How to Read the Chord Charts on UltimateGuitar.com
I just got an email from Cal, a recent DoctorKeys subscriber. He said:
In one of your lessons you show how to read a chord chart. But can you explain how to read a chord chart like Let It Be? [He’s referring to the sort of chord chart you get on UltimateGuitar.com.] It has the chords but no bar lines, so how do I know exactly when to play each chord? Please help for I enjoy both your courses very much.
What a great question! And since there may be others of you who are wondering the same thing, I’ll explain. Continue reading
What Do These Crazy Dudes Have To Do With My Latest Piano Course?
If you haven’t yet seen this highly entertaining video, do yourself a favor and watch it now. In it, Axis of Awesome shows how you can play big chunks of many of the greatest pop hits using the same four chords.
Now as it happens, my new course, Pop Piano Accompaniment, opens with two tutorials based on the same premise. Continue reading
Update: Where to Get Free Chord Sheets
For years, I’ve been telling my online students about Wikifonia.org. It’s been a great place to get free chord sheets for your favorite songs.
Well, Wikifonia has been unavailable for weeks, so it may be discontinued.
The good news is that there’s now an even better source for free chord charts: Ultimate-Guitar.com. It has everything Wikifonia did. (Except that melodies are not written out–but you don’t need that to play an accompaniment.) And Ultimate-Guitar has a much bigger selection of songs than Wikifonia did. Like Wikifonia, Ultimate-Guitar will also transpose (change keys) for you.
To the best of my understanding, Ultimate-Guitar is now fully legal, meaning it has some sort of arrangement with the publishers, and composers get paid for their efforts. So I now have no qualms whatsoever about recommending it.
Enjoy!
Sheet music for Prelude in C now available
Some of you have asked about the sheet music for the piece I play at the start of Piano Technique: A Whole-Body Approach. Well, with just a few clicks, you can now instantly download and print out a beautifully edited and fingered score of it, and be playing it within minutes. Watch me play Prelude, and/or purchase it here.
Free Chord Charts and Where to Get Them
As you may know, I’ve been talking up Wikifonia.org as a great place to go for free lead sheets. Wiifonia will even transpose songs into your key, and give you beautiful files, ready to print. Well, I just found another free online source. Each has its pros and cons. Continue reading
Improvising and the Pattern Play Series
Do you want to learn to improvise? Do you need help in teaching improvisation to others?
If the answer is yes to either question, you may be interested in the Pattern Play series of books by Akiko and Forrest Kinney, Continue reading
The Top Three Myths About Learning to Play the Piano
(NEWER POSTS ARE BELOW THIS ONE)
I keep this old post up top because, as one of the commenters says, it looks at the BIG picture of how we learn to play. You’ll find practical tips here as well as exercises, resources, and the philosophy behind the DoctorKeys piano courses.
Whether you’ve been playing the piano for years or are just getting started, what you think you know may be holding you back.
Here are the common fallacies we’ll debunk:
• It all starts with learning to read music.
• It’s all about the fingers.
• Practicing means playing a piece over and over.
Catch me on YouTube & PianoSociety.com
My new YouTube channel has two playlists: one for tutorials, and one for videos in which I’m performing music my students and I love to play. In the second category you’ll find everything from baroque to jazz.
If you’d like to hear me playing standard (more difficult) repertoire, you can do that at PianoSociety.com, where I’ve recently become a contributing artist. Continue reading