Play Piano Today With Dr. J

  Play Piano Time Tradition Article  11

  Time Article #11

 

Not Much Time?  Learn to Play the Piano the Pentatonic Way

 

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. 

 

Technical facility is developed first in this method.  Often with adult beginners the technical aspect of playing the piano is the most frustrating.  As an adult, you know the melodies and the sounds you want to create and getting the fingers to move is the challenging part.  Yes, you could play scales and exercises to develop technique, but why not play actual melodies with accompaniments to develop technique?  The pentatonic method is totally based on the playing of recognizable melodies from the beginning.

 

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.

 

Creating accompaniment patterns in the pentatonic scale is a cinch.  Why?  Because when there are only five notes to choose from and all those five notes sound pleasing together in any combination, the new pianist is free to express themselves creatively.  In the traditional piano methods, strict harmonic formulas must be understood and adhered to before the beginner or more advanced student is at liberty to be inventive. In very little time, the imaginative beginner is playing real music, recognizable melodies with artistic accompaniments.

 

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.  The pentatonic method encourages rapid success.  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 method today to play songs on the piano.