Is This My Most Important Tutorial Ever?

If you first learned about my courses by watching my YouTube video Piano Technique, A Whole Body Approach, you’re not alone. For the past seven years now, I’ve been reminded of its value over and over through the comments it receives (not to mention its over 100,000 views). For example:

“I scrolled through so many videos before this on ‘wrist movement while playing’ before I came across your video and I wish I had found yours first! Thank you for explaining this so simply and humbly! It really made sense!”

It seems so obvious: we play the piano not just with our fingers, but with our wrists, arms, and entire body. What’s more, if we’re interested in learning to play without tension, yet with precise control over dynamics (volume), it makes sense to let gravity do the work, since nature provides all the downward force we need, in perfectly predictable increments.

I talk about all this in more detail here.

Now some of you, I suspect, may come to my courses simply to learn what notes to play, as if learning to play the piano is like learning to type: just show me where to put my fingers, please! And my courses do cover that aspect in detail, through my focus on chords and chord theory.

But what has always excited me about DoctorKeys is that I don’t just show you what to play, I teach you how to play. I help you build the sort of technical foundation that will enable you, ultimately, to move in any direction—whether that be the latest sounds from today’s artists and songwriters, or the classics as penned by Bach, Beethoven, and others of that ilk.

So why am I drawing your attention to the Whole Body tutorial now?  The reason is its (questionable) placement within the course. You see, when I first uploaded it to Play & Sing, I had a choice to make. (The lesson is in two parts, by the way, only the first of which is available for free on YouTube.) Where should I place it in the sequence of lessons? For a while, that was easy. It went at the top, since you need to develop the right habits from the very first time you touch the instrument.

But later, after adding the 2-part tutorial called “Playing Your First Piece,” I decided that “Piano Technique, A Whole Body Approach” was redundant, since much of its material is explained in the newer video. So I moved it to the bottom of the page, under the heading “Free Bonus Lessons For Subscribers.”

But I sometimes wonder if that was the right move. Certainly, this hasn’t been a major mistake, since ecstatic reviews for the course keep pouring in.

But I do suspect that subscribers might be well-advised to view the original video as they’re getting started. Because it does go into greater detail about arm weight, gravity, and certain trouble-shooting aspects that aren’t covered in “Playing Your First Piece.”

The choice, ultimately, is yours. But whatever you decide, promise me that you’ll begin your Play & Sing adventure by reading the Play & Sing course guide, OK? Many of the questions I receive from subscribers arise because they’re not following the lessons in sequence, perhaps thinking that what I’ve created is an assortment of random lessons, rather than a step-by-step course developed through teaching hundreds of private students over the years.

So do follow it in order, please. And enjoy!