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Why is learning piano so bloody difficult?


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A real mind split for me was trying to learn Chapman Stick. 

 

I had one for about a year and couldn't crack the equation. For those unfamiliar, it's a 10-string tapping instrument combining the tuning of a guitar with the REVERSE tuning of a bass. And, I'm not proficient on either guitar or bass. A man's got to know his limitations.

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I tried guitar for about six months a few years back and I just couldn't get the hang of the fret paradigm. After near 50 years of playing keyboards, I couldn't figure how to transfer my keyboard improv skills to guitar and just got completely frustrated.

The other problem I had with guitar was finger pain. I know I had to be patient and develop callouses on my finger tips, which I did, but I was still getting something like neuropathy in my finger tips even for months after I stopped guitar. It felt like my fingers were pressing on the edge of a razor blade. That numbness sensation was also an annoyance when playing keys after that, fortunately, it's fine now. I have no desire to ever pick up a guitar again. 😖 Maybe the OP will have better luck at piano than I had with guitar.

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3 hours ago, Al Quinn said:

I think it’s difficult to breath life into a hunk of wood and metal with hammers hitting strings. The pianist doesn’t get to shape their sound like a guitarist when they move the strings for bends or vibrato. Or, how the violinist can make a note grow. Or, a sax or trumpet….you get the idea. These other instruments provide ways for the player to be expressive that the piano does not. I think that has a lot to do with why sounding good on piano is difficult. 

Thank you, that is precisely what I've been trying to say without offending anybody's delicate sensibilities. 

Touching the actual physical thing that produces the music is profoundly different than triggering it with a mechanism or even controlling it with electronic devices. 

I'm not argueing better or worse, it is simply very different. 

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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47 minutes ago, timwat said:

A real mind split for me was trying to learn Chapman Stick. 

 

I had one for about a year and couldn't crack the equation. For those unfamiliar, it's a 10-string tapping instrument combining the tuning of a guitar with the REVERSE tuning of a bass. And, I'm not proficient on either guitar or bass. A man's got to know his limitations.

I've a good friend who plays Stick very well. He sounds like a band by himself and also sings. 

The set of high strings are tuned consistently in fourths, which differs from the guitar with the B string being a flatted fourth (which does provide a simpler system for chording) and only a slightly more complex system for melodic work. 

The low strings are tuned in fifths but the lowest sring is in the middle so in terms of the intervals they are also tuned in fourths the same as the high strings, just upside down. 

 

Essentially Emmett Chapman boiled it down to one set of patterns works everywhere on the neck. I tried the Stick and I just am not a fan of only being able to tap, too much expression is lost. 

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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A thought just came to me. One of the things I LOVE about piano is the sustain pedal and the way you can stack sustained notes.

 

Guitar is limited to 6 strings, many pianos have triple courses so 2 notes would be just as many strings as a complete guitar. 

I mentioned earlier that I used to prop up the upper front panel on an old upright my parents owned (and nobody played).

Then I put a small guitar amp up on the area that supports music books and aimed it at the strings.

I used a brick to hold down the sustain pedal. If I turned the amp up, the strings that were tuned to the notes I was playing would resonate. 

Probably my favorite reverb ever. I'm told there is a plugin called Pianoverb, anybody used it?

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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15 minutes ago, KuruPrionz said:

A thought just came to me. One of the things I LOVE about piano is the sustain pedal and the way you can stack sustained notes.

 

Guitar is limited to 6 strings, many pianos have triple courses so 2 notes would be just as many strings as a complete guitar. 

I mentioned earlier that I used to prop up the upper front panel on an old upright my parents owned (and nobody played).

Then I put a small guitar amp up on the area that supports music books and aimed it at the strings.

I used a brick to hold down the sustain pedal. If I turned the amp up, the strings that were tuned to the notes I was playing would resonate. 

Probably my favorite reverb ever. I'm told there is a plugin called Pianoverb, anybody used it?

That's funny back when I worked at Sound City we did basically the same thing but with a grand piano.     The was a big artist at the time that would record at home, then bring his tapes in to Sound City to mix since we had a lot of outboard gear, live reverb room, and EMT.     This artist's house was right by LAX airport so he had to sound proof the hell out of his studio to keep the jet sounds out.   So when you'd listen to his tracks they were dead as a doornail no life to them.   So to liven up his tracks we did like you we close mic'd the piano.  Put one of those of Altec Voice of the Theater PA cabinets under the piano facing up at the soundboard.  Then a weight on the sustain pedal.   We blasted a rough mix through the PA cab and recorded the sympathetic vibrations from the piano strings.   I was amazed at how much mixing that in added overtones and livened up the tracks.   

 

Working on Keith Olsens sessions I learn a lot of cool tricks like that back then.  Had to be creative in the 70's before all the computers and such. 

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47 minutes ago, Docbop said:

That's funny back when I worked at Sound City we did basically the same thing but with a grand piano.     The was a big artist at the time that would record at home, then bring his tapes in to Sound City to mix since we had a lot of outboard gear, live reverb room, and EMT.     This artist's house was right by LAX airport so he had to sound proof the hell out of his studio to keep the jet sounds out.   So when you'd listen to his tracks they were dead as a doornail no life to them.   So to liven up his tracks we did like you we close mic'd the piano.  Put one of those of Altec Voice of the Theater PA cabinets under the piano facing up at the soundboard.  Then a weight on the sustain pedal.   We blasted a rough mix through the PA cab and recorded the sympathetic vibrations from the piano strings.   I was amazed at how much mixing that in added overtones and livened up the tracks.   

 

Working on Keith Olsens sessions I learn a lot of cool tricks like that back then.  Had to be creative in the 70's before all the computers and such. 

I think it's important to be creative and resourceful always. "Stupid" ideas can make for interesting music. 

 

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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Bass player I played with in the 70's always said it's "time on your ax." There is no substitute. You can't get there from here without "time on your ax."

 

I play a lot of instruments. Some instruments I tried, I didn't get very far very fast so I stopped trying. Other instruments I got enough reinforcement for playing so I kept playing. I'm a good sax player -- I've been playing and gigging for decades. I played guitar as a young man, played rhythm guitar in a rock band in the 60's, played guitar in a free jazz group in the 70's. I could play decently but I haven't played guitar regularly for a long time so I can barely play it at all now. We had a piano in the house when I was a young man and I learned to chord on it. I had a Wurlitzer in the 70's that I dunced around on a little, but gave it up in a divorce. I've had a band for the last 20 years. I'm the sax player. About 15 years ago the keyboard player quit. I asked the band if I could audition as the keyboard player. They said yes. I was a very basic blues/rock keys player but I've been gigging on keys in that band for 15 years now and I've gotten a lot better. I'm still not a very good keys player, but I can do a credible and soulful blues/rock solo and get applause. I play keys in other bands, including a jazz jam group reading Real book charts. 

 

Want to play keyboard better? It's "time on your ax."

 

The original question was "Why is it so difficult?" Answer: because it's so different from guitar and bass. Keep doing it. It will get easier and you will get better. Time on your ax.

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20 hours ago, KuruPrionz said:

The assumption that the pick hand does "really minimal movement" is incorrect. That it is the right hand in all cases is also incorrect. 😇

It is not uncommon to use the fretting hand to activate a note, just for one example. You are assuming a very static guitar technique, I would put forth that not many players use only simple strums and plucks. I will also point out the obvious, that keyboard players must coordinate both hands or the music becomes chaos and also that the guitarist's fretting hand and picking hand are doing very different things simultaneously as well. There is a complex "inter-independence" at play in both keyboards and guitar, no two ways about it. 

 

The picking hand generally controls the tone of the string(s), the attack and decay (muting) and it is a common technique to use the picking hand to "pop" harmonics, sometimes with the thumb, sometimes with a finger and sometimes with a wrist. 

The picking hand also governs the timing of what is being played. It is a busy hand and many things can be done while the fretting hand is in a static position (and vice versa). 

Playing a fretting hand riff using hammer-ons and pull offs while picking hand is creating another pattern on different strings is a fairly common technique, you've heard it and maybe didn't think about it too much.

 

While I (and many other guitarists) do use a pick, I also play a variety of fingerpicking styles, more hand inter-independence. 

 

None of this "differences between guitar and keyboard" discussion can be wrapped up in a simple box and set on the shelf. The human variable is too vast to describe easily. Cheers, Kuru 😁


You have made a lot of assumptions there about what I wrote, nowhere did I mention Finger Picking

 

Oh course the right hand moves, BUT when as I stated you are playing with a Pick the fingers hardly move compared to how they have to move to play a keyboard and being a finger picking guitarist is totally different.  When using a Pick the range of movement of the right hand along the strings is way less than it is when playing keys so your analysis is completely wrong. 

 

Even subtle movements of the Pick are a result of moving fingers BUT the fingers move in unison.

 

Hence getting all fingers on the right hand to move independently is a major task for someone who has played guitar for years, been there done that.

 

Playing lead guitar my left hand worked far harder than my right, I hammer on, bend etc but again the action is co-ordinated with the right hand and the Pick.

 

 So add in getting both hands working independently is double whammy for any guitarist.

Col

 

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Haven’t read other comments here but would just say that much like learning a new language it will stretch your brain in ways that are good for it, which could be reason enough to keep hacking away. 

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3 hours ago, Biggles said:


You have made a lot of assumptions there about what I wrote, nowhere did I mention Finger Picking

 

Taking the easy way out, your quotes will be in "quotes."

 

"You have made a lot of assumptions there about what I wrote, nowhere did I mention Finger Picking"

 

In your first post you said: "If using a pick" which excludes many guitarists (possibly more than it includes) and is an extremely limited viewpoint that is not based on what is happening out in the real world.

Classical and flamenco guitarists, Chet Atkins, Jeff Beck, Mark Knopfler and MANY more use right hand fingers and thumb as part of the sound and style. Sure, just toss them all, they don't count.

 

"the left hand is the one that presses the strings onto the frets" Sometimes but not always, therefore, incorrect. There are many examples but the link is a good one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY7GnAq6Znw

 

" So add in getting both hands working independently is double whammy for any guitarist."

And equally so for any keyboardist.

 

"Your brain needs to rewire itself to undertake the independent actions of both hands.

You have taught your brain that left and right hands work together and this is not the case on a keyboard, hands and fingers work independently."

So, you can play with complete independence of both hands? Like 2 completely unrelated things in different keys, time signatures and to 2 different metronomes? That would be left and right hand independence. I'd love to see one example of this, nobody I've seen or heard has ever done anything like that. I am skeptical but open to the idea that it might even sound good. Every good keyboard player (Artur Rubenstein, Herbie Hancock or Keith Emerson good enough?) I've ever heard co-ordinated their left and right hands to the time signature, the beats per minute, and even in jazz, the key of the musical piece they are performing. That is not independence.

 

Independence is a strong word and it simply does not apply to this situation.

 

No, keyboard AND guitar require Inter-Independence which is not complete independence. You've found that more natural on keyboards, I find it more natural on guitar. Others prefer the saxophone, flute or violin.

Sorry, I just don't find validity in your suggestions, they don't hold water. Cheers, Kuru

 

 

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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11 hours ago, El Lobo said:

Bass player I played with in the 70's always said it's "time on your ax." There is no substitute. You can't get there from here without "time on your ax."

 Yes,  a Jazz Guitar site I hung out on for year one of the people would say it's all about "seat time".    Something isn't sounding how you like you need more seat time to work it out. 

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Another way of saying it: the more you play, the more you CAN play. 

 

I keep experiencing this. I'm playing sax and keys in a few different settings. The more I've been playing, for instance on keys, the more I discover I can do some things that I didn't realize I could do. I may be reading Real book charts with complex or fast chord changes. Sometimes I struggle and can't do it well but sometimes I discover to my surprise that I can follow it and my fingers know where to go without me telling them what to do very much. Similarly, I start a solo over some unusual changes, thinking that I'm going to have to stay basic, but then my fingers go places I don't think I know. Of course, sometimes my fingers go to bad notes but I just smile and look at the other players and try to indicate that I intentionally wanted to go "outside." :) 

These are only my opinions, not supported by any actual knowledge, experience, or expertise.
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To be clear, the thread isn't asking why piano is so hard. It's asking why learning piano is so hard, in this case for someone who already plays guitar and bass. There are some "brain" reasons why new input feels spectacularly hard right until the second it doesn't, but it's also the case that almost everything that might help you learn some things quickly on guitar, impedes your progress on piano (and vice versa). They involve mutually antagonistic learning processes.

 

I almost feel like it would be easier to shift from violin or another string instrument, where so much of your early focus is just trying to get a note to sound good, and find your position on the neck, than from guitar, where you can deceive yourself into thinking you're learning quickly by deploying a couple of reasonably well-practiced patterns and have them sound good enough to maybe get you laid at a bonfire before you really should.

The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!

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18 minutes ago, MathOfInsects said:

To be clear, the thread isn't asking why piano is so hard. It's asking why learning piano is so hard, in this case for someone who already plays guitar and bass. There are some "brain" reasons why new input feels spectacularly hard right until the second it doesn't, but it's also the case that almost everything that might help you learn some things quickly on guitar, impedes your progress on piano (and vice versa). They involve mutually antagonistic learning processes.

 

I almost feel like it would be easier to shift from violin or another string instrument, where so much of your early focus is just trying to get a note to sound good, and find your position on the neck, than from guitar, where you can deceive yourself into thinking you're learning quickly by deploying a couple of reasonably well-practiced patterns and have them sound good enough to maybe get you laid at a bonfire before you really should.

The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!

I thought it might be helpful to outline some of the differences betweeen the two disciplines. 

There is more than one way to skin a cat.

And more than one cat that needs skinnin'.

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It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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1 hour ago, KuruPrionz said:

I thought it might be helpful to outline some of the differences betweeen the two disciplines. 

There is more than one way to skin a cat.

And more than one cat that needs skinnin'.

It is, and I meant sincerely that it's an interesting topic. There's a concept known as "distributed cognition," and it specifically has to do with where we define "our" boundaries. For example, if you're blind and use a walking stick, do you "end" at the place your hand meets the stick, or do you end where the stick meets and interprets the world for you. Same with glasses or any prosthetic. 

 

Riding a bike involves "turning the things that turn the things." Is that direct-drive? It's hard to say. It just depends where you draw the line between which "technology" you exclude. Maybe you only consider walking to be a "pure" connection between effort and result. Fair enough...but then how to account for shoes and socks? Etc.

 

A guitar is already technology. We, the player, did not design the interface, develop the bridge, determine the scalar systems at work, customize the number of frets, mill and assemble the wood, forge the metal, machine the tuning pegs, fabricate the strings, etc. There are all technologies--quite advanced, each of them. We come to that technology in its already formed state, and sort of consider it "sunk cost." So we think that as "direct." But it's really not. It's power-assisted steering of the most advanced type. It FEELS like you're in charge, but you were allowed to feel that because of dozens of interim steps.

Personally, I do not feel removed from the production of a note on the piano. Technically speaking, it's more like a bike than a walk. But just as I feel completely connected with the drivetrain on a bike, regardless of whether I'm maximizing effort by changing gear ratios, I feel completely connected to the result of pressing that key down on my piano. In this case, I would define "me" as ending at the "end" of the walking stick (or hammer), not the beginning of it. In the same way that, for example, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who felt the definition of what they were doing on a guitar changed if they used a pick instead of their fingers. IMO, we "end" at the end of the pick, not the beginning.

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Great post MOI!

I cant disagree with it since it acknoledges differeces and keys and guitar are obviously different instruments and make different musics.

Bikes are different too and for different rides. 

I will keep on a twangin', everybody else can do whatever they want too.

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On 5/14/2022 at 3:15 PM, BMD said:

Many thanks for your collective wisdom, guys.

 

The first song I'm attempting has the chords Fmaj7, G6, A, and Am in the verses, and Bbmaj7, Em, A, Dm, C, and Gm in the choruses. I'm simply playing chords with my left hand and the vocal melody with my right. This is some learning curve. I have huge respect for you ivory ticklers!

 

I am not a master of piano playing, but learning songs by playing chords on the left hand and melody with the right hand is a good approach to acquiring useful skills on the piano.  If you're operating mainly within rock/pop music, these skills may be all that you need, unless you want to play like Jordan Rudess.  Continue doing what you're doing and you should be fine.   

 

You may feel like you're having a hard time now, but is it really different from when you first learned how to play guitar?  Just keeping putting time on the instrument - in an efficient manner - and the skills will come.

 

I don't know if you already heard, but when you learn a new song, practicing the left hand part and right hand part separately tends to be more productive than attempting to learn both parts at the same time.   Be sure to practice with a metronome or other time-keeping device.  When you get both left and right hand parts up to the desired tempo, you can try practicing both parts simultaneously.

 

Time with a good teacher will speed this all up for you.  When I took lessons with a jazz piano teacher, he showed me some ways to add ornamentation/articulation, like grace notes, trills, etc. to bring a melody to life - those sort of things that are best learned by careful listening and observation, rather than reading off of music notation.

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On 5/14/2022 at 7:11 PM, Stokely said:

I a lot of guitar players are used to relying on patterns.  It works very well on guitar...but if I don't know what note I'm playing at all times it feels really weird.  Even the guitarist in my band, who can play some really impressive stuff, will sometimes say "not sure what notes those are, just playing this pattern" and my mind breaks.

 

When I used to spend time on guitar-oriented forums, I noticed this dependence on visual patterns as well.

 

Only a few guitarists are willing to get serious about ear training,  chord construction, intervals, etc.   For them, the visual patterns become their friends instead of their crutches.  

 

This is why so few guitarists graduate from the "pattern recital" level in their improvising.   One of the very few I saw was a longtime professional guitarist - in rock/metal - who, like many metal specialists, was an accomplished pattern-reciter, but over the years, got into transcribing jazz solos, harmonizing melodies, ear training, etc.  His jazz playing nowadays is night and day compared to when he was working for THD.  

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Straight up block chording with the left is a good place to start but on keys as soon as you can analyze your chords and experiment with your voicings.  Look at 3-7 , 3-5-7, voicings and slash chords as good jump off points.  Example the Fmaj7.

 

If I'm playing solo I will tend to goto play a spread F5 in the left and some inversion of Am in the right.  If I am playing with others such as a guitar player and/or bassist I may simply play A5 or Am and stay away from roots.  Depends what the others are playing.  At the basic level the 3 and 7 determine the flavor.     Or if you are on a F7 try playing  Am diminished.    Or if its a Fm7, play Ab majors.  experiment and use what sounds best.

 

A a jazz teacher or a good pop piano bar player can be a great resource.

"It doesn't have to be difficult to be cool" - Mitch Towne

 

"A great musician can bring tears to your eyes!!!

So can a auto Mechanic." - Stokes Hunt

 

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Hard part for me coming from Guitar/bass to piano having to think about two hands instead of one.    On guitar/bass once you get going your attention is on the LH and the RH is on autopilot to strum, pick, or finger the note(s).   With piano I have to work on is split brain, play different things in each hand.    Starting piano as an old fart I have a feeling if I had started as a kid that would of been easier to get used to. 

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Having taken lessons as a kid, hand independence was never an issue.  Heck, I usually don't even practice very much hands-separately unless there are some really challenging measures.  But the guitar however may as well be on another planet!  My fat fingers just can't fret the right strings (and only those strings) no matter what I do.  I have a pretty blue Strat copy - but it mostly just sits in a corner and looks nice.  It is totally above my head. 

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Although there are 5 places you can play a Middle C on the guitar (making the guitar SEEM more complicated to a keyboard player at first)... the fact that every scale on the guitar uses the same pattern on the fretboard makes up for that. I think, essentially, both instruments are equally hard or easy to learn, depending on how you orientate to one instrument or the other.

 

Here's one thing that hardly gets mentioned... as John Lennon would put it... "I've got BLISTERS on my fingers!!"  Yes, BLISTERS. One of the things you gotta get over if you wanna learn guitar. That's just something I couldn't get beyond. As soon as my left-hand fingers started getting blisters, I didn't have the patience for those blisters to harden up. It was way more painful than learning and memorizing the chord fingerings.

 

I'm just a keyboard guy through and through.

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On 5/14/2022 at 9:04 PM, Ed A. said:

I tried guitar for about six months a few years back and I just couldn't get the hang of the fret paradigm. After near 50 years of playing keyboards, I couldn't figure how to transfer my keyboard improv skills to guitar and just got completely frustrated.

The other problem I had with guitar was finger pain. I know I had to be patient and develop callouses on my finger tips, which I did, but I was still getting something like neuropathy in my finger tips even for months after I stopped guitar. It felt like my fingers were pressing on the edge of a razor blade. That numbness sensation was also an annoyance when playing keys after that, fortunately, it's fine now. I have no desire to ever pick up a guitar again. 😖 Maybe the OP will have better luck at piano than I had with guitar.

That's why I prefer nylon string guitar 

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23 minutes ago, synthizen2 said:

Although there are 5 places you can play a Middle C on the guitar (making the guitar SEEM more complicated to a keyboard player at first)... the fact that every scale on the guitar uses the same pattern on the fretboard makes up for that. I think, essentially, both instruments are equally hard or easy to learn, depending on how you orientate to one instrument or the other.

 

Here's one thing that hardly gets mentioned... as John Lennon would put it... "I've got BLISTERS on my fingers!!"  Yes, BLISTERS. One of the things you gotta get over if you wanna learn guitar. That's just something I couldn't get beyond. As soon as my left-hand fingers started getting blisters, I didn't have the patience for those blisters to harden up. It was way more painful than learning and memorizing the chord fingerings.

 

I'm just a keyboard guy through and through.

There are 4 sets of 3 strings on a 6 string guitar. In standard tuning, the 4th, 5th ann 6th string are all tuned in 4ths. The 3rd, 4th and 5th string are also tuned in 4ths. The scales/patterns that are within the reach of the fingers without moving up or down the fretboard are identical on these 2 sets of 3 strings. Because the 2nd string is tuned to the flatted 4th and the 1st string is tuned to the 4th again, the set with the 2nd, 3rd and 4th has it's own variation of that pattern and the set with the 1st, 2nd and 3rd string has yet another. 

 

So in working with sets of 3 strings within one's reach there are 3 different patterns to learn for each scale/pattern, depending on where you need to be at the moment. It is most helpful to learn all of your chord shapes on those same 4 sets of 3 strings, this makes learning the scale/patterns much easier. It's really just a different kind of complicated than keyboards, not more or less. The same is true with the interdependence of the fretting hand and the picking hand (although both can and are used for either purpose). 

 

There may be lots of simple guitarists (I've met and played with many) but the climb to the top of the mountain is as infinite as any other instrument. 

I've been working my way upwards for 50+ years and the peak of the mountain is WAY the hell up there, somewhere!!!!!

 

Just keep playing keyboards and smiling, there's enough music to go around for everybody!!!! 😁

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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I think playing classical piano would

be very difficult to learn without a good teacher.

 

I think there is an issue with lack of good teaching materials and lack of good teachers in other musical forms such as pop music and jazz.

 

I have attempted to follow some of the internet guys like Rick Beato , Adam Manness and Dave Frank. In most cases I see these guys as demonstraters but not as teachers, Plenty of people can show off what they know but few break it down into understandable components. It's good thing You tube has slowdown function because in many cases these people are just flaunting their expertise.

 

The best teaching method I ever saw was a drum method called Stanley Spectors Lessons in Jazz Improvisation. Spector insisted that everything be slowed down \and counted as triplets. What he established was a precise clock of rhythm. I have never seen anything else like it. It made me realize that most of the time musicians and teachers are just going way too fast to learn effectively.

 

I often extend one bar into two when learning tunes. I like to give each chord more time to sink into my brain.

 

I do think that re examining teaching in any subject is quite critical. A lot of homeless people are where they are because of failed systems of education.

 

Fire away.....

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Everyone learns differently and teachers teach in different methods, so you have to find what works for you.   There is no one size fits all. 

 

You are your own best teacher in the long run and the best instruction material is a huge stack of CD's and spending lots of time listening.   All the good Jazz teachers and musicians will tell you got to listen and listen and listen.  About developing your ears and feeding them with great music to build your vocabulary. 

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On 5/14/2022 at 9:07 PM, David Emm said:

Just remember that the white keys are good and the black ones are bad. You'll be fine. :duck:

What does that even mean?

 

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