Become a Piano Accompanist

Are you joining a band to perform? Or are you planning on doing a duet like where you see a pianist playing the piano while a singer sings beautifully? Then you want to become a piano accompanist.

A Piano Accompanist is a piano player/a pianist that acts as a background musician for a singer or a band or an orchestra. Piano accompanists are very musically talented because they should be able to accompany and assist another musician or a singer. Although the soloist (singer or another musician) whose being accompanied is highlighted, the performance or the show would not be successful without a talented piano accompanist.

To become a piano accompanist you must be able to sight read music well. Most of the time when performing, some singers or soloist provides a piano sheet music of their own version or key to be played.

While in some occasions such as gatherings or parties, a piano accompanist must know how to play music with ear and piano chords improvisation. You may encounter performances requests from friends and guests. A piano accompanist must be able to know what key does the singer sings. This helps for a great show and performance. It also allows an accompanist showcase his or her talent even if the singer is off-key. It’s all about you, piano accompanist.

There are endless possibilities and careers when you choose to be a piano accompanist. You can play with bands, with a soloist or even with an orchestra. Just harness your piano playing skills and you’re good to go.

Simple tips for piano accompaniment:

• Practice your piano regularly.
• Make sure to practice the piece you're going to play.
• Run-through the piece several times with the singer you're going to accompany.
• Make certain adjustments to your playing to suit the singers' vocal style and technique.
• On the day of the performance be prompt and dress appropriately.

Quick Tips to Sight Read Music

Are you an adult piano beginner or a parent giving your kids easy piano lessons? Then probably you both are having some trouble with sight reading music.

It’s not that rare for people to have some problems with piano sight reading. Training your mind and fingers to read piano sheet music is difficult especially for a beginner.

I often see people asking for piano sheet music for beginners with letters. I guess by having that you can easily learn a new piano sheet music. But honestly by doing so you are actually learning less than you thought you’ll learn. You become very dependent to the letters instead of reading the notes.

So here is my advice. Learn the music theory and piano sight reading. Note values can be expressed by letters that’s why they’re musical notes. Piano sheet music for beginners with letters is very rare. Most of this piano sheet music may be self-published by a pianist or hand-written by a piano teacher then scanned and shared. So you probably only have a 5% chance of getting one online.

If you’re a total newbie, I suggest you take beginner piano lessons, and learn easy piano notes first. Learning them slowly will actually help you sight read music better. For more retention of the musical notes, you can try doing piano finger exercises and reading easy piano sheet music first. Even if you’re an adult piano beginner it’s pretty music the basics for a total newbie.

And lastly, practice. The more you practice the faster you learn and understand it. Learning how to play the piano is like learning a new language. You won’t learn or understand it overnight. Practice it and you’ll be playing like a pro.

How to Play Jazz Piano

Happy New Year!

What’s your New Year’s Resolution? Just curious.

Anyways, mine is to discover new kinds of piano playing styles. One thing that caught my mind is jazz piano. I always dream jazzing up my favorite piano sheet music.

I know how is that possible? Even I at first was very confused on how to jazz it up especially when I have no idea on jazz piano styles. So first I looked it up. There are dozens and confusing styles but you’re in luck this year. I’ll give you the basic jazz piano styles to give you a head start on how to play jazz piano.

Remember that these are all for left had jazz improvisation. Also I’ll include videos on how it is done.

The Walking Bass Style

This is commonly used on guitars. It’s the most widely used jazz piano style. Bass notes are played on beast of a 4/4 time signature. This is usually done by solo jazz pianists and accompanied by a singer.

The Stride Style

Invented and made famous by the legendary Scott Joplin, it's since become part and parcel with playing Jazz. It focuses mainly on the music rhythm using the left hand. Also it plays broken roots, fifths and creating a strong base foundation for the harmony leaving the right hand to improvise.

The Bossa Nova Style

This style is something you always hear and you start dancing. Basic Bossa follows certain rhythms which are as follows:

• dotted quarter note
• eighth note
• dotted quarter note
• eighth note

Pianists such as Brazilian Carlos Antonio Jobim used and popularized this style.

Now you know the style all you need is to know how to do it. I hope you enjoy it and you can listen to one of my favorite piano jazz improvisation of a classical piano sheet music, Fur Elise.