Chords, Scales
&
Improvisation

What do Chords, Scales & Improvisaion lessons look like?

Focusing on chords and improvisation is a great way to learn to play the piano when you aren't interested or don't have time to learn how to read music. Western music is often organized into keys, which are based on the tones played in that key. These tones (notes) are arranged in a sequence from the root note (the note the scale and key are named for) and moving up 7 tones to the next octave of the root note. Chords are collections of these notes in different combinations.

I like to describe improvisation as "making music up as you go". Scales and chords are essential when improvising. They form the basis of all improvisation. When learning to improvise, we will work on learning scales and chords and using them to produce various tunes.

Why would Chords, Scales & Improvisation lessons work for me?

You want to be able to play music by ear or without reading notes.

Although reading music can be very helpful, like learning to read any other language, it takes time and a lot of work. Learning to play music with chords and scales allows a musician to learn to play without the formal training of learning the staffs. Chords can be learned by ear and by demonstration and don't require as much complex notation theory to be able to play full songs.

You'd like to be able to make up your own music.

While learning to write musical notation can be a great way to compose (or write) your own songs, understanding chords and scales and using them to play different tunes in different combinations is a different, but equally effective way of writing your own music. Instead of writing notation on a staff, you have the option of writing down just the base chords and a few note names as you experiment directly on the piano.

You are thinking about learning to play Jazz.

Of all the genres of piano music, jazz makes the most use of improvisation as well as having a historical base in the use of chords, chord progressions, and scales. If you're interested in learning how to play jazz, studying chords, scales, and improvisation is essential.

Final Thoughts

If you think lessons focused on chords, scales, and improvisation would work best for you (or your student), and would like to join Noteworthy Piano Studio, click the link below to contact me for a meeting.

If these types of lessons aren't the best fit for you or you'd like to see our other offerings, go to our Future Students Page!