MidiMike

sonniq says:

I absolutely agree with you. We always had a piano growing up. My older sister took lessons and today she can’t play a single thing. I took about a year of lessons as a kid and then again as a teenager for about a year until my teacher “fIred” me because i insisted on doing things my way. He was an excellent pianist and played piano bars. I then taught myself. I went back to him at age 17 and told him I’d give him another year so he correct some areas and told him then I was going to teach, and went off to college. I was hired by a fine arts school when I 18. That lasted for a year because all they wanted to teach was classical. I was, by the way, this teacher’s only student who actually played professionally. I visited with him years later. Although I didn’t want to play classical it was the only thing I listed to. I stacked my piano classics before bed on the turn table and went to sleep with it. I loved Andre Previn. But I didn’t want to play it. So I taught myself the math of piano and taught myself chords and had my first paying gig when I was 19. and also started hand writing out charts and piano scores. A lost art among most musicians these days, to hand write scores. I also wrote charts for other musicians for the songs they wrote. Now they can play it into a computer and it will print it out for you. This is why many musicians never learn what they are doing. They can’t write it out for themselves.

Although I have electric piano I love and I am soon to lose it. It’s starting to go and parts are unavailable. its a Technics EP90. They are out of business. But mother fhas a wonderul Yamaha grand piano in her music room. She doesn’t play very well, mostly self taught herself but does ok. She’s 81 and loves for me to come over and play for her. I turn out the lights. I like to play by sound and feel. Every wrong note is right. She says,” I don’t know how you do it. Just sit and play.” But if you know the math, you can play in any key. But knowing the math isn’t enough. Your fingers have to know how to work together. When I see these music teaching videos on Youtube, “learn how to play a song in 10 minutes” I laugh. One “teacher was telling people to play a D chord – D Gflat A – instead of D f#A. I corrected his error and said “don’t teach unless you know what you’re doing because someone else will have to correct you rmistakes”, and wow, I got all these hate messages for being a bully and even those who told me that I was wrong and he was right. One man said he was glad his kids didn’t learn from me. I said, too bad, maybe if they had they’d know how to play. I hate trolls.

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sonniq says:

Were we arguing? My grown son plays only by ear. I taught him nothing. it’s hard for parents to teach their children. But he heard it in the womb and at about age 5 sat down and started picking out piano pieces. His first one was Fur Elise. Of course it wasn’t technically correct, but he put together his redition of it that was amazing with no training. He is a boogie woogie player and has the fastest hands I’ve ever seen. He never turned pro, though. He saw the struggle I went through. He plays piano and guitar for himself and jams with his kids. I have a post, http://watchandwhirl.com/2015/01/22/dont-play-the-music-let-the-music-play-you/ Partway down the post is a video of his son, who knows nothing about playing except watching his father, watching his finger movements and tries to do what he does. He doesn’t play with his who hand as most kids would do, but instead plays with his fingers. He really gets to jammin. His whole body starts twitching. he has the potential to be a good player. Kids have no fear about hitting a wrong note. teachers, correcting their students too much can easily teach the creativity out of them by making them think what they are playing is a “mistake”. Those that train themselves “by ear” have a much greater success at creating music than “by the book” piano students. But you, fortunately, have a wife than can help you if you need to know something, so you have a great edge to the average person only playing by ear, The little girl in the photo, my youngest granddaughter, also jams on her guitar with no idea why or how she makes the sounds she does, but to watch her play you’d think she was on stage in a rock and roll band. ( only with no pick – up to an amp!)

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