{"id":88,"date":"2018-05-11T14:30:00","date_gmt":"2018-05-11T21:30:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2023-01-13T11:07:51","modified_gmt":"2023-01-13T19:07:51","slug":"piano-maestro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/piano-maestro\/","title":{"rendered":"So You Wanna Play Like A Maestro? \u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The guru. The sage. The Maestro. &nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These figures of human culture have been revered and admired across the ages. Who amongst us has not wished to have the wisdom of the guru, the clarity of the sage, or the sheer depth of skill and grace of the <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Maestro?&nbsp;<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(that\u2019s Italian for \u2018Master\u2019, in case you didn\u2019t know)<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well, I\u2019m not going to tell you that you can attain the rank of Maestrohood overnight, but I CAN teach you to play like one. And the best part of all? It\u2019s nowhere <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">near <\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">as hard as it looks\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Still interested? Read on\u2026<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<center><div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color:#fff;display:inline-block;font-family:Roboto,sans-serif;color:#a7a7a7;font-size:11px;width:100%;max-width:594px;\"><div style=\"padding:0;margin:0;text-align:left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.ca\/detail\/992122808\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" rel=\"noopener\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div><div style=\"overflow:hidden;position:relative;height:0;padding:99.83165% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/992122808?et=PWZdlUhrSQ9AQc9KaUKn1Q&amp;tld=ca&amp;sig=eEfelQMGXG9mlmaT-IGpfzYVsuR6NANJe_dXe2SKxEA=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"594\" height=\"593\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;margin:0;\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div><\/center>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Only a Maestro like Rick Wakeman could handle this many keyboards at once<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When I was a kid, I was enamored with players like Rick Wakeman of Yes, or Keith Emerson of ELP. These guys could play such crazy riffs like nobody\u2019s business. They\u2019d flow all the way up and down the keyboard like a sonic lightshow and I was hooked. I wanted to play like that.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<center><div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color:#fff;display:inline-block;font-family:Roboto,sans-serif;color:#a7a7a7;font-size:11px;width:100%;max-width:594px;\"><div style=\"padding:0;margin:0;text-align:left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.ca\/detail\/937260830\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" rel=\"noopener\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div><div style=\"overflow:hidden;position:relative;height:0;padding:66.66667% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/937260830?et=dOV3ZWbsSdR8mHNIB7cmFA&amp;tld=ca&amp;sig=p3I8LydGZxtS0F599GsiAFacVasjmLz9upXtMPD6O80=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;margin:0;\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div><\/center>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nope, that&#8217;s not a wall of silly string behind ELP&#8217;s Keith Emerson&#8230; It&#8217;s a synthesizer that only a Maestro like Emerson can tame<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So I broke down what it was that they were doing, and found that a lot of this kind of playing comes down to playing the same pattern repeatedly while flowing down multiple octaves.&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It really all came down to muscle memory and spacial awareness of the distances of the keyboard.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Take the riff in this lesson, for example. This riff is all about the shape of the <\/span><strong>minor 3rd <\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">from the position of <\/span><strong>F minor <\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><strong>C minor. <\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Close your eyes and observe how the shape of the <\/span><strong>minor 3rd <\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">feels under your hands in both <\/span><strong>F <\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><strong>C minor. <\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They both feel the same. They are two white notes topped off by a black key. And to play these three notes all you need it (naturally) finger <\/span><strong>1, 2, <\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><strong>3.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can start off integrating how these note shapes feel by playing each set of them all at once while flowing down the piano. So that just means playing <\/span><strong>F, G, Ab <\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and then <\/span><strong>C, D, Eb <\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">down and down each octave. This will give you a sense of how long to travel your hands as you move down the keyboard.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The next step is to work on your finger dexterity.&nbsp;<\/span>The phrasing pattern goes<strong> 2, 3, 2, 1 <\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and then it shifts down to the next hand position. You\u2019re always leading with finger two, so keep that in mind as you move down to the next positioning for your hands.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once you master that fingering pattern, that\u2019s it! It then becomes a process of taking that pattern as far as you can take it. You can play it in one octave or 5 it\u2019s up to you! If you want to challenge yourself further you can shift the riff into another key!<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Was this riff enjoyable for you? Let me know in the comments below. &nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Happy playing :),<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jordan<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:10px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<iframe class=\"email-form-include-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/weekly-email\" frameborder=\"none\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:10px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dazzle your friend with this 3-finger riff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[520,509],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-play-faster","category-technique"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10883,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions\/10883"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}