This post will mainly be about how learning a little piano will benefit your knowledge of music theory and how it will make you even better at learning and understanding any other instrument you want to pick up. I’m sure there are plenty of other benefits to do with cognitive performance, dexterity and so on but I needed a short snappy title to draw people in so there you go. Regardless of the clickbait, I think this will be very helpful and I know it helped me a lot.
The piano is cool.
Now your first instinct may be to turn a blind eye to the piano, thinking it’s not cool and only for classical musicians who play in concert halls to people sitting down in suits giving light applause in between each piece. But you are mistaken, I’ll give it to you that you’re not going to do a big power slide across stage while ripping out a piano solo but there is so much more to piano than that.
Some of the coolest people out of music play the piano, Herbie Hancock, Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans and an endless list of other names to name. they bring their own authentic flavor to the instrument that is hard to analyze but can’t help respect and look up to. Anyway, it’s not important how you look playing your instrument if you enjoy it, I just wanted to hammer home that the piano is an amazing instrument and not to be put off.
Learning theory on piano
Piano is the easiest instrument to get you head around music theory with. At least it was for me, if you think about it, the piano is just one long string of notes all in a row and it even highlights the sharps and flats as they are the black keys. This makes it very easy to learn where the notes are at the start compared to say the guitar where there are 6 strings, each one a different note and even with the fret markers sharps and flats are in deferent places on different strings.
Chords
Learning chords on the piano is a great way to visualize how chords work and how they are put together. A simple little trick is to find your root note, say its C if you want to play a major chord but don’t know what the other notes are. You can just skip the next 3 keys, giving you E, the major 3rd, then skip the next two keys, that gives you G, the 5th. Boom you have a major C chord.
This formula works anywhere, if you have the root note, skip the next 3 for the major third then skip the next 2 for the 5th. It works for minor chords too you just have to flip it. Find the root, skip two for the minor third then skip three for the fifth. Boom you can now figure out chords on the piano without knowing every note in all major and minor chords. Is this cheating? Probably a little bit, it will be beneficial to actually learn what notes you’re playing in the chords (I need to do the same) but for now it’s a good little cheat code to get started.
Upper extensions.
Have you ever looked up the chords for a song and it says G#m7b913 and wondered what the hell kind of gibberish you’re looking at? Same here. But it can be broken down and made at least somewhat understandable on the piano. Now to do this you should really know the formula to major and minor scales so here’s a brief intro to that with some terminology you should remember.
Whole tone = up two pitches e.g C-D
Half tone = up one pitch e.g C-Db
The formula to make a major scale is find your root note then the steps are:
Whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half.
The formula for a minor scale is:
Whole, half, whole, whole, half, whole, whole.
For example, lets use the chord from before we know its minor from the lower-case m and it’s in G# so the root is G# if we follow the formula for the minor scale up the piano, we get G#, A#, B, C#, D#, E, F# and back to G#, there is the G# minor scale.
So, to make that chord. We keep our minor scale in mind, make a minor chord with G# using the root third and fifth, G#, B, D#. then there is a 7 in there so well take the 7th note in the scale F# pop that in there. Then the upper numbers past 8 you just continue up the scale again in the next octave. So, the 9th is the 2nd degree in the octave up but its flat so one-half tone down, that’s A, then the 13 that’s the 6th in the next octave so E.
There are all the notes for that chord. Now that was very long winded, and I probably used a hard example, but the idea is the same. With the piano being one line of notes it makes it easier to find your way up with the formulas to make the chords you want.
Application to other instruments.
Once you have an idea of how chords are put together, the intervals between the notes of the chords and where upper extensions are for the chords it makes understanding other instruments such as guitar make sense suddenly. It’s hard to explain how it opened my eyes more to the construction and application of music theory.
I think it’s the simplistic nature of how the piano is laid out that makes it easy to visualize in your head what notes are needed and where they are in relation to one another. Whereas guitar, you could almost think of it as 6 mini keyboards stacked together where each string has the consecutive notes on it and you can only play one note on each string at a time (That is probably an extremely overly complicated way to look at a guitar and shouldn’t scare anyone off, it has many of its own benefits).
The easy visualization of the keyboards can help when improvising a solo too. You can see in your head the intervals of the chords and know what notes are in the chord that can be target notes to hit when soloing or what notes are in the scale to have an idea of what may sound good over different chords. I assume taking the time to learn all the notes on the fretboard of the guitar or bass and learning the notes of chords would be the proper way to ‘Master your instrument”. Maybe I’ll work on that one day but for now I’ll take my little shortcut cheat sheet. I’m having fun and still learning so shouldn’t be too hard on myself.
Versatility
Aside from theory and other instruments, learning the piano makes you versatile. I play with some friends every now and then, mainly bass and guitar but some songs just don’t need 2 or 3 guitarists and playing something on the keyboard is more appropriate for the song and ads depth, plus there’s a huge range of different sounds on keyboard to spice it up a little, it just makes for a better experience. You don’t feel like you’re treading on the other guitarists shoes if you end up just playing the same thing. You will be appreciated by others for having the ability to play another instrument if needed and your flat mates will thank you for having the ability to plug in headphones too.
If you don’t play with others and enjoy just playing on your own, the piano is amazingly versatile. Regardless of what different sounds or fancy looping and drum tracks may come with different keyboards, you can still only have the basics and have endless freedom. You can play a bass section, chords and a melody on top without any fancy skills. You could theoretically play a chord with 10 different notes in it using all your fingers. Yes, it may sound horrendous, but you can do it! All this freedom means you will sooner be able to play the music and create the feeling you want.
Have this convinced you?
I’ve recently got a small keyboard, about 36 keys, 6 different sounds and a few effects. It’s simple but sounds great, has the ability to be battery powered and fits in a small bag making it super potable. Sometimes I’ll have it with me at work and at lunch times find a quiet spot outside and just play around. If I’m trying to learn a new song or just play around in a key and trying to find some sounds, it’s great. Eat some food, little bit of music, little bit of sun, can’t go wrong really.
Maybe this little post has convinced you to go out and find a 2nd hand keyboard to muck around on, maybe not. At the end of the day as long as you’re enjoying It, the rest just isn’t as important. I hope it’s helped you recognize how learning some piano can bring great value to your playing overall and elsewhere. What have you got to lose? Get out there and tickle those ivory’s…(play the piano).