finding your place in all that ivory

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clif9710
Posts: 47
Joined: Sat Mar 17, 2018 4:01 pm

finding your place in all that ivory

Post by clif9710 » Fri Jun 22, 2018 4:17 pm

I'm in the intermediate bootcamp and the chords are a challenge. I'd been going over and over them trying to get a feel for where to place my fingers when I realized that the person who came up with the exercises is trying to make it as easy as possible to move through chords by keeping at least one key on the keyboard the same in any chord change. This comes through clearly in "Chords on the Keyboard 3: 1st and 2nd Inversions"

For example, I started to keep in mind that my pinky would move to where my thumb just was, or the other way around, giving me 1 key as an anchor to help me know where to place all my fingers. This has removed lots of frustration. Figuring that each white key is only 1 inch wide it's a chore to sit before so many of them and come down on exactly the right one. By keeping in mind the way one finger can take the place of another when moving through chords provides a physical "touch path" to follow.

For me the move from E flat root to C minor root seemed huge, but two of the three keys in these chords are the same, only different fingers play them.

Of course with practice, people do get the very fine sense of position that allows free play. I'm sure Elton John isn't thinking about where to put his fingers on the keyboard, but getting there takes time. It's when things get challenging that you realize whether you really do have the motivation to play any instrument. Let's all hang in there!

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sw1tch73ch
Posts: 539
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2016 1:23 pm

Re: finding your place in all that ivory

Post by sw1tch73ch » Fri Jun 22, 2018 11:26 pm

Excellent discovery!

This is going to help a bunch of folks, I'm sure. Thank you for sharing it!
== Just keep playing. Just keep playing. Just keep playing, playing, playing! ==

-- jbs --

andrewwegierski
Posts: 783
Joined: Fri Apr 06, 2018 4:37 pm

Re: finding your place in all that ivory

Post by andrewwegierski » Mon Jun 25, 2018 11:17 am

Glad to hear about your progress! Thanks for sharing!
Andrew Wegierski

Customer Support Representative
Music Arranger

support@playgroundsessions.com

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