I discovered in all my years of teaching that what people really want to do from the first time they sit down at a piano is play a song. Right now, today.
Most people in our busy world don't have the time for traditional weekly lessons, traditional lessons in which scales and exercises come first and the actual playing of a song might take weeks or months. They want the thrill of success in hearing themselves play songs immediately. They want to amaze their friends with their playing prowess. They are looking for a way to quickly master songs and then deal with the how and why of playing later.
So, with those piano players in mind, the rote pentantoic method was created. This method is a really enjoyable and successful way to do just what many people want to do and that is to play a song on the piano today. The pentatonic method would allow that, but the challenge remained of how to get the information to would be piano players quickly and efficiently.
Once I became aware of just how many people want to play the piano without the encumbrances of a teacher and weekly scheduled lesson times, I looked for a solution for those students. I developed the concept of downloadable piano tutorials.
With these tutorials, the student decides when to try the ideas, and better yet, these tutorials can be viewed right in the comfort of the student's home using their own keyboard or piano. Never again does a person have to make sure to block out every Thursday to get to the studio of a piano teacher halfway across town and back.
These pentatonic method tutorials start exactly where would be pianists want to start with playing songs. They do not start with the, this is a G on the treble clef, stuff. The idea is to play the piano today. Not tomorrow or next week. Today.
Downloadable tutorials give the would be pianist all the information and skills needed to wow their friends and amaze themselves. The tutorials let the beginner hear how awesome your song will sound and show the student just how to get these mind blowing skills.
The tutorials can be reviewed time and again until the player is You Tube ready. Besides that, learning to play songs on the piano with the rote pentatonic method really is fabulously fun. So start playing the piano using the pentatonic method and play songs on the piano.
There are many people who spend hundreds and thousands of dollars trying to learn the piano, but never actually PLAY the piano! These same people waste countless hours traveling to and from private lessons and practicing boring drills and exercises but never really PLAYING music.
You can take private lessons for $75-$100/lesson or buy courses that cost hundreds of dollars and still end up not PLAYING the piano.
There are so many frustrated "wanna-be" pianists in the world today who have spent loads of money on private teachers, study courses, and instruments. But, there is a more economical way to experience the joy of creating music on the piano.
Downloadable piano tutorials provide the same information an expensive teacher or a set of theory, technique and repertoire books. Some mini-courses with a half-dozen or more downloadable tutorials for piano study do not cost as much as just one private traditional lesson.
Downloadable piano tutorials are also a way to learn to play the piano at your own pace. The information is on your computer waiting for you to explore. The teacher is always right in your home providing playing examples and guiding you through the more intricate technical aspects of playing the piano. You can watch the online videos once, twice, a dozen times, or whenever a clarification is needed on a song you are learning to play on the piano.
Why would an adult decide to learn to play the piano? To start something totally new, something never tried before, something incredibly challenging? Probably for one of three reasons: it is a life-long dream and something they know they should not have given up as a child, it is something they feel they could do in their free time to relax and relieve stress, or they want to be the life of the party or the one of their group playing a song on the piano on YouTube.
The pentatonic system of learning the piano helps an adult fulfill their dream far more quickly than John Thompson ever could. With this system the beginning pianist is presented with the five black keys on the piano and with those five notes can create some beautiful music in a day. Technical motor skill development will start with the first lesson with not only the right hand, but with both hands. The dream of playing songs on the piano will be realized! The practice will be enjoyable, the memory of being “forced” to play will dim and the adult will fondly remember their piano experiences of the past with joy and will look to their piano playing future with pride.
Playing the piano is a multi-sensory experience. It involves three of the senses – tactile, visual and aural. To really create music, a pianist must engage each of those senses to be successful. And, to learn to play the piano, it is equally as important to engage all the senses from the first day of study.
Learning to play the piano using the pentatonic scale is a method of study that appeals especially to adult learners. Why? Because it is immediately gratifying and because success comes easily through a multi-sensory learning style approach.
The pentatonic method works best with an adult who is ready to play, is ready to discover how to create songs and is ready to develop technique to play those songs quickly. The pentatonic method uses only five notes – in fact these keys are visually very easy to find as they are the five black keys on a piano. Tactilely, the hands easily cover all five of the keys in a relaxed natural position. And, best of all when simply creating music by just letting the fingers “wander” over the keys, everything sounds right. There are no “clinkers” – just beautiful sounds – pleasing especially to that person who is attuned to their aural sense. This is the perfect method for the adult learner – for the learner who wants and needs to be successful quickly – who wants to make music now – and who wants to play songs on the piano.
What does a person need to become a pianist? A piano and a desire to play? Or is there more to it than that?
Definitely a keyboard instrument is a necessity. Having an instrument on which to develop your skills and share your music is a must if a person is to become a pianist.
Having a method to study and a teacher to guide you are also important.
However, most everything else that allows a person to become a pianist is intrinsic. These are values that come from inside a person. We will say that the first intrinsic value, the innate desire is there to become a pianist, but what else is necessary?
Ability
Attention to detail
Drive
Effort
Goal Orientation
Passion
Patience
Perseverance
Time
Understanding
To understand what it takes to become a pianist a person must take the journey in his or her own way, using his or her own abilities, fulfilling his or her own dreams, passions and desires with effort, patience and perseverance in his or her own time.
Ready to give it a try? Ready to learn to play the piano? Try Play Piano Today with Dr. J. and play piano.
Adults who decide on their own to do something will stay with it until they reach the level they are seeking. It's not crucial that you reach the farthest level that someone else decides you should aspire to. Everyone has his or her own interest level, dream or goal.
Some adults want to sit down and play the same song over and over and just have fun with it. Hey, that's great. Others want to treat learning to play the piano as a challenge and keep going up the ladder progressing from one piece to another. Well that's fine too.
What's important is that if you want to sit down and play a few songs over every day after work, that's just what you should do. Don’t frustrate yourself by playing what you think you should according to what someone else plans for you. That's when people tend to give up.
Contrary to every other time you have heard this cliché laying out goals when you start might not be right in the beginning. The pentatonic method helps you just start and get a feeling of what it is like to play the piano. Once you are playing then you will start to get a feeling of what level you want to play, what it is you want to play and whether you want to go on further or not. When you take this approach then the answer is yes,absolutely you will stay with it.
Learning to play the piano using the pentatonic method makes it possible to start making music right away. You then have time to decide if you want to just keep playing piano songs or later go into theory, playing by ear, playing hymns for your church, making YouTube videos of your playing, entertain your family and friends, or start playing classical repertoire. Maybe you will event to decide to get a teacher to help you progress even further.
So start the pentatonic way and plan to stay with it because today you are going to learn to play songs on the piano.
There are all kinds of reasons to play piano but really, the bottom line is you are going to be making music. Make music and you can get all the side benefits like reducing stress, adding dendrites to you physical brain (that's a good thing), relaxing, learning new things, entertaining friends. However,
the bottom line is you are playing the piano to make music.
Here is a very important point. This made it very clear to me.
It's like the computer used to be. It was an object that you fought and wrestled with and had to learn. It was this big old object in front of you that you had to conquer. If only you could learn how to operate the doggone thing…
It was so important, which brand you got and how many MBs, Caches, ROMs yadda yadda yadda. Now the brand and many of the details are not that important because they are all very similar to each other.
The key is this: Computers have gone from being a large object in front of you to a way for you to get around the world in nanoseconds.
You learned how to use it, especially on the web, and soon you forgot the "Computer" was there and you simply use it as a tool to find information, go travelling, play games, learn, sight see and buy things you can't get around the corner. Now you can even use it anywhere in the world to learn to play the piano.
Or it's like a car when we were teenagers. The car itself was the important thing. Now we use it for transportation - to get somewhere.
You want to make music. To do it you can use a piano. We make it easy for you to use the piano to make the music.
We thought of listing all kinds of reasons for you to play the piano today. However, there is one or several reasons why you are interested in playing, these reasons only matter to you. We don't try to guess what those reasons are. However, those reasons, your reasons, are exactly why you should make the piano your tool of choice to make music. So, go for it! Decide to learn to play the piano!
Learning to play the piano the pentatonic way -
involves only the playing of five different notes
uses many recognizable and favorite melodies
allows a beginner to develop technique first
encourages the use of both hands in melody and accompaniment relationship
is immediately satisfying
encourages creativity and exploration of the keyboard
develops the ear
sounds great from the beginning
allows a person to make music quickly
encourages exploration of the world of music
Why learn to play the piano the pentatonic way?
Why not use the pentatonic way to play the piano?
Sometimes, there seems to be a huge wall of questions that can keep us from starting something new, something that seems overwhelming to us. Something like, oh…starting piano. The good news is, it's not overwhelming, better said, it doesn't have to be.
Can I do it?
Can I play piano? Can I practice? Can I learn? Can I start something new at this age? Can I concentrate? Can I become a concert pianist? Can I just play my favorite songs?
Just a sidebar here, A man named John Schaum didn't start playing Piano until he was 35 and ended up writing an entire piano music course that has been used by piano teachers for decades and yes he played concerts. Self taught.
Concerning piano, you will experience in "Play Piano Today With Dr. J" the answer to the question, "Can I do it?" is yes I can! We make it almost fool proof. Okay, fine, there probably is someone out there that would try hard to prove they couldn't do it. However, we are talking about normal every day people like you and me.
Yes, you can and we help you finger by finger, day by day to know how to do it. We help you play piano-songs today. We have even worked with people that were missing fingers.
When you break a task down into manageable steps there is almost nothing you can't do. Breaking it down into manageable, understandable, EASY tasks is our job, and frankly, our expertise.
Yes, you CAN do it! You CAN learn to play the piano.
Time? Who has time? Who has the time needed to learn to play the piano? Doesn't that take hours and hours a week and daily practice to get good enough to play songs on the piano?
Well, the best you can hope for is to get time on your own terms. You can learn about anything, including playing songs on the piano, if you can do it on your own time schedule and at your own speed.
When time is important to you and you want success at playing the piano in a relatively short amount of time, the pentatonic method is the way to go. This method, because of the ease in which it encourages early playing of songs with accompaniments is very gratifying to a person with limited amounts of time.
Unlike other traditional methods of learning the piano, the pentatonic method starts with the playing of songs instead of with note naming, rhythm drills, and scale playing. The novice pianist can be playing recognizable melodies with accompaniments much more quickly than the novice pianist who starts learning too play the piano in the traditional way.
Because the pentatonic method is based on only five notes that correspond to the black keys on the piano, technical facility is developed more quickly. Proponents of the method also encourage practice away from a keyboard suggesting that pentatonic melody patterns be played on your desk, tabletop or even the steering wheel when stuck in traffic. Everyone has time for that type of practice.
So if you are one of millions of people who have a dream to play the piano but do not think you have the time to learn, look no further than the pentatonic method. Become the master of a repertoire of wonderfully played pentatonic melodies with accompaniments without spending hundreds of hours and months or years of time. Start making your dream a reality and use the pentatonic way today to play songs on the piano.
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