Guitar players should pick up the piano!

[teletail]

Everyone says they wish they’d started on the piano when they were young. Most would have quit anyway; the piano takes hard work, but you can learn a few guitar chords and get started right away. It’s human nature to take the easy way out.

 

[StoneH]

Do piano players get GAS . Might be worth making the switch purely on economic grounds...

Yes we get GAS, but Nope . . . no economic benefit.

<Edit>
And you still need an amp for the keyboards and a Leslie for the organ (and pedals).
The keyboards alone (bought used (cheap) in the middle '70s) would cost $12,000 today.

Hard to beat something like this for recording:

 

[memorex]

When I was young, I owned a Fender Rhodes piano and put it in the car by myself. Nowadays, I don't lift anything much over 20 lbs. It's a big part of why I won't play in bands anymore.

 

[eddiewagner]

I play very halfhearted on the piano. It’s supereasy to sound a bit like the stones. Kind of. Beyond that: difficult!

 

[Milspec]

Tough to carry a piano onto a plane and no woman ever threw her underwear at the piano player.

My Mother played piano and forced me to take lessons when I was 7 years old. I did it for a year, but hated it. I had to walk past a boxing gym to reach the apartment where my instructor was and decided I wanted to learn to box instead. My Mother never got wise for 4 weeks until my instructor stopped sending invoices.

I quit piano and became a boxer for the next 5 years. I do wish I had learned to play, but the boxing was far more useful to me.

 

[Chiogtr4x]

I'm historically bad at actually following through with my desire to improve my knowledge on basic music theory/reading music, etc.,

I've always had a good ear, love for guitar, and picked up stuff w/o lessons- just chord charts in Songbooks, then association by ear...

I feel like getting a keyboard would help with my understanding with this, along with maybe helping me with songwriting attempts- ( just the linear/repetitive pattern of the keys layout, maybe makes melody/harmony easier?)
But no room for anything in a small apartment- plus, aging.

Background:
I hated piano lessons as a kid; thought it was punishment-I was no good! So, would not mind a 'redo' on this!

 

[bottlenecker]

Standard notation is actually just "tab" for piano.
Change my mind.

 

[maxvintage]

Our daughter played pretty seriously for a while. We have a nice Kawai and a weighted action keyboard. I keep looking at it and thinking hmmm. So many things are really obvious on the piano.

On the other hand, sus chords are dead easy on the guitar whereas piano players have to get all fussy about "quartal harmony"

 

[buster poser]

Agree, I took lessons for four years as an adult and it's always a great reference and learning tool, any instrument (including voice and 'band' when I was in school). Unoriginal observation, but a whole lot of guitar for the new player is necessarily about the guitar itself, developing completely new physical skills that make sounding a note possible, then five basic chords.

Surely there is technique to piano, but as a tool to more easily explain and better understand music, piano is tough to top. Sit down at one and boom, there's your C major scale from the literal middle, play all the whites, no sharps no flats. And here's a chord, 1-3-5, move up a set and your next two chords are minor, what happens when we start from D, etc. Fair guess many if not most guitar players never learn any of that.

 

[schmee]

If you're picking up piano, better do some weight training first!:

 

[P Thought]

Ol' Nonch Tidric has a three-octave tattoo, just for a reference, helpful sometimes

 

[Dave Hicks]

Well, that attempt went south quickly!

 

[P Thought]

glomp some more thirds

band name alert

 

[Hodgo88]

 

[Hey_you]

I have keys too. I find it a great way to warm the fingers up before guitar playing!

 

[bebopbrain]

My piano teacher studied with heavyweights at University of Indiana Bloomington. She works mostly with elementary school kids; I am the exception. We work on how to strike keys. You want your hand to be a zombie, totally dead (i.e. relaxed). Then when you play a note you want to activate just that one finger, dropping it like a dead weight. This takes a surprising amount of practice.

I can't imagine using an electric piano and getting the same feel. A piano should be a percussion instrument.

 

[Blues Power]

I lost my keys down at the lake back in summer of 78.
Had to walk home 5 miles strumming my Martin copy.

Only time i lost a guitar was in a poker game

 

[Milspec]

I'm historically bad at actually following through with my desire to improve my knowledge on basic music theory/reading music, etc.,

I've always had a good ear, love for guitar, and picked up stuff w/o lessons- just chord charts in Songbooks, then association by ear...

I feel like getting a keyboard would help with my understanding with this, along with maybe helping me with songwriting attempts- ( just the linear/repetitive pattern of the keys layout, maybe makes melody/harmony easier?)
But no room for anything in a small apartment- plus, aging.

Background:
I hated piano lessons as a kid; thought it was punishment-I was no good! So, would not mind a 'redo' on this!

I am the same way...it might be an age thing having jumped into this later in life. I still remember memorizing part of a Mozart piece when I was 7 (right hand only) because I found no joy in scales and twinkle little star. The instructor heard me playing it and got all excited thinking she had some kind of prodigy. She got pissed off when I told her that I memorized it instead of practicing the stuff she assigned to me.

I would still like to be able to play, if for no other reason than to make my Mother happy. She took it pretty hard that none of her 5 children learned the piano. I think she always wanted a duet for Christmas time.

 

[Edgar Allan Presley]

Do any of y'all know a good source for simple piano chording instruction?

 

[billy logan]

I totally agree with bebopbrain in post #36 as, yes, that's the way to be have a great touch on a real piano. I'm all over TDPRI defending real pianos these days from going to the piano graveyard. Loving the HECK out of Erroll Garner, Andras Schiff, Otis Spann, etc.

HOWEVER

I'm gonna say to guitarists who want to JUST learn that next theory step, for guitar, "What WAS that good note that led so well to that next chord???"

JUST learn your "day 1" guitar pet clichés on piano. (over basic E chord) B C# E, B C# E, B C# E (the pinkie hammer-on) on keyboard with right hand. Then with left hand.

Louie Louie. 96 Tears. Maybe arpeggio "Hallelujah" or James Brown's "I Lost Someone"

I HEREBY grant you permission to be a HAM-HANDED keyboard player Keep transferring the guitar over to kybd...THEN...when Abmin7b5 shows up, line it up on keys and you'll see how "Oh, THAT THERE...IS the b5, and that's how it makes sense that it leads so nice to the next chord"

or, "here That diminished is acting pretty much like a V7" "Oh yes I see. It's Just that the root note alone went up a 1/2 step (one fret)" ... On guitar all the switching of left-hand fingers camouflages what's happening.

'coz of, like everybody's saying, on kybd all the notes are in a row.

Just don't go up and play the piano when Emmett Cohen is on break