Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner - Non Classical If you plan to play pop?

I started Piano about 4 years ago with the desire to play popular music as well. Not into classical music.

I do have musical background so a full understanding of music, timing, etc, but wasn't too good at reading as most of the instruments I learned utilized Tab.
I started with a free website devoted to learning just that. Piano-play-it.com. Accompany section.

Starts with simple chords, adds musical phrases and gets more challenging.

The best part, they use common music! Beatles, Marley, etc to get you going. No classical, but classics; My way, etc..

I am not affiliated with the website, I just like free, but found it the best for starting out for my target music.

I then added lots of songbooks and picked songs I wanted to play/learn. Those were my exercises, my training.

Desperado was an early choice. I really didn't know all the stuff I was playing, now I do, but I learned it anyway. I believe in learning what you need, when you need it. Otherwise, it appears pretty useless. If you don't have a piece to use it, what's the point?

Anyway, check my site at bottom, for some examples of pieces I learned, Years 1 and 2 are noted.

Not too many of 'us' on this forum.

Best of luck!

Cheers

My point exactly Nahum. Brilliant!

That video is far from "have your teacher teach you canon" I guarantee that is not even close to what we would play if I asked her. Not that fact that it's very challenging but ask my current teacher to teach canon would just be traditional arrangment. Maybe I misunderstood your advice?

I'm sure I could have been more clear.

In it's classical written form Canon is a basic chord progression played with an arpeggio in the left hand. It is such a basic progression that it is readily adaptable to modern pop music. In the beginning the melody is super simple, and grows increasingly complex as the piece progresses. The tools Pachelbel uses to progress the melody are superbly applicable to learning basic improv over a chord progression in any genre. Sure the video is a quantum leap using jazz voicings and rhythms, but you don't need to go there until you're ready, and this sets you on that path. If you learn it as it is written first, you can quickly learn to modify it and play it how you see fit - say with a modern beat, or change the chord voicings, or left hand pattern. Use what you learn from the melody to practice improv on your own. Learn music theory at the same time. Apply it to Canon's chord progression and melody, compare that to modern pop/rock, and the similarities are striking. Of course Canon is lilting and serene, but that's just because that's how Pachelbel wrote it, and most people play it. But as soon as you tell yourself you will not be so confined, you can play it how you want as the video demonstrates.

The next step would be start picking up lead sheets to some of your favorite (and simple at first) pop/rock songs and again apply what you have learned. Or come up with your own chord progression, maybe a simplified version of Canon for starters and improv over that. Sure it might sound terrible at first, but you will get better if you keep at it.

I guess my real point, to answer one of your original questions is, yes, what you are learning (or can learn) from your classical teacher will build a foundation to support your goals, if you approach it that way. It worked for Elton and Freddy.

I see what you mean! This is really helpful and I appreciate the detailed answer. I was just confused because I thought you meant just have my teacher teach me Canon I thought you meant as is but trying to modify it would be fun. By modify, do you mean play more up beat, different keys?


I don't think she cares much for pop and I'm so burnt out on only doing things she assigns. I'd like a teacher than can teach with more materials and not just have me only play their assigned stuff. I understand there's going to be important things to learn that will be not so fun but when it's all we do I rather try out a pop/another teacher for a bit. Do you think just sticking with classical approach would make me better at pop music overall?

Thanks , Oasismfg !


IMO just the use of jazz chords proved to be unfortunate for the uniformity of the style. Two years later, I started listening to Keith Jarrett, and took from him the style of gospel playing, which would be much better here. Of course, there were no tutorials on the topic at the time ; I got out at the expense of baggage of knowledge in a country style.

Imagine that in Mark Harrison's book, some of the examples of pop ballads are based exactly on Pachelbel's harmonic pattern with some additions; and the bass line, strumming chords and melodic lines based on them are just what you need and for sure completely within your technique.
A separate topic: how to learn more complex pop textures like this



Lots of black dots!

There are a number of difficulties here:
1. Each hand plays a completely different part at a different rhythm.
2. A lot of syncopation , both hands rarely meet on a joint attack;
3.The rhythm on every fourth differs from the rhythm in neighboring fourths ;
4. The first half of each bar is different from the second half .

3. and 4. are the main problem in such patterns.

The methods for studying such patterns are based on a psychological phenomenon that is an axiom, which I have never heard of from my teachers:
If the subsequent rhythmic pattern differs from the previous one, then a fresh recollection of the first creates a tendency to distort the second.

Therefore, the very beginning of work requires fragmentation into half bars, and in this case even into every fourth, while canceling (temporarily) all syncopations and ties.
In this way, mini-patterns are created, each of which is then repeated many times, turning them into mini-riffs. The whole business becomes much easier. The next stage: linking the patterns into a long chain, and at the end the syncopations and ties return. If you study the rhythmic side with the verbalization method that I always suggest, even more time on piano will be saved.

It sounds to me like you've made up your mind it's time to move on from what your teacher can offer, and that's fine. Yes, sticking with classical can make you better - until you've had enough of it and then it won't do a thing for you. Here's the thing about pop/rock, there are no rules. You can do what you want. You can take Fur Elise and turn it boogie-woogie if you want. Yes, you can change the beat, and the key. That's just the beginning, as Nahum pointed out above. But knowing what you can do means learning how to use the tools. Since you already have some classical experience, here is something you can do to build on what you already know - learn theory, apply it to the music you already know how to play, and compare that to modern music. Take the sheet music to something you know, and mark it up with a pencil just like a lead sheet. Write out the chords above the staff just like you see in fake books. It's liberating.

Here is something that will give you a ton of ways to change up what you already know: How to play piano with a fake book
This guy has a book on 100 Left Hand Patterns Every Piano Player Should Know to walk you through it.

Yes, this book can help a beginner know what to play in the left hand. But the video reveals an absolutely startling fact: if you exclude the left hand in the blues, boogie-woogie and walking bass, then the texture of the ballads remains, which should have been familiar to classical pianists from Chopin's music, and not necessarily to the students. The author of the book does not associate anything with Chopin at all, he gives only patterns; and interested classical educators eat it. This means that they played Chopin all their lives, but did not understand his principles of constructing accompaniment in the left hand!

Also I wasn't trying to sound like Canon wouldn't work for this... I was just saying my classical teacher would not offer that approach with it.

On the separate topc, thanks for detailed explanation. I will have to digest that one a bit, like anything new, I'm thinking how can I even do that? Then soon enough I'll be able to. I have not got to that point in the book I'm progressing slowly through the book from start. Learning the modal scales, pentatonic, chords, etc. all the review/theory in chapter one and I'm digging into making sure I understand why and how, etc. versus just glancing over. Such as, I prefer to be able to have someone say build be all modes starting on F# and then I know how. I'm really enjoying this part.

That's exactly what I want to learn, the tools to build on that. learn to play from ear, leads, tab, and improvise when I have a sheet, etc. I do think I can still gain a lot by continuing with my technique focus I learned, such as developing speed, dexterity, finger strength, etc.

I wasn't suggesting your teacher would approach Canon this way, you would do that on own once you get it under your fingers. Pachelbel just gives you a tool bag to move forward with on your own. But so do Beethoven and Mozart, etc. to varying degrees.

To play from lead sheets you need an extensive chord vocabulary, and understand how to use inversions of those chords for proper voice leading. Your classical experience has already exposed you to these ideas, but you may not have realized it if you have not also been exposed to the theory behind it. That makes all the difference.

Back when I was a beginner decades ago, one of my teachers gave me these exercises. I had no idea at the time how they would help support my learning to play from lead sheets, but when I did get into it I could see the value. She had me learn all major chords and scales, and play them in the circle of fifths as a warm up. I would play three octave scales, both hands, and four note chords in all inversions, and three octave arpeggios, all in the circle of fifths. She also threw in a few Hannon exercises. Yes it was rote, yes it was boring, but it only took about ten minutes per day and then I was off to practicing songs. And I did not do it forever, only maybe six months or so, except I still might go through that routine once or twice a year. I'm not saying it's right for you, but it certainly built up my vocabulary quickly, and like Canon, gave me tools I use to this day. Now that these are under my fingers, I don't have to think about that stuff when I read a new lead sheet. I don't have to think about what inversion of a particular chord I need to use in a progression, it is all automatic now.

Happy to hear this all helped you because my technique work has been similar (a lot of Scales, Chords, Arpeggios, chromatic, etc.) and with various dynamics and contrary, 3rd, 6th, 10th, and so on... And yes no theory behind it but that's what I'm digging into on my own lately. Glad to know learning to play it is still very useful.

I'm looking forward to seeing how lessons with a pop teacher go and what the methods will be excited for the next part of the adventure in learning. On a side note I was reading how many pop teachers say let students practice what they want to learn (in my case pop) and that too many teachers just disregard pop but there's plenty to learn from it.

The example is from fig.14.5.
This is not a specific method with a specific pattern, but a general principle that applies to all rhythm work in pop, rock, R&B, funk, country; even for fig. 2.26. (there is a typo in there).