h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

...hey, don't knock someone who could play Fur Elise at eight!

That was the piano. I was always much better at that. I should probably start taking lessons again. I really only quit because my teacher had decided she was my therapist, so she essentially stopped teaching me and then blamed me for it.

- sounds like an American thing to me - in the UK they would be thinking "for this money you're lucky to get a piano lesson, never mind therapy with it"

Usually she just ended up saying horrible things and I left crying, or ran out before the lesson was over. I don't quite call that therapy, but I think she thought it was.

just sounds like bullying to me

Not quite bullying...but I wasn't enjoying it any more, that's for sure.

you're better off out of it - music is supposed to be fun after all

Yes. That used to be why I did it. That's why I play guitar now.

I always think guitar is more fun - it lends itself to extemporisation, whereas piano always seemed more about reading music until you got really good indeed. Mind you I can't play piano.

What do you play on guitar?

I'm trying to learn Blackbird now on guitar. Should be good once I learn it. I hope. Piano is nice, but it has NO social application unless you are very, VERY good, whereas you can play guitar with a group of people even if you're bad and have fun still.

true - in fact you can play in a band if you're not very good and still have fun! Blackbird is a Beatles song isn't it - played by Macartney I read somewhere. What record is it from, do you know?

I believe it's on the White Album.

yup, it is. That's how I tell I'm not doing too badly...

...and its McCartney, isn't it?

I've no idea about Blackbird but I beg to differ about the piano-playing-is-for-soloists thing. I've played the piano(or keyboards) in various bands (even a jazz trio) and I assure you I am no virtuoso whatsoever. From what I can say, it's as easy to play harmony(chords) and rythmical accompaniment as well as short solo parts on a piano in a 'jam' context as it is to do so on a guitar. Then again, I'm only just learning to play the guitar...
But still, piano playing in a band does work without having Petrucciani's fingers, believe me!
Keep jammin'

Ed

fair enough, I guess its just that most of the keyboard players I know/knew are much more musicians than - well, me. Thinking about it it must easier to jam with guitar - after all with a few basic patterns and shapes based around the blues scale you can move them around the fretboard and play sensibly in practically any key. Surely you can't do the same on a keyboard?

Hy there, I haven't had the time to change my name yet. In fact I wanted to say ad a few things about jamming, I hope I won't be missunderstood or something like that (my English is pretty bad, sorry ):
- The roots of the Jazz is the blues. All good Jazz players will agree with that.
- It is not very clear at which point Jazz becomes Blues, or blues is jazz, in fact the limit between those music styles is kind of "floating" (like the bridges on hollow body models ). But I think it is important to say that if you ad a few complicated changements to a blues song you'll start to get simple jazz song ("summertime" is a good example of what I'm trying to say (or hear).
- Jammming is, to my eyes, simply the most fun thing to do in music. I hate palying a song note by note, especially in a band.

I guess I rather stop here (I could go on for hours like that...) and I don't want to bore you... Cu
Pat (128924)

Hi there pAt!

Your English looks allright to me! I agree, jazz and blues have the same 'black' roots and from what I can tell you're also right about "Summertime". I think Gershwin purposely kept the chords fairly simple 'cos it was meant to be a simple man's song about simple issues. I think blues mostly (or traditionally) uses minor seven chords instead of normal major/minor or crazy mixed up sus4-7-13 jazz type harmony. Singing the blues(or playing it) also would seem to have a fixed intent, it being basically to complain about things (life, lost love, women, alcohol, being a slave..). Jazz would seem more like a phrase describing a type of playing together for whatever reason happens to stray through a composer's mind. In a certain sense, I think the blues could be called a form of jazz music or rather one of the main influences upon early jazz.

Er yeah. Oh, nj, I disagree again bout guitar being easier once you've learnt to play some chords. As long as you're not expected to play solo, you can just slide your hands all over the piano keyboard using the same fingers to play chords in any harmony and height or depth of tone and, with a little practice, your left hand can play a bassline at the same time, adding rythm and punctuation to the collective groove. Also, you can use the pedal to sustain chords for as long as you care to without having to strike the chord again and again as you would on a guitar.
What is daft about piano jamming is that a)you need to have one of the stupid things around every time you wanna jam so b)no jamming on the beach or in the car and c)you can't tune a piano(at least, I can't!) if its out of tune.
YEAH MAN!

Hi !
Thanks for your answer. I'm not so good at chord theory (I don't know the name of a lot of chords that I am playing). So aug flat 5 or whatever doesn't mean very much to me (I always forget the names of the chords once that I learned them ...).
I wanted to say that you can also use 9-th chords in blues with a great effect (like t-bone walker, bb king and all those dudes did), it kind of dresses the blues up.
I hope to hear from you soon (check out my page if you want a few cool web-guitar sites).
Oh, and I also wanted to say that I love music way more than anything on earth (at least the things I've seen ...). Hope to hear from you .. Pat

E, it seems like you're talking more about keyboardists, rather than pianists. I wish there wasn't such a division of it, but every teacher I've had has felt a need to make the difference VERY clear. You can jam with chords on a piano, as you said, but as you also commented, it's pretty damned hard to lug the things around, which limits's the social or jamming potential.