Guitarists - Learning Piano Shortcut

The GREAT NEWS for guitarists is that you already have a head start when learning to play piano and there are some killer tips that give you a shortcut to playing chords, riffs and melody on piano. 

By far the best way to play popular music on piano is using chords and tabs, just like the standard way to learn guitar is with chords and tabs eg at Ultimate Guitar. 

Chords and piano tabs offer killer advantages:- 

• beginners play 1st song within minutes
• play to intermediate level in weeks
• learn professional style in months

You Already Understand the Most Important Thing

So you already understand about the most important thing about learning piano quickly - how music is made up out of patterns called chords and how often songs just use a handful of chords in the entire song.

Isn't this obvious - you may ask yourself?? - NO! Conventional wisdom with regards to piano, says that you need to learn traditional notation, which NEVER shows chord patterns and this makes learning piano slow and difficult. Traditional notation is good if you want to learn complex classical music, but for the vast majority of people who want to have fun playing piano, it can lead to years of frustration and even giving up piano altogether.

Shortcuts to Transfer Guitar Skills to Piano

Even better ....... as I have spent decades playing both guitar and piano, I'm sharing with you the shortcuts that enable you to transfer your guitar skills to the piano and save yourself LOTS of TIME.

The Big Problem

The big problem has always been learning to play melodies and riffs on piano, as these aren't shown in chord sheets, just in tabs sheets and guitar tabs don't translate to the piano keyboard.

The Solution

To solve this problem, I created a form of tablature that is specifically designed for the keyboard - a form of piano tabs that actually works (legacy piano tabs have not been very user friendly). I called this new form of piano tabs ....... you guessed it ..... PianoTabz! Ok I know you don't spell it with a 'z' but it had to be a unique name, to stand out from the old piano tabs versions!

PianoTabz enables absolute beginners to play BOTH melody and chords within minutes and is so groundbreaking, it has been awarded a patent.

Playing Both Melody and Chords on Piano

What this means for you is that you can play your favourite guitar songs on piano using existing chord sheets at www.Ultimate-Guitar.com and if you want to play melody as well, you can now do this incredibly quickly using PianoTabz.

Playing Piano by Chords

The easiest way to accompany a singer with the piano is to play ‘chords’. Chords are groups of related notes (usually 3 notes) which are the building blocks of most western music. Many songs repeat a small number of chords and often use less than 6 different chords within an entire song.

It is much easier to learn accompaniment on piano using these patterns of chords, instead of trying to learn hundreds of individual notes. Chords are the standard method for learning accompaniment on guitar, as demonstrated by over 200 million users of the guitar chords site Ultimate Guitar and the site now includes piano chord diagrams to enable piano players to use the same chord sheets as guitarists.

7 Advantages of Playing Piano by Chords

Playing by chords enables you to:-

1. use ‘playing patterns’ to play accompaniment in a fraction of the time it takes to learn the same notes in notation.
2. read song sheets (called ‘chord sheets’) in minutes, as opposed to reading notation sheet music, which can take a long time.
   - Chord sheets are so easy to read because they use a language you already understand (ie letters or numbers), as opposed to traditional notation which is an ‘abstract’ language, which some people never manage to master.
   - One chord on a chord sheet can replace several notes on a notation sheet (often 3 to 6 notes), which massively reduces the amount of information you need to read, whilst still allowing you to play the same piece of music.
3. learn playing patterns to play chords in minutes.
   - An example which is an easy pattern for beginners, is the ‘root position’ of the chord (eg notes c e g for chord C) in the right hand and the note relating to the chord eg note c for chord C in the left hand.
   - You can keep this same shape and move your hand up and down the keyboard to play the 6 standard chords that enables you to play literally thousands of songs.
4. develop your playing level from beginners to advanced really quickly, just by making a few small changes to the playing patterns
5. learn the pattern for major and minor chords within minutes, which then enables you to play all standard chords in any key
6. play songs on piano using the largest free song sheet library on the planet, - ‘Ultimate Guitar’ (over 1 million song sheets) 1,100,000 songs catalog with free Chords, Guitar Tabs, Bass Tabs, Ukulele Chords and Guitar Pro Tabs!
7. have freedom to play songs in a variety of styles and to add your own arrangement, without having to change the song sheet

Chords Are Ideal for Popular Music

As pop songs usually use very simple chord patterns, often having 6 or less chords in the entire song, playing by chords is ideal for this type of music. Playing by chords is the standard way that pop/rock stars play piano and it is how Paul McCartney and John Lennon wrote and played piano classics like Let It Be and Imagine.

Notation Is Ideal for Complex Classical Music

Often classical music has more complex chord patterns than pop music and requires exact notes to be played in both the melody and accompaniment. For these reasons, traditional notation is often more suited to classical music than chord sheets and lead sheets.

Playing Solo Piano

Playing just the accompaniment means that you don’t need to pay the melody (as this is being sung by the singer) so you don’t need notation at all. If you wanted to play solo piano, then you would need the melody, but you can keep all of the above advantages for the accompaniment and simple add the melody on top, by using a ‘lead sheet’ which shows the melody in notation and the accompaniment in chords.

If you don’t know how to read notation, then you can use a ‘PianoTabz’ style of lead sheet, which replaces notation with numbers, which beginners can learn within minutes.
Both standard and PianoTabz lead sheets can be downloaded for free at MuseScore The world's largest free sheet music catalog and community

Chord Sheets vs Lead Sheets Explained

It's amazing how quickly you can apply 'playing patterns' to play really great sounding arrangements with chords. Professionals and pop stars use chords as the standard way to play as chords enable:-

1. songs to be learnt quickly
2. memorise music easily (when's the last time you saw a pop star reading loads of sheet music on stage???)
3. you to improvise rhythms and arrangements so there is no limit to the versatility and creativity from a single song sheet

Chord Sheets - Playing Piano to Accompany Singers

If you are singing then you don't need to play the melody so can just play from chord sheets like the 1 million + free chord sheets at Ultimate-Guitar.com 

Lead Sheets for Playing Solo Piano

If you are not playing to accompany singing ie playing solo piano then you need to play the melody in addition to the accompaniment, so you need a 'lead sheet' which has the lyrics, melody and chords. There are tons of lead sheets at MuseScore.com 

2 Types of Lead Sheet

1. If you read notation then you can use a standard lead sheet that has lyrics, melody in notation and chords in chord letters
2. If you don't read notation, then it is much easier to use PianoTabz format lead sheets, which replaces notation with numbers and only takes minutes to understand