• Here’s a method that’s helping beginners play in minor keys overnight

    pianomansmall.jpgHaving trouble playing in minor keys? You’ll literally laugh when you figure out how simple it is to play minor scales and all the chords that correspond to them, once you know your major scales!

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    How to play a pentatonic scale

    pentagon-small.jpgI’ve received a lot of questions about the pentatonic scale lately so I wanted to reserve some time to break it down. Like a pentagon, which has 5 sides, pentatonic scales have 5 notes. “Pentatonic” doesn’t mean one type of scale though, as some might think. There is a most common one that I’ll talk about below, but the truth is, there are tons of pentatonic scales and they vary widely depending on where you are in the world…

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    Why the circle of fourths is so important when learning major scales

    circle of fifths smallThe “circle of fourths,” aka “circle of fifths” is great for illustrating how music flows and how real songs are created. But few have used the circle to actually learn (or “re-learn”) their scales and unravel the relationships between the various major keys…

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    Playing scales with major seventh chords

    “The C major scale with 7th chords” This progression is very interesting. It does not utilize every note of the 7th chord however. In fact, it only utilizes 3 fingers of the chord (but sounds excellent)! Here it is: 1) Bass = C Right hand = E + B + E (higher) Note: With the […]

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    Major Scales Workshop #1

    Well, let’s get to work! ****************************************** Piano Lessons Workshop #1: Major Scales (i) In music, there is a pattern for everything! I’m going to teach you the pattern used to create major scales. First, let’s start with the basics. There are 12 major scales; one for every major key on the piano You have the […]

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    Major Scales Workshop #2

    Let’s get to today’s lesson… I’ve already taught you the basics. Let’s just quickly finish up the major scales so that we can learn the chords tomorrow! If you need a reminder on forming scales, pull out yesterday’s e-mail lesson… Here are the remaining major scales to learn: B Major Db Major Eb Major Gb […]

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    What’s Scales Got To Do With It?

    So far, you should know: –how to build a major scale –how to build a minor scale –how to build a major chord –how to build a minor chord –how to play a basic 12-bar blues Today, we will focus on scales and chords: As you know, chords are created from scales. For example, in […]

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