Alternative Music Tips And Information

Play Chord Piano Fast With This Easy to Use Technique

Techniques. Some of them are more useful than others. Especially when it comes to piano playing. What you’re about to learn is a special way of forming chords at the keyboard that will have you playing chord piano in no time.

It’s called the open position chord and it’s exactly what its name implies – a chord structure that covers more than 2 octaves of the keyboard and uses both hands right away.

The open position chord (or OPC for short) is not an easy chord position to master at first, but once you get it in your hands, you’ll be well on your way to playing chord piano.

Let’s take a look at how we might go about learning this new technique. Take a look at my free piano lesson “Reflections in Water.” Here we have 4 open position chords in the Key of C major. You’ll notice the play button along with keyboard diagrams. Listen to the OPC and notice the sound. It’s quite modern isn’t it?

Figured Bass in Music

Even many musicians haven’t heard of figured bass. Also called basso continuo, a simple explanation of the term is a short way to note chords on a musical score. If you have never heard of it, it’s most likely because the method isn’t used today. However, it could be considered akin to, or a precursor of, a modern chord chart.

Figured bass originated in the Baroque era of the17th and 18th century. Music has evolved over the centuries and still does today. The development of figured bass came in response to one of these early musical style evolutions. The Baroque music period came on the heels of the Renaissance period. Music from the Renaissance was generally characterized by its reliance upon intervals of thirds. Of course, musical trends evolve over a period of time. For this reason, it’s difficult to pinpoint an exact year when this trend shifted. Usually a new musical era is well under way before anyone realizes there has been a change. Modal characteristics of Renaissance music eventually gave way to more tonal music. The defining characteristic of tonal music is its use of fifths. This is in contrast to the previous intervals of thirds. This led the way for Baroque style music.

Playing The Piano Using Chord Symbols Instead of Being Tied To The Written Sheet Music

Piano improvising and arranging is an art but definitely not a science. It is all based on chords and chord progressions. There aren’t any steadfast rules for creating an arrangement, nothing to dictate the limitless potential of your imagination. Musicians learn to arrange by simply arranging and improvise by improvising—over and over again. It’s a big game of trial and error. But it’s also a scientific method: you keep the experiments that work, and abandon those that don’t work.

That being said, there are a few things that can help you in the knowledge of piano improvization. Don’t think of these as rules, but rather points on a roadmap guiding you through the vast world of arrangement and improvisation possibilities.

The first step, of course, is to learn as much as you can about chords and how they work. Once you get a handle on piano chords and the chord symbols that represent them such as Fm7, G9, D, C7, etc., you can then learn how to break those chords up in various patterns.