Find some keyboard players that learned in the church and talk to them. It is all about watch, listen and ask questions then sit at a keyboard and using your ear figure things out. It is mainly about developing your ear it is everything if you want to make or play music. That's why so many great musicians you find they learned in the church and they developed a great ear in listening and watching to see what the player did. If you have good ears you can figure out and play anything. Like it or not it's all about your ears. Same with being a good recording engineer they have to have good ears. A musician hears sounds and knows or can quickly find what note(s) it is. A recording engineers hears sounds and know what frequencies or at least the general frequence range so they can what they want. Music or recording you're dealing on sound and you hear sound with your ears.
I wouldnt call myself a piano player by any means, but I got comfortable playing keys as a producer by sticking with one scale for a while & slowly increasing. My 25 key midi controller became an unexpected blessing, as it made me more aware of this: there are 12 unique keys on the piano, 7 of those keys are ones I need to focus on, everything else repeats. Playing only the black keys taught me about the pentatonic scale pattern, and playing only the white keys taught me the major & minor scale patterns. When i found the pentatonic scale in the white keys, it was a game changer, since it was a go to scale for me when moving up & down the scales.
Hey, i'm a piano and guitar teacher. been playing piano over 20 years and my background is more is soul and gospel. one thing i'll say from the perspective of an artist/producer is that you absolutely should not waste your time cultivating things that don't fit your artistic vision. a lotta people with a background in classical or even jazz might not understand that what they learned and how they learned it was dictated by the either unspoken expectations of their teachers, or the own expectations. something else to consider is that there really isn't a "standard" way and that many different and valid traditions can yield better results for different playing styles. I think that anyone insinuating that Simon is somehow a fundamentally lesser pianist or less knowledgeable for having a non-standard or self-taught approach actually hasn't thought of what musicianship means on a deeper level outside of the Western European tradition. It's true that there are no shortcuts, but in the sense that shortcuts are actually fundamentally impossible to make in the first place. There maybe better teachers than Simon, but Simon is still really good
Second!🎉L.Dre I am an aspiring music producer, but I started off in the music industry with playing piano, and watching this video really helped me understand your goals. Once I saw the first episode, I sent some materials that I thought could help and simplified things for you, which took me years to understand. Nonetheless, great video. I am enjoying the journey. It reminds me of when I first started playing piano😅.
Hey, small time producer here. I actually started playing the piano before I started producing. I would just like to say that whether you get training from a professional pianist or a fellow producer, it pays to understand concepts. Understanding concepts and basics just makes it easier to understand songs when you decide to learn them. I had a music teacher for like 2 or 3 years before I turned 11, but after I stopped getting lessons I barely played for like 6 years and when I fell in love with music again, I found that watching tutorials which explain the concepts that we might think as complex are actually the ones that I benefitted the most from. And till now, I wish I had taken the piano lessons I got as a kid more seriously, because even as a producer who makes mostly lofi, I can see that the skills from classical music or gospel or whatever form of music are all still musical skills, so they overlap.
Your problem is you think “making beats” is different than playing scales. Dont mean to Kung Fu Panda you but I’ve watched you make beats and you use scales all the time fam. Scales go in order you learned in preschool A B C D E F G is literally scales. The scale of each Key just skips certain notes. For example. If I said the scale is B. You start a B skip C so the 2nd note D skip E the 3rd note is F. Literally Google a sheet of scales in each key and you will have a charted cheat sheet. Also bro literally just learn how to play Triads (the root, 3rd, and 5) which is what a CHORD is. Major or minor 7 chord is the Root 3rd 5th and 7th. A 9th chord is the 7th chord but you add the 2nd and call it a 9th. Etc. Start with scales and triads and everything else will just make sense.
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Salute 👍🏾 🫡
First
Find some keyboard players that learned in the church and talk to them. It is all about watch, listen and ask questions then sit at a keyboard and using your ear figure things out. It is mainly about developing your ear it is everything if you want to make or play music. That's why so many great musicians you find they learned in the church and they developed a great ear in listening and watching to see what the player did. If you have good ears you can figure out and play anything. Like it or not it's all about your ears.
Same with being a good recording engineer they have to have good ears. A musician hears sounds and knows or can quickly find what note(s) it is. A recording engineers hears sounds and know what frequencies or at least the general frequence range so they can what they want. Music or recording you're dealing on sound and you hear sound with your ears.
I wouldnt call myself a piano player by any means, but I got comfortable playing keys as a producer by sticking with one scale for a while & slowly increasing. My 25 key midi controller became an unexpected blessing, as it made me more aware of this: there are 12 unique keys on the piano, 7 of those keys are ones I need to focus on, everything else repeats. Playing only the black keys taught me about the pentatonic scale pattern, and playing only the white keys taught me the major & minor scale patterns. When i found the pentatonic scale in the white keys, it was a game changer, since it was a go to scale for me when moving up & down the scales.
Hey, i'm a piano and guitar teacher. been playing piano over 20 years and my background is more is soul and gospel. one thing i'll say from the perspective of an artist/producer is that you absolutely should not waste your time cultivating things that don't fit your artistic vision. a lotta people with a background in classical or even jazz might not understand that what they learned and how they learned it was dictated by the either unspoken expectations of their teachers, or the own expectations.
something else to consider is that there really isn't a "standard" way and that many different and valid traditions can yield better results for different playing styles. I think that anyone insinuating that Simon is somehow a fundamentally lesser pianist or less knowledgeable for having a non-standard or self-taught approach actually hasn't thought of what musicianship means on a deeper level outside of the Western European tradition. It's true that there are no shortcuts, but in the sense that shortcuts are actually fundamentally impossible to make in the first place. There maybe better teachers than Simon, but Simon is still really good
I low key was going to comment that he was a bad teacher but I didn’t want to be the mean guy in the comments. Glad to know I wasn’t the only 1😂
Second!🎉L.Dre I am an aspiring music producer, but I started off in the music industry with playing piano, and watching this video really helped me understand your goals. Once I saw the first episode, I sent some materials that I thought could help and simplified things for you, which took me years to understand. Nonetheless, great video. I am enjoying the journey. It reminds me of when I first started playing piano😅.
Hey, small time producer here. I actually started playing the piano before I started producing. I would just like to say that whether you get training from a professional pianist or a fellow producer, it pays to understand concepts. Understanding concepts and basics just makes it easier to understand songs when you decide to learn them.
I had a music teacher for like 2 or 3 years before I turned 11, but after I stopped getting lessons I barely played for like 6 years and when I fell in love with music again, I found that watching tutorials which explain the concepts that we might think as complex are actually the ones that I benefitted the most from.
And till now, I wish I had taken the piano lessons I got as a kid more seriously, because even as a producer who makes mostly lofi, I can see that the skills from classical music or gospel or whatever form of music are all still musical skills, so they overlap.
Your problem is you think “making beats” is different than playing scales. Dont mean to Kung Fu Panda you but I’ve watched you make beats and you use scales all the time fam.
Scales go in order you learned in preschool A B C D E F G is literally scales. The scale of each Key just skips certain notes. For example. If I said the scale is B. You start a B skip C so the 2nd note D skip E the 3rd note is F. Literally Google a sheet of scales in each key and you will have a charted cheat sheet. Also bro literally just learn how to play Triads (the root, 3rd, and 5) which is what a CHORD is. Major or minor 7 chord is the Root 3rd 5th and 7th. A 9th chord is the 7th chord but you add the 2nd and call it a 9th. Etc.
Start with scales and triads and everything else will just make sense.