Learn to play piano by ear!!

If you are interested in taking your piano playing to the nextlevel, I think I may have struck the right chord for you. Justlast week, I was contacted by my friends over at HearandPlay.comwho specialize in teaching people how to play piano by ear.

Jermaine Griggs, the President of HearandPlay, just let me knowthat his site had recently been updated with a few new pianoresources... When I finally checked it out (because I was very busy lastweek), I noticed one particular article that discusses thedifferences between musicians who play piano from sheet musicand others who play by ear --- some of the advantages anddisadvantages of both.

The article focuses more on the advantages of playing by ear--- obviously because that's their specialty. Here are just afew of the many examples of what they said (you'll have to checkout the article for yourself to get the full story):

Advantages of Playing Piano By Ear
1) "Being able to instantly recognize chords that are played insongs even without being at a piano."
*****************How does this help you?*****************
"You are able to learn songs faster and easier because youunderstand why chords are played at certain points in songs."

2) "Not required to memorize chord progressions (pattern of chords played one after the other) because understanding themwill automatically incline you to know what chord to play next."
*****************How does this help you?*****************
"Allows you to improvise and add your own "flavor" to the song.This is especially advantageous when playing in a church as youcan never predict how long a song will be sung or what key thesinger might resolve to. In a band, this might be helpful if theleader simply instructs everyone to surprisingly repeat a partof the song or change the key in which the song is currentlybeing played in."

3) "Will allow you to use the same methods to play virtually anysong you want (most songs; don't quote me if you're referring toMozart as this might take more practice than most other songs)."
*****************How does this help you?****************
"Saves you the money and time of having to go out and buy the sheet music to a song that you've already learned how to play byusing the ability of your ear to recognize melodies, chords, andprogressions. However, buying the sheet music isn't a bad ideaif you want to learn specific parts to songs that have highlevels of complexity."
*************************

You know... I could really go on and on about this article,but dueto the lack of space, I'm going to have to send you to thearticle so you can check it out for yourself:
Go to: http://www.hearandplay.com/at.cgi/480396/course
(...and if you're really serious about taking your piano playingto the next level, you might want to consider taking them up ontheir 300-pg course, "The Secrets to Playing Piano by Ear"). Meanwhile, let me know if you have any questions and I'll answer or pass them to the right folks at HearandPlay.com. Again, go to:http://www.hearandplay.com/at.cgi/480396/course


All the best,


Chevonne Reynolds

P.S. - There's also a little section in the article that talksabout major and minor scales, chords, and progressions. Checkout that section too.

Other helpful links
Free newsletter- http://www.hearandplay.com/480396/newsletters
Gospelkeys 101 dvd (for beginners)- http://www.hearandplay.com/480396/gospel101
Gospelkeys 202 dvd (Worship chords)- http://www.hearandplay.com/480396/gospel202
Jason White (for church musicians)-http://www.hearandplay.com/480396/gkministry.html
Gospelkeys 300 (praise songs) http://www.hearandplay.com/480396/gospel300