was r reached, therefore, the habit of setting and reaching goals becomes a natural part of who you become in all other areas of your life.

Piano Life Lesson #2: Paying Attention to Details

You need to coordinate hundreds of small details when you play the piano - things like finger placements, rhythms and the combination of notes on the page. Attention to these details is crucial for success at the piano. You will soon learn that if you leave out a single note, or play the rhythm incorrectly, the song doesn’t sound like it’s supposed to sound. Paying attention to details are just as important in the rest of your life whether you’re planning a presentation for work, working on a project for school, or preparing a meal for the family! I can think of a million things that we all need to pay attention to detail to like cleaning the house, driving a car, or just listening to a friend. I can’t tell you enough how important paying attention to details is to your life. It includes thinking ahead, being thorough, being thoughtful, choosing your friends, developing good communication skills, following directions, and the list can go on forever. Playing piano offers highly intense detail training, without even knowing you are doing it!

Piano Life Lesson #3: Learning from Mistakes

We all make mistakes, and that’s OK! The problem is we are too hard on ourselves and we as human beings think it’s not ok. Anyone who plays piano can tell you that there are a lot of mistakes on the road to completing a song! The more mistakes you make, the more you will come to realize that you can recover from them. The fear of making a mistake does not have to stop you from trying. Making your own mistakes also helps you feel more in tune with others around you, whether that’s at a recital, at work, school, or at home! None of us have to be perfect!

Piano lessons teach us more than just music. Goal-setting, perseverance, attention to detail, expressing our talents and accepting mistakes are just a few of the endless life lessons that can be found on a keyboard.

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