Learn to Play In EVERY Key EVEN if you Currently Transpose!!!

hello musicians so I'm blessed with the opportunity to work with piano students from around the world and a common issue they have is they can play in one key pretty well but the other keys they struggle so I want to share two Frameworks I use to help my students play in every key plus a couple personal stories alright so let's get started so I started playing in a Holiness Church and in the Holiness Church I started playing in they did something called testimonial service or testimony service they didn't do praise and worship so testimony service what that meant was anybody was able to get up and give their testimony and then sing whatever song they wanted to sing so when I started playing at the church I had already taken some classical lessons so I knew how to play the major scale in every key so I knew the names of all the notes and I knew how to play One Church song and so when I set up my keyboard and started somebody started singing I was like uh first off what kids did I have no idea then what are the chords and then how do you play along and so thankfully I had a guitar player with me and this guitar player knew three or four chords in every key and so I was able to follow along with him and that gave me like the first clue like okay there are certain chords that just kind of work and all the time they weren't right all the time um but they were they allowed me to start and so this that helped me learn this first framework that is learning by concept so framework number one learning by concept so music is a language in just like any language there are a couple ways to learn it you can learn it by being immersed in it just in it and you figure it out or you learn by Concepts so learn by wrote or learn by concept this first framework is learning by a concept and the second framework we'll talk about is learning by roads so what does that mean well in any language let's say you're starting to learn Spanish or German or French or whatever the language is the first thing you start learning is the alphabet you get familiar with the letters so that's akin to getting familiar with the scales the notes and and the scales then the second thing is words you start putting the letters of the alphabet together then you start creating words this is akin to chords and music then you start putting several words together and this creates a sentence that's akin to chord progressions then you start learning bigger words and that's like adding extensions onto your chords and then you start creating more complex sentences and that's akin to complex chord aggression songs and like so you see this real parallel so today I want to focus on that second one the the words or the chords and so I mentioned that I I knew how to play three or four chords in each key because that's what the guitarist knew how to do so I just followed him but those were the most important chords of the key and so I want to talk about those so let's go to the piano here so let's say we're in the key of C all right so uh let's play the major scale C has no sharps or flats in the scale so so that's the major scale right and so we're going to derive our Harmony or the chords or our words from this scale so let's put our thumb on C skip the next on the scale go to the third one skip this one go to the next one so this is C major this is a C major chord and I can do the same thing for every note of this scale so I can go to D that's D minor E minor F major G major a minor and B diminished now we can put a number to each one of these chords so if I count one two three four five six seven and then we're back to C again which is the one and so if I played a chord for each one of those notes this would be the one chord this would be the two chord three four five five six seven okay so basically in e in in our major scale we have one two three four five six seven different chords so you might be saying chord that's a lot of chords okay but here's the thing there are really three main chords you need to know the chord built off the first scale degree the chord built off the fourth scale degree and the chord built off the Fifth Scale degree these are what are called your primary chords so the chord built off the first skill degree in the key of C is what c-e-g C major now we gotta find the fourth category so I'm gonna play the c major scale and count one two three four so I need the chord built off the fourth fourth scale degree which is f F major and then we need the chord built off the Fifth Scale degree so one two three four five there we go g it's a G major so these chords the one four and five are known as primary chords now you notice I refer to them by their number one four five instead of C major F major and G major and in music we do that often with refer to chords by their number A lot of times instead of the name but it's the same thing so what's the point of learning the primary chords well the every other chord is the derivative of the primary chords so if you can play the primary chords you can pretty much play any song now it might not sound perfect but it's a start right so let's say Amazing Grace let's say that uh [Music] right and they're I I can do a thousand songs that you can literally play just by knowing those three chords they're primary chords and then you might be asking well Corey what do you do in the left hand well you could play the root uh [Music] okay let's try another song [Music] Hallelujah Hallelujah [Music] so the fourth chord that I generally like to add to the primary chords is the sixth so one two three four five six a minor that's a derivative of C and the sixth is used so much that I always included when I teach the primary chords all right so let's do a couple other songs now that we have the sixth in there let's see how that sounds let's um do thank you love me [Music] now one thing I did that I realized I did I haven't talked about is so we have to see here the one the four the five and the six but this six I could also play here because one two three four five six I can even play up here and so you might see me playing that same chord but maybe in a different octave right um you thought I was worth you came change [Music] if I can imagine now you might have noticed there's a couple of course in there that like um um but again we're just starting this we're beginning we're just starting Gonna Keep so everything isn't going to be perfect but we're developing the framework now you might be asking what Corey okay what about all the fancy stuff what about all those other chords those other sounds when do I learn these you definitely should be trying to expand your chords once you get these primary chords Down in the court the diatonic chords of the key the these diatonic chords start expanding them start with adding a seventh um and then 9th and 11th and 13th or sixth those chords will yield different sounds and colors that you've been hearing but you didn't know how where they were so maybe about six months after I started playing at my church we had a service at another church so I went there and um they had a guy that was playing the keyboard so I ended up playing the organ and I didn't know much about playing Oregon but I figured I'd just play it the way I play a keyboard and um so and service got really high and it went into a praise break and so I'm on the organ oh I I got onto the organ and I was trying to figure out what key we were in so I looked at the hands of the musician and he was playing in F sharp so I played F sharp thinking okay we're in F sharp so I played that note and that wasn't the key we were in when I figured out what key we're in we were actually in b and so I just said okay I just played in B that's what we'll do and when I say he was wearing that keyboard out like it was incredible I I felt bad because I was like I don't know put three chords B so I'm just kind of doing what I do and uh he was going to town it was incredible and so I started feeling really bad about my own playing like man he is so much better than me he can play better than me it's incredible um I just started feeling bad about myself but then I realized hey hey trust the process Corey trust the process you're learning and you're learning every key he's focused on one key so he's got really good at one key which is fine for him but you're learning every key and when you it's going to it's going to take a little time but once you get it you know you can play just as well as he can in F sharp but then if they change Keys you can play that same level and another key so I was like okay just trust the process keep growing keep growing learn it four chords learn five chords I learned six chords in the key um just not just instead of my primary chords I learned started learning the diatonic chords of the key uh started learning different passes and and before long I was able to play an F sharp as well as he could but then I could also play in every other key at that same level and so the point I'm trying to make is trust the process I had a student once that struggled with transposing tell me that he was like Corey I cannot stop transposing I have to transpose because churches hired me and they believe I'm going to sound a certain way so is there a short uh another way a shortcut way to learn this my answer is it's not really shortcut but there is a different route and so I want to talk about that different route and so this is our framework two learning by Road and I'm probably going to call it learning by row 2.0 because it's a slightly different spin on learning by road so this framework simply just says learn each song in its original key now unless you go to the type of church that I grew up in where you didn't know the song or even the key most of the time you're probably going to know the songs and the key and so learn the song in the original key now where do I get this learning by wrote from well let's say you can only play in C sharp that's your key you can only play in C sharp but the song is an e [Music] right so there are two ways to kind of learn this by Road number one is just just play it in E and just listen to the recording and figure out what the chords are one at a time till you get the whole song another thing is uh if let's say you're good in C sharp well you could play the song in C sharp right let's say this is the first chord and then figure out what that chord would be in the key of E so I'm gonna go up minor there so that's the same chord in e that's the first chord right and so let's say you're the next chord is this [Music] okay I gotta figure that chord out in e okay I'm saying there we go I forget that quarter so I have the first chord and the second chord and so you can go through the entire song doing that so now you can play that particular song Whatever It Is in e now now you're still going to feel uncomfortable in the key of E for example because you only can play this one song in the key of E but you've learned the chords so you have those chords but keep going because the next time you get another song of E and you'll see start seeing familiar patterns and you get another song in e and then you'll start becoming more and more familiar with the key so it's a shortcut because you can you learn the song for that Sunday but it's the long way because it takes you a longer amount of time to become comfortable with the key and learn it so which framework should you use well I suggest you use both Frameworks framework number one learning by concept so that you can develop how to play in each key especially because they're foreign to you and you're developing everything you need to be able to do to play in that key but then framework two so you that you can play the songs that you need to play at the level that you want to play at so what I've done is I've put together a little checklist to help you remember these two Frameworks and how to apply them so all you have to do is click the link in the description box put your name and email address and I'll send that right to you also we are on our way to 100 000 subscribers so if you're finding value in our videos definitely hit that subscribe button the thumbs up the like button and comment your suggestions below for new videos you'd like to see and lastly if you need help if you're trying to figure out what to do next how do you improve you're stuck I just need some help set up a call with me in the description box below I have a link to set up a free 15-minute call with me but we'll talk about where you are and how I can help you get to your next level all right you all well thank you all so much again for checking out this video and until the next one be blessed and happy practicing [Music]

Channel: Skilled Musician

Views: 282,677

Keywords: piano lessons, Corey Taylor, Skilled Musician, skilled musician llc, corey taylor, piano, jazz piano lessons, gospel piano lessons, gospel piano theory, gospel organ, jazz piano theory

Id: XRF8DmKdYsY

Length: 16min 15sec (975 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 18 2023