5-Minute Piano Lessons

The piano world is waking up to CHORDS and their value

Years ago only professional musicians even knew fakebooks (books with just melody lines, lyrics, and chord symbols) existed. The few fakebooks available to such folk were very expensive and highly illegal (as the unknown authors simply ignored copyright and used that new technology of the photocopy machine to produce the things.) The regular pianist or piano student was taught that the supreme virtue was to read every note and every instruction on the piece of printed music. Making it up was, of course, “faking it” and therefore somehow less than capable.

Something has definitely changed since that day. Nowadays, it’s easy to find fakebooks which are printed up nice and legal and, most importantly, legible. Matter of fact, that publishing giant Hal Leonard makes a wonderful series of such legal fakebooks with their huge inventory of songs translated fakebook style. They must see a market in this. The problem is that too many pianists were trained to read every note. Such folks are lost without their notes and chord symbols mean little or nothing to them. Thus, fakebooks are useless to many.

This is a damn shame, since real creativity of the kind practiced for the majority of the classical period is available to anyone who can “play from a fakebook.” Recognizing this, the sheet music publishers have issued several books entitled “How to Play From a Fakebook.” Unfortunately, they hired professional musicians with great playing credits but little to no teaching ability. These authors just don’t know how to present material which can be assimilated by the ordinary hobbyist piano learner, which makes sense as they are players, not teachers.

I decided to write a book to fill the gap and this essay could be seen as nothing but a plug for this book. It isn’t, much, as that book will only be available on this site in 6 weeks or so after we “beta test” it on some online pianists, do the necessary revisions, etc. Meanwhile, I have to suggestions that you readers can apply NOW.

1. Learn your notes.

2. Learn your chord symbols.

Both are necessary for full enjoyment and full literacy at the piano.  I can point you in the direction of an online resource to help you with both note reading and chord recognition:http://musicstudy.com/FreeDn.html For more advanced coverage of  this topic and many others see the ebook “Dan Starr’s Big Book of Adult Piano” available here.

Tags: Chord Symbols, chords, Fakebooks, faking it, Pianist, Pianists, Piano, Piano Student