Piano Playing

Music is easy if you know the basics. I started learning music when I was about six years old.
So for the past 55 or so years I have played, sang and written music.
I have had three really great teachers.
The first dedicated his life to music. His name is Doctor Brent Stratton. He had traveled all over the World with his Father who was a colonel in armed services. He never married because to teach and write classical music was his life. He is about 80 years old now. He was the minister of music for the First Christian Church in Texas. He started the first handbell choir in America and brought handbells over from England. He said I was his most gifted student and most hard to teach.
I could not stand to practice. I would just sit and stare at the piano and it frustrated me.
I play by note and by what I hear in my head. We used to call this playing by ear. I would listen to a song and then play it.
Later at one University I was taught by a former Nun named Ms. Bebb, then one student teacher named Karen.
To play an most musical instruments, you have to do it almost everyday.

The piano has a full keyboard. It is just a harp where the strings inside are struck with a mallet and one one end is a soft thing.
To start you sit in the middle of a keyboard or piano and learn the middle C. It is the center.
All the notes, white and black we call keys, are either male or female. To the right of middle C are the higher notes. There you find the alto and soprano.
To the left are the male keys, alto and bass.
The right hand plays the harder melody and the left and plays cords to support the right hand notes.

To practice, you place the thumbs on the middle C and the one one C note one Octave below it and learn to program the brain so that both hands can work together.

This is basic piano. There are the A, B, C, D, E, F, and G cords.
Once you learn cords, you do not even have to read music. Just write out the song title and the notes under the words.

Then the black notes are called sharps or flats. Sharps go to the right and flats go to the left.

Piano playing is not hard. It just takes a good teacher. I had three great ones and am thankful for that.
I had my career in Nursing, teaching school and law enforcement. I danced in many ballets.
But music is truly a gift and just about anyone, even blind people can learn it. One famous Composer was deaf.
I go to Nursing Homes when I am asked and play because most of them have a piano.
I am retired. It takes gas to drive to the places. I do it for free. But since gas prices are so high it is difficult. You may have seen me in an airport in Orlando, Florida this past year.
I love a grand piano.Here is my keyboard.