Is It Possible To Create Cool “New Age” Sounds On The Piano Without Knowing A Thing About Music?
I’ll admit that for many years as a piano teacher I didn’t think so.
But in the last couple years I made a discovery about creating pleasant sounds on the piano that I never would have believed during my earlier piano teaching career.
I recall a physician friend asking me if I had any kind of course he could take that didn’t involve learning to read music or music theory or any of the traditional materials.
He had purchased a beautiful Yamaha grand for his daughter to take lessons on when she was growing up, but now she was married and moved away, so he had this grand piano in his living room with no one to play it. He was much too busy in his career to take traditional piano lessons;he just wanted to “doodle” after work in the evening and relax after a stress-filled day at the hospital.
Unfortunately, I told him “no, I don’t have anything like that available, sorry!” and that was the end of that story.
But a few months later another student had heard a “new age” pianist somewhere, and loved the sounds he produced so much that they wanted to do the same, and asked me how in the world he got those sounds. They weren’t really songs but more like the sounds of nature and running water and nature in bloom.
I have taught piano for 30 years and I’m a firm believer in learning to read music, understand music, and really master the keyboard. I’m no fan of mindless “shortcuts” because I know in the long run they just don’t work because you’ve got to have understanding.
But I also know now that there are many people like my doctor friend that would love to be able to make their own “pleasant sounds” on the piano just for their own satisfaction, relaxation, and