I started playing the Piano when I was 7 Years Old. I had a very traditional Piano teacher who taught me how to read sheet music and how to play classical music really good.
I don’t want to envoce the false impression, that I don’t think that Music Notes are a great invention. I’m a big Fan, it enables us to communicate in very effective way.
But when it comes to Pop Music I think the picture looks different.
When I play a piano cover of a Pop song i Like, I want to convey the emotions and the story. And I want to hear the Melody that sticked to my head so well.
Of course I could buy the sheets of a talented musician and learn note by note, but I think that for Pop Songs thats just a very time consuming process, thats just not needed.
Because most Pop Songs are built out of 3 to 5 Chords, knowing these Chords and the order in which to play them, combined with the Melody that allready sticked to my head is allready all I need.
I go more into the details in this article (Link).
This way of doing it has in my Opionion a lot of benefits:
It’s fast!
When I know a song I can just look up the Chords in a minute and I’m allready able to play it. Not perfect the first time of course. But Good Enough for me and my friends to enjoy and sing along.
It’s little effort!
I love to learn the precies pieces of Debussy for example and really go in to the details, but for a whole Ed Sheeran Album I don’t want to practice weeks before beeing able to play it.
It’s more fun!
Sheet Music is very precise and not very flexible. But when playing just with chords you are free with your imagination and can play your interpretation the way you like.
It’s more expressive
And by playing the song in your way it will be far more expressive and authentic when playing. If you have an audience you can even adjust your style of playing to the mood of the audience
It’s Cheaper
Let’s face it. 10 Dollars/Euros per Song can really add up if you want to play a lot of songs. When playing with chords it’s free.
