Easy Piano Lessons

Ah… the arpeggio. A miracle of cascading notes that produces a beautiful sound on the piano. To most it’s a mystery how it’s created. But to those who understand chords, it’s just a matter of practicing until the pattern is mastered.

Now, the arpeggio can be used either in the right or left hand (or both together) but it’s usually the left-hand that takes up this amazing technique. Let’s look at how one might use an extended arpeggio pattern to create an improvisation.

The first thing you need to know about most left-hand arpeggios is that they usually start below the middle of the keyboard. Most pianists begin their run below middle Cand there’s a good reason for this – bass notes!

Those thunderous resonant bass sounds that reverberate in the body are hit and the piano comes alive!

Now, you have to be careful here because if you hit too many bass notes together the effect can end up sounding “muddy.” That is, you won’t be able to differentiate the notes and you’ll end up having sonic sludge. But, if you spread out the first few notes this won’t happen. That’s why the open position chord is perfect to begin your left-hand arpeggio. For example, let’s say you want to play a C Major 9 arpeggio.

Of course, you’ll begin with the C note (which is also the root note.) Now, we could play the third (e) but if we do, chances are we’ll end up with that “muddy” effect. No, A better way is to play the fifth followed by either the octave or the seventh tone.

What I like to do is play a pattern that looks like this: 1-5-8-9-3 – which means I’m playing these notes: c-g-c-d-e. This pattern produces a beautiful “new age” sound and is used frequently in New Age piano playing.

For example, look at the lesson “Coming Home.” Here we play an extended arpeggio in the left hand and use over 2 octaves of the keyboard. It’s quite an exercise and is a good one to get your left hand moving!

Edward Weiss is a pianist/composer and webmaster of Quiescence Music’s online piano lessons. He has been helping students learn how to play piano in the New Age style for over 14 years and works with students in private, in groups, and now over the internet. Visit www.quiescencemusic.com now and get a FREE piano lesson!

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Why is it important to know about dominant seventh chords? The Dominant 7 Chord is an extremely important chord because it defines “key”. Before we explore the function of this chord, let us see how it is constructed.

Construction

The notes, by number, in a dominant 7 chord are: 1 3 5 b7. If we plug in notes from the C Major scale, we get C E G Bb. Using the same formula, the D7 chord would contain the notes D F# A C.

Of course, if you are to be able to use this formula to construct dominant seventh chords in all 12 keys, you must be thoroughly familiar with key signatures. In fact, memorizing the key signatures for all twelve major keys is probably the most important first step toward a working knowledge of music theory.

The dominant seventh chord is the chord you want to use when you are told to play “C7″. Construct this chord by starting with the MAJOR TRIAD and adding the flatted seventh note in the scale.

Function

The Dominant 7 Chord functions as a “V” chord.

This means that in a chord progression, this is the chord that is built upon the fifth note in the scale. For example, a G7 chord is built on the 5th note of the C MAJOR scale and therefore is the V chord in the key of C.Let’s try another one: What is the V chord in the key of “D”? The fifth note in the “D” scale is “A”, so the V chord in the key of D is A7.

The V chord determines the key because it occurs only ONCE in each key. For example, if you see the chord “E7″, you KNOW you are in the Key of “A” because “E” is the fifth note of the “A” major scale.

What if you see the chord “B7″? If you said that you are in the key of “E”, you are absolutely right because “B” is the 5th note in the “E” scale.

Try another one–what key are you in if you see a “C7″ chord?

Of course, to apply this formula to all 12 keys, you again need to know the Key Signatures.

If you would like more detailed information about chord formulas and music theory, there are extensive free lessons in the theory section of my website:

http://www.may-studio-music-lessons.com/music-theory-basics.html

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What ARE piano chord inversions? The term “chord inversion” refers to changing the order of the notes in a chord. There are as many positions of a chord as there are notes in the chord. That is, a triad has 3 positions, a dominant 7 chord has 4 ipositions, etc.

Root Position

This is the term used to indicate that the ROOT (or name) of the chord is the lowest note in the chord. For example, a C Major triad in root position would be spelled

C E G. A C Dominant 7 chord in root position would be spelled C E G Bb. Root position triads are probably the easiest to learn and should be mastered in all 12 keys before you branch out into chord inversions.

First Inversion

A First Inversion chord is formed when the 3rd of the chord is the lowest note. For example, a First Inversion C Major chord is spelled E G C. A First Inversion C Dominant 7 chord is spelled E G Bb C.

Second Inversion

Chords in the Second Inversion have as their lowest note the 5th of the chord. A C Major triad in Second Inversion would be spelled G C E. A second Inversion Dominant 7 chord is spelled G Bb C E.

Third Inversion

A chord in Third Inversion can occur ONLY if a chord has 4 or more notes. In this case, the lowest note in the chord is the first note above the 5th of the chord. For example, a C6 chord in 3rd inversion is spelled A C E G. As you can see, this looks exactly like an Am7 chord. What differentiates the two chords is the root note.

USING CHORD INVERSIONS

There are several reasons to invert chords. One is to make the transition between chords smoother. A chord progression played with root position chords ONLY tends to be jumpy and difficult to play.

Another reason to use chord inversions is to make a smoother sounding bass line. The use if First inversion chords also allows the bass line (where the left hand plays single note roots) and the chords to move in opposite directions, which often is more desirable than parallel motion.

When accompanying a vocalist, it is often useful to play the melody note as the highest note in the chord in order to add support to the vocalist’s melody.

Another important use for chord inversions is to devise “chord melodies” in the right hand. In playing a chord melody, you use an inversion of the chord so that the melody note is the highest note in the chord. This produces a melody that is already harmonized in the right hand, leaving the left hand free to develop an interesting bass line. This is a common practice among jazz players.

LEARNING TO USE CHORD INVERSIONS

First, you must become totally familiar with the inversions of each chord. These can be practiced by playing the root position, first inversion and second inversions in order and then going back down in reverse order. Here are the fingerings:

Right Hand–135, 125, 135 Left Hand–531, 531, 521

After you have become familiar with the inversions, you can practice using them in this manner:

Play the first chord in your progression. Then determine which notes you need to play the second chord. If any of these notes are in the first chord, keep them and substitute the rest of the notes to make the second chord.

For Example: Moving from C Major to E Minor:

Keep the E and the G and change the C to B. This gives you a second-inversion E minor chord. Continue this process throughout the chord progression. The result will be that you will be able to play the entire progression with a minimum of hand position changes. Please be patient–it takes time to learn to be comfortable using piano-chord-inversions.

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To teach yourself piano the first and most obvious requirement is that you have a piano or an electronic keyboard to learn on.  Ideally you should have (or have access to) a normal 88 key piano, with 52 white keys and 36 black keys. 

There are even electronic keyboards with 88 keys that are weighted like a normal piano, so they feel and play like a normal piano. Other electronic keyboard may have softer keys and they may not have the full 88 keys. If that is all you have or can afford then so be it, but ideally you should use a full size keyboard.

One of the benefits of using an electronic keyboard is that you can plug headphones into them, so only you can hear what you are playing as you learn. This can be useful if there are others in or near your home that you do not wish to disturb.

Now I know you want to play your favourite tune straight away, but it is much better to take one small step at a time. The “teach yourself piano” guides that were discussed in another article on this site are ideal for helping you to take those small steps in a logical order. 

For example it is a good ideal to learn that the white keys on the keyboard are named A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. I know that is only 7 names, but these names repeat themselves in sequence across the keys over and over again in what we call Octaves pronounced (Octives). It is important to also know where the Middle C key can be found. All this and more will be explained in easy to follow lesson in the “teaching yourself piano” guides.

Now the other thing you will discover is that it is difficult to get your fingers to play the required notes you want to play, as well as doing this with both hands at the same time. Structured lessons will help you practice this on each hand and then get the two hands playing at the same time.

The thing to remember is the more you practice the easy piano lesson in the “teach yourself piano” guides, the easier it will become to control your fingers on the key.

Click the following for information on easy piano lessons that you can purchase and download to start teaching yourself piano now.