Learn To Play Piano Keyboard
How do you learn to play piano keyboard? There are two main ways to do it: learning piano chords and learning sheet music. Each of these ways has its pros and cons, which we will discuss below.
Learning Piano Keyboard Using Chords
Chords are the easiest way to learn playing the piano keyboard. In fact, you could merely have to spend around half an hour to learn a nice melody with basic chords. Each chord consists of a few notes that have a specific distance between them and that need to be played in a specific order. The most common are major and minor chords. Basic major and minor chords have three notes separated from each other by two notes each. Major chords go up, while minor chords go down.
Do you need to learn all of the piano chords that exist? Not at all, you will simply need to find the chords to your favorite song and learn them. Alternatively, you can pick a beginner piano chord that you like and practice it until you master it, then pick the next one, and so on. Yet, learning your favorite song chords is probably better: it's much more motivating as you know at the end you will learn the song.
You can find chords for songs by any singers (whether it's the Beatles, David Archuleta, Demi Lovato, Evanescence, Kanye West, or Maroon 5). You can find chords for any music genre (whether it's pop, jazz, reggae, rock, blues, gospel, hip hop, or house).
You can learn chords using special chord sheets, books, charts and diagrams. You will find piano chord progression charts, online piano chord generators, and printable piano chord charts to aid you in your learning. All in all, piano chords offer an easy and fulfilling way to learn piano keyboard.
Learning Piano Keyboard with Sheet Music
The other way to learn to play piano keyboard is by learning to read and analyze sheet music. Even though chords are very powerful, they have their limits, and they leave out a lot about playing a piece of music exactly the way it should sound.
You will get much more complete information about any piece of music if you learn sheet music. Sheet music consists of a staff (a sheet with lines and spaces) with numerous markings on it, including: notes, clefs (treble and bass), key and time signatures, and other signs.
A note can be defined both, by its pitch and its length. Unfortunately, simple chord charts will not provide you with the knowledge about how long you should hold this note for. Furthermore, some notes need to be played quiet (piano, pianissimo, etc.), while others need to be played loud (forte, fortissimo, etc.). This knowledge can also be gained only with sheet piano music.
The bottom line: if you wish to play your favorite melodies similar to the original, you will be fine with learning piano keyboard with chords. However, if you want to play exactly how the music should sound, you will need to learn and master piano sheet music as well.