I'm learning, slowly. I understand scales and various chords and the circle of fifths and all that. Not intimately, but I'm gradually getting it more and more. I don't play that much but I'm planning/hoping to put forth some effort in the near future to learn scales, chords, etc well so that I can just play them without counting. (I can already play most major scales with no problem.)
I realize a billion people have learned piano before me so this is probably a silly suggestion but I feel I have to at least make it and then have someone that knows piano tell me it's silly before I can give up on the idea. I get that you have to learn 1-3-5 of a key to learn the major chord, 1-3-5-7b to learn the dominant, yadda, yadda. But that's just major scales. Then minor scales are different. And then maybe other scales if you want to play blues or whatever else.
It seems like for all these you're learning every variation of all the keys (C, D, etc, sharps, flats, etc). It seems a lot to keep track of.
What if instead you did this. There are 12 keys. So for the C scale it's C thru B, for C# it's C# thru C, etc. What if for each (of the 12) keys you learned...drilled...into yourself which note went with each of the 12 numbers. So for D, for instance, you drilled yourself until it was automatic that D was 1, D# was 2, E was 3, etc, up to C# was 12. You strongly associated each note with the number 1 thru 12. Then you did that for all 12 keys.
At that point a major scale is 1-3-5-6-8-10-12. You don't need to remember the notes per se because you've associated them with those numbers.
Same thing with a minor key. It's 1-3-4-6-8-9-11. You're don't have to remember the notes per se but rather just which note goes with 1 thru 12.
A dominant 7th chord is no longer 1-3-5-7b in the normal sense but rather is 1-5-8-11
See what I mean? It would be a pain to assign and remember each of the 12 numbers in a key to a note but once you did it then a lot of other stuff would easily fall right into place.
Like I say, if you tell me that someone has thought of this and tried it and it doesn't work as well as the normal way then I'll accept it but I just have to hear it first.
I realize a billion people have learned piano before me so this is probably a silly suggestion but I feel I have to at least make it and then have someone that knows piano tell me it's silly before I can give up on the idea. I get that you have to learn 1-3-5 of a key to learn the major chord, 1-3-5-7b to learn the dominant, yadda, yadda. But that's just major scales. Then minor scales are different. And then maybe other scales if you want to play blues or whatever else.
It seems like for all these you're learning every variation of all the keys (C, D, etc, sharps, flats, etc). It seems a lot to keep track of.
What if instead you did this. There are 12 keys. So for the C scale it's C thru B, for C# it's C# thru C, etc. What if for each (of the 12) keys you learned...drilled...into yourself which note went with each of the 12 numbers. So for D, for instance, you drilled yourself until it was automatic that D was 1, D# was 2, E was 3, etc, up to C# was 12. You strongly associated each note with the number 1 thru 12. Then you did that for all 12 keys.
At that point a major scale is 1-3-5-6-8-10-12. You don't need to remember the notes per se because you've associated them with those numbers.
Same thing with a minor key. It's 1-3-4-6-8-9-11. You're don't have to remember the notes per se but rather just which note goes with 1 thru 12.
A dominant 7th chord is no longer 1-3-5-7b in the normal sense but rather is 1-5-8-11
See what I mean? It would be a pain to assign and remember each of the 12 numbers in a key to a note but once you did it then a lot of other stuff would easily fall right into place.
Like I say, if you tell me that someone has thought of this and tried it and it doesn't work as well as the normal way then I'll accept it but I just have to hear it first.
