Online Piano Lesson - The Piano is a Drum Set!
Too many pianists seem to have forgotten that their instrument is classified as part of the percussion family. They spend so much energy and focus on the minute details, such as which note goes where, that they lose (or never get) the visceral connection with their instrument, the relaxed physicality that drummers have.
It?s no mystery why drummers tend to make the best jazz pianists. Listen to the great Cuban pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba. He was originally a drummer, and you can always hear it in his playing. To be able to spontaneously craft beautiful melodies on the piano while functioning also as a percussionist is just one of the many tightropes you must learn to walk as a musician.
In the following metaphor I have used absolutes to make appoint strongly. I?ve minimized the important of individual notes in favor of the larger elements of rhythm and shape. Certainly this is an injustice to a more complex truth. Undeniably, tension and release, occurring as one melody note moves to the next, is a vital and emotional part of music.
However, much of the emotional content in music is to be found in its larger elements: the rhythms and the contours of the line as opposed to the individual notes.
If you want to express your emotions freely, you need to be able to focus your attention on those elements. And you can only do that when the smaller, mechanical tasks have been ?hard-wired? into your hands. For instance, shifting scales as the harmony changes is not a creative act. It is largely a bookkeeping issue that should be delegated to your hands ? it should become automatic.
In order to thoroughly program your hands to handle the mechanical aspects of playing, you need to spend years focusing on them ? working out note-choice, fingering, and technique minutiae. And you need to know theory: the task of analyzing a tune for scale-choice (another non-creative act) should feel automatic. But all of this disciplined detail work is a means to an end, and you?ll progress much more quickly if you have a clear image of that end.
Image an odd-looking keyboard with keys, just two touch-sensitive drumheads where the keys used to be.
The drumheads are digital and there is also a built-in computer that can instantly analyze chord to determine the most appropriate improvising scales. You simply insert a card that has a recording of your style of playing, so the computer can adjust its scale analysis to match your style.
Before you play, you insert the sheet music into the data slot. During your solo you tap rhythms on the right drumhead, shifting your right and left to indicate higher or lower pitch. While your right hand is busy tapping, you comp on the other drumhead with your left hand ?again, just by tapping the rhythm you want. The computer selects one of your favorite voicings for each chord. Your only concern is the rhythm.
Playing this piano is almost as easy as playing a set of bongo drums. You can express your rhythmic impulses freely through the instrument without the usual complications of being in the right key, making transitions from scale to scale, or searching for the right voicing.
Do you want to buy this piano? Sorry, it hasn?t been invented yet!
The point of this metaphor is to get you to envision what being a pianist is like after you?ve learned all your theory, scales, voicings, and other structure thoroughly. It?s a way for you to imagine the physical, loose, big-movement, conductor-like, drummer-like way of being at the instrument. It?s to help you keep that end vision in mind so that you don?t end up boxing yourself in. And it?s to remind you that the piano is a percussion instrument.
Copyright 2006 RAW Productions
Ron Worthy is a Music Educator, Pianist and Songwriter. If you wish to learn more, you are invited to visit: http://www.MrRonsMusic and http://www.PlayPianoTonight.com
Ron Worthy is a Pianist/Songwriter. Her offers Online Piano Instruction through Multimedia eBooks and DVDs at: http://www.MrRonsMusic.com and http://www.PlayPianoTonight.com
Related Articles:
Cape Breton International Drum Festival Organizers Announce 2007 Line Up
Festival Organizers, Bruce & Gloria Jean Aitken and Director Mike Megaffin are pleased to announce the line up for the 7th Annual Cape Breton International Drum Festival. One of the worlds premier drumming events takes place at the Theatre of Dreams, The Savoy Thetare Glace Bay Cape Breton Island on April 28th & 29th 2007.
Acoustical Solutions, Inc. is Now Offering ClearSonic Drum Shields and Vocal Booths
ClearSonic is the world leader in drum shield technology and offers the most durable products on the market. You can choose from our line of Isolation Packages consisting of a complete drum shield enclosure with a roof or you can make your own drum shield package by using an assortment of ClearSonic panels and Sorber Panels. Also there is a full line of vocal booths and accessories. All of the ClearSonic drum shield products are American made with the highest quality ¼" thick clear acrylic plastic that is 99% transparent.
Junior Wants A Drum Set
He?s a good kid, and he really doesn?t ask for much. Yet nearly every parent reacts the same way when he asks for a drum set. Typically about 80% more boys ask for a drum set than girls, although girls tend to make excellent drummers. Yet regardless of the circumstances, gender, age, or reason, most parents cringes at least slightly when Junior wants to play the drums. Despite the stigma that most drummers receive when initially learning to play, the drums are a complex instrument and it does take talent to learn how to play the drums, at least if he wants to learn to play them well.
Steel Drum Compactor
Although standard 55 gallon drums are one of the most convenient storage mediums seen in modern industrial facilities, the greatest limitation offered by the vessels is their comparatively large size that makes disposal difficult. When your business uses a lot of drums, you will soon discover that these useful storage items quickly become a liability when it comes to disposal. The relatively large size of the barrels coupled with the important and highly expensive costs of disposal under EPA guidelines means that one of the most important considerations facing any user of standard drums is their disposal. With this in mind, having appropriate systems such as steel drum compactors in place to reduce the disposal cost is vital to ensuring the...
Determine If You Are In Need of These Drum Scales
Drums of chemicals must be weighed for many reasons. The gross weight may need to be known for shipping purposes. The net weight may be needed for inventory, or to determine usage in some process. Formulation may actually take place in the drum, where a variety of ingredients are combined to produce the desired results.
Single Drum Compactors
Whether storage space within your premises is limited, or you simply prefer to concentrate your resources on production and storing unused raw materials, waste management is of major concern to many business owners, as it can represent a fair percentage of overall costs without actually providing revenue. Storing used oil drums consumes a lot of space, and without some kind of single drum compactor on site, you will need to give over a great deal of space to the storage of these containers due to their large size.
Can You Play the Drums?
When I was a child, all I wanted from life was to be able to play every instrument under the sun. Pretty lofty goal, right?
Drum Lifts
Despite their convenience as containers, 55 gallon drums are a fairly unwieldy and heavy item when full, and moving them around can be a tricky proposition without the proper drum lifts and other handling equipment. In order to ensure that all processes that involve moving and handling drums can be carried out as safely and efficiently as possible, it is important for any employer to provide their staff with the proper handling equipment.
Drum Carriers
If you need to move single drums around the workplace, and need a cost effective but robust cart, then one of Easy Rack?s range of drum carriers is the best option. Offering enough capacity to lift most 55 gallon drums, and designed to make carrying drums as safe and secure as possible, these handy carts will come in very handy no matter what kind of materials you have stored in your drums.
Outskirts Press Announces The Mysterious Sock Caper, the Latest Highly-anticipated Children's Book from Drums, PA Author Beth Yost
Outskirts Press, Inc. has published The Mysterious Sock Caper by Beth Yost, which is the author's most recent book to date. The 8.5 x 8.5 Color Paperback in the Children's category is available worldwide on book retailer websites such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble for a suggested retail price of $10.95. The webpage at www.outskirtspress.com/TheMysteriousSockCaper was launched simultaneously with the book's publication.