A Guide to Mastering the Piano - Accompaniment and Improvisation

Music is a universal language that transcends language barriers. Our hearing already develops when we are in the womb and we can already hear and feel many different types of music. This course will analyse two basic elements of a music piece using the piano: the accompaniment and melody. We will first consider many elements to learn how to improvise on different types of accompaniments. The knowledge gained will be used with the improvisation technique on some classical masterpieces to make your playing more enjoyable. The instructor has prepared an orchestral playback for each of your performances. In this practical way, you will learn to follow the rhythm of a song and enjoy the full orchestral sound.

Learning to accompany a piece on the piano keys is important because you can create music alongside other instruments or with a singer voicing the melody. Our first two modules are about the types of accompaniments that we can play with an orchestra. Our next step is to put the accompaniment and melodies together. We will learn the rules for creating a beautiful piece, which you'll discover are straightforward. We will apply the melodies to some basic chord progressions and practise all of this in different musical scales. Remember that the piano is designed as a musical instrument with white and black keys, so each scale has a different position for our hands. This structuring makes it very important for us to practise the different scales. We will read the notes for all the exercises and show you how to play without reading or speaking the language of music.

You will need the basic knowledge of music theory and piano playing to help you understand and follow the learning process. However, if you feel you are missing some elements, take the instructor’s other two courses on the ‘Fundamentals of Music Theory’ and ‘Online Piano Lessons for Beginners’ first, which will help you progress quickly through this course. Throughout the professor's career as a music teacher, he has observed students growing bored and eventually stopping learning music and the reason for this is quite simple. They only learn to read music, not to speak it. Imagine if you could only speak your language by reading what you say! In everything we do, it's essential also to have the ability to improvise. Imagine yourself reading a beautiful book. Your mind retains the exciting elements, and you begin to make up your version of a story or section of a story. The same thing happens with music when we hear a song and start interpreting it. The central theme of this course is to delve into our version of melodies by improvisation. You will make music forever if you have this crucial element in hand.