Piano Pilot

So, you love the sound of New Age piano. You may have wondered how certain people can just sit down at the piano and start playing from scratch. It’s not magic! It’s called knowing what you’re doing and you can do the same! To begin, you need to know a few chords. I suggest complete beginners start out with something called the open position chord. This chord structure has many, many benefits for the beginner (and advanced student!)

First, it’s a modern sounding chord. Forget about triads and scales. The open position chord allows you to play seventh chords right away. This chord structure is used by most jazz and contemporary piano players.

Second, it uses both hands right away! When you

first finger this chord structure, it will stretch your hands out completely. In fact, you will be playing more than 2 octaves of the piano keyboard. This is something beginners want to do right away and it can be done with a minimum of practice.

Let’s look at how we can use this chord structure to create music with. In the lesson “Reflections in Water” we have 4 chords to play. The chords are in the Key of C major, which means they are all located on the white keys. We finger the first chord (C Major 7) with both hands and notice the sound. How open it is! The sound you get from this chord is perfect for the New

Age sound. In fact, once we finger this chord, we only have to move our fingers around a little and music comes out. It’s really an amazing thing.

We switch chords using the same fingering and play around with the notes from the C major scale. This is all that is required to create New Age piano music or Jazz music for that matter. The amazing thing about this chord type is the amount of music you can create right from the start. If you’re into New Age piano and want to immediately play in this style, I highly recommend you learn how to play the open position piano chord!

Edward Weiss is a pianist/composer and webmaster of Quiescence Music’s online

piano lessons. He has been helping students learn how to play piano in the New Age style for over 14 years and works with students in private, in groups, and now over the internet. Stop by now at http://www.quiescencemusic.com/piano_lessons.html for a FREE piano lesson!