Re: Piano lessons advice (O.T.)

[Rainer Straschill <moinsound@googlemail.com>]

Rick Walker schrieb:
> I think that  using C major (and all of it's resultant  7 Greek modes) 
> as a point of departure and a way of understanding how to play in any 
> key is the fastest way to get a handle on the instrument.
>
> In a very cool way,  the keyboard makes you think, specifically, of 
> intervallic relationships
> in a way that the guitar doesn't.    
It would really be interesting to hear the opinion of someone who did 
first learn the guitar and is now both an accomplished guitarist and 
pianist on this "understanding piano for guitarists" topic.
And that might just be a problem - any of the people I can think of from 
the top of my head (Gismonti, Towner, Keneally, van Halen) did start 
with piano and then picked up guitar later...just a coincidence? Anyone 
can name some counter examples?

Being an "amatuer Gismonti" myself (meaning: learning piano first, then 
studying composition, then doing some guitar), I can only offer a look 
at it from the other side:

(all of my statements describe my personal learning experiences here, 
which might differ from those of others, and actually be 
counter-intuitive or even inefficient):
Piano is very neatly organized in octaves, and how fingering stays 
constant from octave to octave, which the guitar is not so much, at 
least not intuitively (the major 3rd between G and B string doesn't help 
here...). However, the guitar is (with the exception of the major 
3rd...) more consistent with intervals, e.g. 2 frets = one tone, 1 
string up 1 fret back = major 4rd etc, which the piano is not (unless 
you're counting keys, which, due to the white/black logic, is not the 
intuitive way to perceive it). On the piano, the step from the goal to 
play a certain chord to fingering the right keys is chord -> intervals 
-> notes -> fingering, i.e. from "maj7 on B" you go via "major third, 
minor third, major third" to "B D# F# A#" to the actual hand position. 
And this works well in all keys (and imo it actually helps if you start 
doing so early on). And btw, you'll have a hard time even playing 
standard pop/rock/blues chords when sticking with white keys.
Let's say you want a blues - do it in A (because its similar to 
Aeolian), so you have the chords Am (works fine), Dm (works fine), Am 
(works fine), E7 - buggers. Same if you play major (in C), and then want 
to emphasise the tonic's double role as the subdominant's dominant by 
adding a 7...

That being said - I'm mostly curious about the "guitarists who later 
picked up piano and are famous for both" suggestions!

          Rainer

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