Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum SImple Trick for a Nice Sound

I have a friend who just got a piano, and she's an absolute beginner.

Years ago I saw a YouTube video on a clever technique for beginners for getting a nice sound from the piano. It was something like playing some kind of chord, and then almost any white note would work. It was clever, and gave a kind of new age sound. Definitely fun.

I think my friend would enjoy that (she is planning to take lessons).

Anyone know that video or something similar??

Thanks,

I do something like that with my students. I start with all black keys, cause it makes a pentatonic scale. If you play an Eb minor chord, it's an Eb minor pentatonic scale. If you play an F# major chord, it's an F# major pentatonic (same 5 notes). If you want to play all white keys, a C chord will work, but since there are 7 white keys (as opposed to only 5 black keys), not all notes will sound as good against that chord.

I have a YouTube play-along video where you can play any black key with a background track. This is what I do at the first lesson with any student, regardless of age, experience, skill, etc. Making up your own music and exploring the different sounds is an important part of learning to play, IMO. Here's the link if your friend wants to play around a little.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGZXM2fJUAY

I went through a nice little book (80 some pages) called "Instant noodles for piano" by James Dering. It is a great introduction to learning improvisation. His book clearly explains in very few pages (with audio files you can download and listen to also) how to achieve that "clever technique" you talk about. Part 1 of the book is for strict beginners and may be helpful to your friend also. There's lots of music notation in the book but you can do all the simpler exercises without music reading skills because what to do in order to get a good result is textually explained.

Here's the website: http://www.betterpiano.com/ (free, no gimmicks website)

John

Is this the kind of thing you mean?

http://youtu.be/RwAAi6w5YaU

Thought it'd be sevenths- there's a guy called Edward Weiss who does similar.

Thanks very much for posting the link- downloaded this- useful to me!

Thanks guys.

Yes, the Instant Noodle has the kind of thing I was looking for, and I emailed the link.

That free download is very nice, and has some fun ideas, and a good way of introducing someone to the jazz sound.