Black Keys Matter ℠

Move over Beatles fans the Taylor Swift Collective now dominate music history

2021-09-15T07:49:00.001-07:00

https://globalpolitics.quora.com/If-Taylor-Swift-held-a-streamed-event-to-rescue-Aunt-Jemima-and-Uncle-Ben-from-their-cancel-culture-death-sentences-woul

That question posted by me came after my recent trouncing by Snowy Fox on my responses on this Music Melody poser.

https://musicmelody.quora.com/Who-has-better-music-Taylor-Swift-or-The-Beatles-1?comment_id=220730421&comment_type=2&__filter__=all&__nsrc__=notif_page&__sncid__=18828506659&__snid3__=26203164150

The Wonder in Chord Method Wanders

2019-10-01T04:54:00.000-07:00

There is absolutely no doubt that Chord Methods are the simplest, fastest and easiest way to learn to play piano. Chord folks play popular tunes utilizing 'fake' books and 'lead' sheets. {'lead' rhymes with freed.}

Chord Method Instructors as a whole can rightfully boast that they have the lowest student failure rates as well as widely available, low-to-no cost printed music. All of which makes the Play-by-Chord category the most successful of Piano Methods. Combining the shortest learning curve with the lowest cost and greatest availability.

However, on average, Piano Chord Methods still produce more failures than successes among their students because all such methods are not even close to created equal.

The worst among the PCM, dragging the whole category down with their high student failure rates, are the 'Chord-yu' folks. Such PCM instructors chord-construction-you into a coma with their talk of 'intervals', scale 'degrees' and so on. All of that just to get you started on your way to finding the 'root spelling' of any given chord. That initial spelling being nothing more than the set of 3 out of the possible 12 piano keys involved in actually playing the chord.

The problem within the mathematics of any such Chord-yu teaching approach is that the Chord Symbols involved become abstract algebra equations in need of solving. Making matters even worse for students is the type of calculation used in solving those Chord Equations. It's an arcane, highly complex form of arithmetic where 2 + 2 = 3.

It's that behind-the-scenes mathematical complexity that gave rise to the Chord-do folks. They do the obvious, cheating their way around the algebra needed to solve the Chord Equations. The Chord-do instructors teach their students to simply look up the root spelling via a chord book, chord calculator or online.

Scott "The Piano Guy' Houston of PBS fame is an example of a Chord-do instructor. His "Play Piano in a Flash" books are both popular and successful. However, as good as Houston is as a Chord-do instructor, he has not yet learned the ways of his unsurpassed competition. The sheet music illiterates best described as the 'Kordy'.

Where the Chord-yu and the Chord-do both struggle their way around the algebra problem with a left-to-right, uphill keyboard approach to learning chords, the Kordy do the opposite. In the process expertly converting the digits on their hands into virtual Chord Calculators.

A mathematically stunning accomplishment that works like having a "Home Row" in typing on a computer keyboard or old manual typewriter.

If the Kordy were into physics instead of piano they'd be starting their students out with Quantum Mechanics. Getting their young totally up to light-speed on the subject in well under an hour.

They do it by seeing things, more like perceiving things, as they truly are. Focusing on only what they need to get the piano playing job done while ignoring the unimportant. As the following set of jpeg diagrams illustrates:

At the top, the first diagram illustrates how Lead Sheet Notation works. Chords are placed above the staff of 5 lines. The Melody placed within the region of the staff of lines. With the song Lyrics placed below the staff of lines. Note the 6 flats in the key signature in the example. That many flats in the key signature generally scares students off from even attempting to play any tune that starts that way.

The next three diagrams are the beginning of Silent Night written in 3 different key signatures, with the middle diagram an example of the totally scary start with the 6 flats.

At the bottom is the Kordy way of looking at that version of the tune. Both the melody and the scary flats of the key signature disappear because they don't matter when you're only planning on playing the chords. Or in this case the chord since there's only one chord in use at the start of the tune, the G Flat major chord. A chord with only 3 piano keys in it.

It's the simplicity of Lead Sheet notation that draws so many students and professionals to playing by chord and using fake books. However it's the Kordy alone who simplify things even more, combining simplicity with the greatest power.

The Piano and its Trinities

2019-09-15T05:38:00.002-07:00

The piano isn't in the string instrument family as so many incorrectly assume. It's an instrument of percussion in the same family as the drum.

Some of the biggest failings of the piano's 3 Classic Methods of instruction, which have been in existence for generations, is their reliance on string-instrument-based teaching methods. Chord Methods, Learn-by-Ear Methods and Sheet Music Methods all suffer from this same malady. The major contributing factor in the high failure rates of all Classic Piano Methods.

The sad fact is the largest group of 'graduates' of any Classic Method is the failure group. With each classification of piano method gaining its limited success by restricting the overall abilities of their student success stories.

The gist of it all being that Chord Method folks teach their students to NOT play Classical music or to NOT play precise arrangements. Learn-by-Ear Methods teach their students to NOT play anything too complex. With the worst of the worst being the Sheet Music Method folks who teach the overwhelming majority of their incoming students to not play anything at all, and take up Golf or Guitar instead.

The most common statement made by former students from the Sheet Music fleet is, "I've had years of piano lessons and I can't play a thing."

Been there, done that.

The piano is a simple point and click percussion instrument dominated by trinities. An Acoustic Piano has 3 foot pedals. Inside the wooden box of a grand, baby grand or upright the rule of thumb is that a felted hammer whacks a 'choir' of 3 strings. And for acoustics, digital pianos and electronic keyboards there are 3 types of piano keys that repeat across the keyboard in a 12-key pattern.

That 12-key repeating pattern consisting of 2 black keys grouped in a duo, 3 black keys grouped in a trio nestled among 7 white keys.

That duo, trio, duo, trio pattern of the black keys works as the piano's GPS system. Allowing the player to navigate across the keyboard by sight, or by touch. Since the black keys rise like hills above a flat, white plain.

Note how the black duos in the diagram are highlighted by a little white square and how that makes those duos easy to spot from the trios. That's a simple way to increase a student's playing accuracy. Since the most common playing error is striking a black duo key instead of the proper black trio key or vice versa.

Actually marking your black duo keys with a little square of white, self-stick address label or tape as shown in the diagram greatly increases your playing accuracy. Your fingers rarely touch the keys that far into the keyboard so that error-reducing white square can last for years.

Been there, done that as well. Consider that black duo key marking system your keyboard tip of the week.

As for the piano trinities the oddest trinity of all is the one I've only recently discovered, hidden within the mathematics. That discovery coming only weeks before this year's September 7th Michael J. Drinkwater Tournament held at the New England Country Club.

It turns out that Golf, Mini-golf and playing piano are all games involving instruments of percussion. Where the piano is in the role of micro-golf with its set of 88 little clubs that we call hammers.

So until next time stay tuned...

A Grand Piano Does Not Bend

2016-10-22T12:15:00.005-07:00

One of the great piano myths promoted by both ‘experts’ and novices is that the flats or sharps are the black keys and less often... a white key.

Truth be told the evolutionary design of the piano’s construction and its tuning eliminated the dreaded flatting and sharping of the stringed instruments. Simply put... by design, a Grand Piano has absolutely NO flats and NO sharps. It cannot produce the sound of flatting or sharping any given tone. A skilled player FAKES playing flats and sharps ‘cuz they ain’t there in the piano.

The Piano isn’t even in the stringed instrument family... it’s a percussion instrument in the musical family of drums and xylophones. It does have strings but the strings get whacked by little hammers to set the strings vibrating, thus producing the sounds. Once a key’s hammer whacks its set of strings there is nothing a player can do with the keys to change the pitch produced by those strings. Holding down the key while wiggling your finger or wrist back and forth doesn’t produce a violin-like vibrato.

Technically speaking, flat and sharp are VERBS that have erroneously been used as incorrect nouns with the piano. And the Math and Science team hasn’t dealt with the problem yet.

Using modern music terms more precisely, to ‘flat’ a tone is to produce a downward ‘bend’ in pitch. ‘Sharp’ is an upward bend in pitch. A violin vibrato is a rapid up and down bend in pitch. Plucking a string on a violin, cello or fretless guitar and sliding your finger holding the string way up or down the neck of the instrument produces a more extensive ‘bend’ of pitch.

The massive cast iron frame in a Grand Piano or other acoustic piano is specifically designed to STOP any bending of pitch in its tracks. You can’t ‘bend’ an acoustic piano, no flat or sharp is allowed for in the design or the standard tuning.

Now all that matters because you’re wasting valuable time and effort learning with any piano method or music notation that includes the playing of flats and sharps on an instrument that has none at all. Black Keys Matter because a Grand Piano cannot ‘bend’ any pitch.

Giving the black keys their own names frees the player from the classical music ideas that have nothing to do with the playing the piano.