WHAT YOUR PIANO TEACHER DOESN'T TEACH YOU

While years of piano lessons can prepare you for many possibilities, hours upon hours of playing scales can increase your agility and Hanon Studies can get you just a little closer to carpal tunnel syndrome, there's something piano teachers don't teach you in piano lessons. It's a trade secret called "faking". Faking is a skill that is used by all levels of musicians, from the novice beginner to the seasoned professional. The skill involves interpreting the Chord Symbol and creating the accompaniment. A working knowledge of music theory is helpful, and the ability to read simple musical notation in the treble clef and where those notes are on the keyboard are essential.

Here's my confession: After years of playing piano as well as completing a music degree, I recently became a faker. I'm totally sold on the concept. Quite often, one ends up playing more notes than the original accompaniment might have written. It usually even sounds better! I've learned more about chord construction as a faker than I ever learned in Music Theory I, II, III or IV. My only regret is that I wish I had known about his earlier. Just a little practice goes a long way—and there are even a couple of good books that teach the concept. Scott the Piano Guy (http://www.scotthepianoguy.com/) (from PBS) has even made a career of teaching this technique to the multitudes. Maybe that's how I'll make my next million!

A LOVE FOR MUSIC IS BORN

I suppose in some ways I have been a student of music all my life, having been so delighted each time I would go to church with my grandmother. She would make sure I had a good view of the organ, so I could watch the organist play that old electric drawbar organ. How I wanted to be just like her. The organist could make such celestial sounds come from that old organ. It was then and there, in that old Baptist church, that my love for music was born. I would go home and try my best to recreate on my grandmother's tiny, tiny Casio keyboard what I had just seen at church. It never happened, but it sure was fun trying. I must have been around 8 or 9 when I first experienced that majestic sound. I began begging my parents to let me take piano lessons. I had a piano at home, a Kimball Whitney, it had been given to me by my grandmother when she and my grandfather moved out of town. There it was, in bad need of a tuning and someone (namely me) to be trained to play it. Instead, it was just another piece of furniture that needed to be dusted in the living room. For years I begged my parents to let me take lessons. Grandmother taught me as much as she could-where the keys were located , how to read time and key signatures and how to read the treble clef. However, this was the extent of her knowledge. This went on until I was 14. That's when my grandmother stepped in. She paid to have the piano tuned and found me a piano teacher. I was very clear with my teacher that I wanted to learn to play in church. He started me with a series of repertoire books designed for the church musician. None of that Bach, Beethoven & The Boys for me. It was only the fine works of Fanny Crosby, William Kirkpatrick, and Bill and Gloria Gaither for me! Armed with my 1975 Baptist Hymnal, I was ready to establish a hymn repertoire others would envy! Many parents have to force their children to practice the piano. Not mine. Mine were having to tell me to stop...that it was time to go to bed. I'd practice from the time I got home from school to the time I went to bed! I progressed very quickly and a little over a year after that first lesson, I was filling in for the pianist and organist at church. I had arrived. Shortly after that I began accompanying my high school chorus, substituting as pianist at other churches in the area and was even elected "Most Talented" in my senior class. I then went off to college, majored in vocal music and picked up a few classical pieces here and there.

Here's my confession: I've always wondered what a difference it would have made if I had started piano five or six years earlier, when I first began asking. I've wondered what a difference it would have made if I had actually studied the fine works of Bach, Beethoven & The Boys! Would I have a different technique? Would I be a professional concert pianist? A recital accompanist? Would I be another Jim Brickman? Or, did my progression of my largely self-taught musical knowledge mold me into the musician I am today? I guess those are impossible questions to answer. Of this, however, I am certain. Each week when I sit down on that piano or organ bench to accompany the choir or congregation, I am totally in my element. I'm living a dream that began so many years ago. And that, my friend, is a priceless feeling!