Hey everyone,

My apologies if this seems like cross-posting. I'm putting it in a few forums because I honestly think it applies to the ones I'm posting in.

I just wanted to let you know that I recently started a completely free site that includes lessons in jazz, pop, and other styles. I thought it would be of interest here, since it caters to beginners as well as more advanced students. It is: http://www.betterpiano.com. The site just came online, so there aren't too many lessons yet. However, you can help, by suggesting what you'd like to see next! I would love to hear your thoughts or suggestions, either here or on the site! I'd also love to have you sign up for my email list, where you can get extra tips not found elsewhere on the site.

Thanks very much for your time,

-James


James Dering
www.BetterPiano.com - A resource for FREE piano goodies!

Hi James,

An interesting endavour, I salute your courage since there is lots of competition out there! I found your presentation style clear and concise, using different approaches to explain the same basic things.

I learned my "simple triads" formula by the number of semitones between the notes (4 and 3 for major, 3 and 4 for minor); scratched my head a bit as to why you didn't also mention this approach for remembering a formula on how to build the triads.

On your page about major triads, wondering if there is a "cut-and-paste" editing error, as I learned everywhere that the thumb is finger 1 but your tutorial mentions the thumb as finger 5: The left fingering numbers are OK later on in teh text. I liked your "triad sheet" a lot.

By the way, I'm just mentioning these little oversights because, as a beginner, its nice to be able to rely on the exactness of the information presented as a learning aid. Maybe I'm not your typical student though, I do visit a lot of theory sites just to get different points of view on a subject because at the moment I still don't have a teacher.

I've recently veered off into looking at blues scales, pentatonics and basic jazz theory so I'm looking forward to reading the Blues page and also the Pop Piano Thingy. I found your Roman Numerals page very very interesting and well done



All in all, nice website. I wish you success!

John

James, I am enthralled! I am basically a classical and folk player who plays from written music only, but your site has me excited to try out some improvisatory playing.

In the 12-bar blues lesson, you give the progression with V V I I as the third line. The progression I've learned goes V IV I I (or V IV I V7 if cycling back for another chorus). Is one of these forms more common than the other? Are there other forms of the 12-bar blues?

Thank you for this site.

Ah ah! I just looked up 12-Bar Blues in Wikipedia, and now have more variations than I could explore in a lifetime! Plus it seems to answer my question, with original blues and shuffle blues. (But why "shuffle"? Hmmm, for every answer, two more questions!) Thank you for being the impetus for this search!

Looks good to me James. Thanks.

Hi, John,

Thanks for your kind words, and for being the first to chime in here about the site! There is a lot of competition, but, in all humility, I believe that the quality and simple-but-unique angle that I put on the concepts will help me to rise up. There are a lot of great programs out there, but there are also too many that use confusing language, overly-complicated explanations, or questionable pedagogy.

Having said that about my high quality, boy, do I have egg on my face! I can't believe I got my finger numbers switched around! You were absolutely right, and I had just made an error. Well, now we all know a human being is behind the site. And please know that I take no offense in your pointing it out! You're basically saying that you respect an instructor who is consistently accurate and, by the same token, I respect a student (like yourself) who insists on accuracy. I certainly want to earn a reputation online for accuracy, and I appreciate your pointing out my goof. I have since fixed it.

As for what you said about a "formula" of 4 and 3 semitones separating the notes of the major triad, I actually have essentially given that information, in a way that I think works best for an online audience. If you look on that lesson (found here:
http://www.betterpiano.com/archives/major-triads )
I mention a "formula" made of X's and O's. This system lays out major triads as:

O X X X O X X O

This "format" implies the separations, but I very deliberately used the word "skip" instead of "count." I found that if I tell someone "count up 3" or "count up 4," then it creates confusion because they don't know whether to "include" the notes themselves in the counting. Of course, in the version you mentioned (4 and 3) you _would_ include the notes in your counting. If you were a private student of mine I would have no problem at all with our looking at them that way, but for an online audience coming from a variety of musical backgrounds, I didn't want to create any confusion. I believe that the best way in this case is to use the word "skip" instead of "count." That highlights the fact that we're talking about the notes in-between, and so we don't include the notes themselves. We say there are 3 notes in-between the C and E, and 2 more in-between the E and G. One more thing: I know it's a little crude, but this method ("skipping notes") allows us to bypass talking about the definition of "half-step" (or "semitone"), for now. This is helpful for anyone who isn't quite ready to talk about them. (The confusion comes occasionally when students struggle over when we "change letters" - moving from C to E, for example, is moving up 4 semitones, but only 3 letters (or 2, depending on how you call it!). So, for the absolute basics, it's helpful to say, "start here, then skip a few, then land here." I hope that makes sense!

I'd be very interested in knowing more about your journey through jazz, and I'd like to know how I can help! Feel free to let me know here, through email, or by commenting on the site, as to what you'd like to see next. And I hope you've joined the email list, which has extra, different things to have fun with.

Thanks again,

James


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James Dering
www.BetterPiano.com - A Resource for FREE Piano Goodies!
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James,

Thanks for sharing the site. It looks to me as if you're off to a really great start. I'm looking forward to further material.

Positives:
1. I like that you group things by both genre and difficulty. That's a nice option.

2. You do something great that I think is sorely lacking in most online tutorials and even many books: in your major triads lesson, for example, you not only explain the concept intellectually and show us what it sounds like, but you ALSO tell us what to do drill-wise to get them under the fingers. That's so critical and that is so often the part that is ignored. My experience is that so many folks read and read about this stuff and can talk and understand at very high levels, but don't have even the most basic things under their fingers sufficiently to use them fluently. That's where the rubber meets the road, and if you continue to do that with other, more advanced concepts as you address them, I think that will set your approach apart and make it very valuable.

3. I really like the small imbedded audio clips to make one simple point. Very easy to use and very effective when combined with text. So much easier (to my mind, anyway) than watching a 10-minute video lesson. I suppose at some point you might want to make those embedded video clips so we can see your hands also.

4. You do a good job explaining. You're not afraid to explain the same thing in several different ways, which is great for someone trying to figure something out. Very nice conversational and non-intimidating writing style also.

Negatives:
1. The only thing that stands out is the sparseness of material... kinda weird that the jazz section, for example, goes from simple major triads to the parallel #9's without anything in between. But I assume that's just a function of the newness of the site, and that will eventually be filled in with material.

All in all, I say nice job and thanks for sharing.

Hi PianoStudent88!

Just wanted to say thanks for the compliments! I'm glad to hear you're jumping into improvisational piano, and I'd love to hear how things are going.

You're absolutely right that there are many variations of the blues, and several of them are more or less "easy." In my lesson, I went with the version that I did (with "V V I I" at the end) because it was the simplest. Among other things, this keeps the chord changes "slow": any time you change chords, you play that chord for at least two measures before going to a different chord.

I've found that, for many people, the very idea of playing constant chords in the left hand and improvising in the right hand is nearly overwhelming. The left hand-part is very concrete (left-brained) while the right hand is set free to do whatever (very right-brained). Because of the difficulty of this little juggling act, I want to do what I can to keep things as simple as possible- so I use the simplest form of the blues first. Of course, as things progress, there are some really cool places the blues can go! At some point I might put together a lesson examining some of those other blues forms.

Keep at it!

-James



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James Dering
www.BetterPiano.com - A Resource for FREE Piano Goodies!
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Hey Legal Beagle,

I wanted to say thanks to you also, for the very kind words! And I appreciate your specifics, as some of the design elements are "best-guesses." ("Hmm...should I organize this by genre, or by difficulty? I'll try both and hope that it's useful to people out there...") Your feedback is a big help!

I'm also glad to hear that you appreciated the practice exercise(s). I'm working on eventually putting together some more extensive projects (products), and a very thorough practice regimen, every step of the way (just like I do with private students, how about that?) would be a big part of it. I'll keep this in mind as I put together other lessons.

I like your comment-- oh, the people I have met who can talk circles around theory, but who don't have it under their fingers! (Not that I'm not still growing and learning every day myself-- it's a lifelong pursuit!) Still, many people miss that boat, which is unfortunate.

You mentioned video. I am working now on getting a video camera setup so that I can begin producing video lessons. I'd like to go back and redo everything that I've done so far on video, in addition to putting together more extensive projects, as I said. I'll then be able to put them up on youtube, etc. I'm also planning on redoing everything AGAIN as podcasts. I hope to use the feedback I get on the different versions as a way of knowing what to eventually put together on a larger scale. (That's also why I have a little section on the site that allows people to choose what format they'd like to see a lesson in- an informal "survey" of sorts. Unfortunately, not many people have used it yet, so I've still got more "market research" to do).

Point very well taken about the sparseness of my material so far. This is due to two things, really:

1. I've just started! More is definitely in the works.

2. I don't mean to keep talking about the "pay" part of what I'm working on, but for the sake of explanation I'll mention it here: I am using the site as a sincere way of "giving back," for free, as so much has been freely given to me. In addition, it's also meant to serve as a bit of a "sample" for the online world, for when I've finally got some "pay" products up and running. To that end, I was faced with a dilemma, which I'm very open to anyone's thoughts on: I can only give out SOME stuff (because if I give out everything then I have nothing left to sell!) So, should I give out a sprinkling of everything, and then the pay product will "fill in the gaps"? Or should I be completely thorough, but cut things off somewhere? (For example, for the sake of simplicity, if my whole range of material would fill 100 lessons, then should I give out lessons 1, 10, 45, 80, and 95 for free, or put out the first 10 in their entirety, and then sell 11-100?)

As I say, I'm still on the fence, but I ended up opting for the "sprinkling" approach, because it shows people of different levels at least a little something. Now, even advanced players can see that I'm able to address those topics as well. Of course, the trade-off is that it's incomplete (which is why I explain on the site that the lessons are "non-sequential.") I hate to do that, but it seems the best option under the circumstances. Any thoughts?

Having said the above, and at the risk of repeating myself, I'm definitely going to fill in the gaps with more lessons!

Thanks again for your comments!

-James




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James Dering
www.BetterPiano.com - A Resource for FREE Piano Goodies!
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You are already rising up! I've looked around further and really like the way you explain concepts and back them up with graphics, audio examples and one-page summaries.




No need to blush, these things happen and now its fixed



That makes perfect sense to me. I got confused about this also when I first started about 10 months ago.




Still considering myself as quite an inexperienced beginner, I'm really exploring a lot of different musical genres; listening and feeling what its like to try and play this or that style of music, what technique and technical "know-how" I would need to learn, and so forth. My musical tastes are pretty varied but I'm more attracted to prog rock, ambient & new-age styles of music. Not a huge Blues fan but after having read your page and listened to your demonstrations, I find my heart longing for more! In jazz, I love Keith Jarrett, Leszek Mozdzer (Polish pianist) but realize lots of their repertoire and technique are probably way beyond anything I'll be able to do eventually. My only current ambition is to eventually play some of the Pink Floyd repertoire (hence, my signature LOL) and with a few more years of theory and "noodling from the theory", I hope to be able to compose some interesting music and play with other like-minded musicians.

Count me in as one of your fans, I really like what you are doing .

In your answers to other recent posts, it is clear that eventually you will go the "pay" way. In that respect, I have no idea of what could be a winning formula to attract and keep on-line students. I wish I could help. Your style of teaching is unique and interesting, no doubt your efforts will eventually pay off. And I thank you for already sharing some of your knowledge and insights. I look forward to the evolution of your project

John