By: Mark Prigoff
To hear some piano music from Mark Prigoff, click here.
Part of being a great musician is having the ability to perform music that appeals to your audience, regardless of age, musical interests and familiarity. Since we all have our own personal preferences when it comes to listening to music, the challenge is to develop a broad range in your own choices as to what you should play in order to appeal to others. And even if they are not familiar with your selections, at the very least, these performances should have some element of "mass appeal" if they are played well and are generally interesting and entertaining.
I have always said that what makes you a better musician is to listen to and be familiar with as many different musical genres as possible in order to broaden your own "musical vocabulary," even if some music is not within the scope of your own playing style. The fact remains that most great musicians have been well-trained or self-disciplined to listen to as much music as they could for many years. By doing this, you increase your musical horizons and knowledge of what is conceivable with the musical art form.
As with any art form, a dancer studies dance for many years before performing professionally at the height of their craft. Masters of fine art painting study figure and still-life drawing, use of colored oil paints and perspective illustration for many years before being able to create a masterpiece of their own. Likewise, as with any other art form, a good pianist would study piano theory, musical styles, and listen to a large variety of music before understanding how to create or perform in a masterful way.
In respect to the popular music form, we should also be aware (to some degree) of how popular music has evolved over the ages. The concept of "musical genres" developed when music was composed for a variety of social occasions. However, I'll discuss that further in just a moment. First, we should discuss the true nature of a song.
What is a song? If we were to answer that question today, we would say that a song is a melody, often sung with lyrics, and accompanied by harmonies, chords, bass, and some element of rhythm or tempo. But if we look back to ancient days, a song really wasn't a song at all. It was rather a poem which was recited in public or in printed form. There was no melody set to these words and no instruments to accompany these poems at that time. These poems were often recited at religious occasions, and others were recited in the home, or on the fields to entertain fellow soldiers during times of war. Eventually, the poems were recited while a harp or other instrument was played in the background to set a particular mood. And finally, the two elements of words (poetry) and music (instrumentals) merged together to become a song in a present-day context. You might say that this process of musical evolution is the reason why most lyrics are intended to rhyme… they were originally poems in ancient times.
In general, the evolution of popular instrumental music was based on another basis of entertainment, and that was the nature of dance. Music was written for a variety of dance forms over the ages and the nature and tempo of the dance dictated that particular genre of music. As dance styles varied with many different cultures, so did the music which was the tonal and rhythmic accompaniment for these dances. The styles or genres were quite varied, ranging from tribal and folk dances, waltzes, marches, minuets, promenades, and many others. And each country and culture added its own "flavor" to each.
In recent times, the same concept of having dance styles categorize musical genres still remains, but has now become quite expanded and specific. The standard handful of genres quickly became a very long list of musical or dance styles. You might also attribute this to the merging of cultural influences as people adopted other cultures, intermarried, all within one rather large "cultural blender" of sorts. Even in American pop music, early rock styles were based on specific dance steps and many of these dances were not truly "rock" genres on their own. If you want an example of this, you might consider that many of the Beatles songs were based on standard Latin or blues rhythms since both American music and dance greatly influenced the composers of their music. And if we look back to earlier times, everyone danced in those days and we witnessed the change in both dance steps and musical styles over the years, whether it was strictly ballroom, swing, rock n' roll, Latin, etc. In a sense, the emphasis on dancing was prevalent in this country throughout the 20th Century. Whether you were young or old, the social function of the day was to go dancing, whether it was at the ballroom, nightclub, sock hop or disco. And then suddenly, dance became somewhat of a less important social activity and more of a free-form manner of either self-expression, or group experience. Eventually, as many things go in and out of social interest, even dance has now returned with the venue of pop music videos, rave events, rock concerts, and the "digital domain."
Today, you have more than enough musical genres and songs to select for both listening and playing. At the same time, your audience also has quite a range in their own personal tastes in music. The trick is to select those songs which might appeal to just about anyone. A good performer knows how to select specific material which will appeal to a particular audience. That should be the goal of any public performance, that is, to entertain and appeal to others with acceptance on a broad scale.
In sophisticated musical genres, such as jazz, there still remains what we call "the standards." These are song selections which have generally stood the test of time. Most of these were composed to appeal to the masses, and the lyrics (if they existed), were also well-written to appeal to everyone. Common subjects such as songs about love, sorrow, devotion dominated the song-writers' minds since these topics were common for the audience, as well. Folk and religious music addressed subjects of spiritual belief, politics, war, patriotism, while others usually solicited more thought on the part of composer, lyricist, performer and audiences.
In general, I would say that even though a good "love song" is quite common and abundant these days, most people can relate to this subject on a broad scale. It just happens to be a rather popular topic for us all.
For the pianist, just about any solid musical genre is considered to be "fair game" and in many instances, a piano rendition of a song might bring one genre into another. You might consider taking a classical piece of music and presenting it on the piano with some popular variation of style. This technique is quite commonplace as many classical melodies have been reworked into popular musical songs, especially by European and Latin artists, who were greatly influenced by classical music throughout their lives.
Film composers often came up with a popular song which helped to promote the movie and generate after-market sales of the song, too. The same can be said about Broadway shows and other venues.
If you would like to consider a generic range of "pop musical genres" in some sort of consolidated form, perhaps we can generalize them as follows:
- Classical and New Age
- Comedy
- Country and Folk
- Dance (Global House and Trance Music)
- Film Scores (Soundtracks and Broadway)
- Jazz and Latin
- Operatic Vocals (Choral)
- Pop Vocals (Rock, R&B, etc.)
- Spiritual (Inspirational and Patriotic)
Although these are just a few genres, there are actually hundreds of them and many overlap each other. But for the most part, I find that most pop music of today can be placed into one of these primary categories. Of course, in many cases, some songs are considered to be "cross-genre" which means that they may a cross between several musical genres and cultures.
When selecting material to learn and practice for performance, I would suggest that you work on material which is at your playing level and ability. You can always select something to work on which is more advanced, as that is a good way to challenge your abilities and technique. But with consideration to that, you should never try to perform material which you have not as yet mastered or feel comfortable enough to play well in front of others. For this reason, it is good to work on material which you can perfect for performance purposes, and enjoy practicing many times during this process. In time, you can work your way up to the more challenging selections.
When performing, keep in mind that your performance will be more enjoyable to others if you can play it well and not struggle with the piece you have selected. Also play your music in the appropriate tempo for each piece. Playing something faster than it should be played isn't always impressive to others. Similarly, playing something louder than it should be is also not appropriate. I often hear pianists or students playing a piece way too fast and loud in order to impress others. There are plenty of pieces which are designed for both faster tempos and heavier dynamics. Use some good judgment with whatever piece you have chosen to perform.
With my experience in teaching my own students and listening to others over the years, I find that many students learn a piece and then move onto the next, and that is fine. The mistake they often make is to not revisit a piece they have learned previously. It's really a good idea to go back and practice a former piece of music to stay in practice with it, and that is essentially a good way towards developing a good performance repertoire. If you don't stay in practice with former pieces, they might become as challenging to play as when you first learned to play them.
In many instances, I have encouraged piano students to try a learn to play a piece of music by just listening to it from a recording, such as one on CD or some other format. Often, there are songs which may interest you but there might not be any sheet music available for that song. In many cases, what does exist in sheet music may not be quite the same as the original since it has been arranged by someone other than the original artist.
While many might fear this process, it is really a good experience as it strengthens your ear-training abilities. I still contend that this process is not as difficult to do in contrast to public opinion. You have to break down the song in terms of the song's basic key, tempo, melody, chord progression and playing style. Is there a successful method to this process? Of course!
When I learn a piece "by ear" I first focus on the bass and chord structure (which have a direct relationship to each other). Our ears are nominally listening to three ranges of tones of a song, all at the same time. Usually, we hear the melody line as the highest frequency, and the pianist usually translates that to the right hand when playing. The chords and bass line (considering both as the accompaniment to the melody line) are often the tonal structure which supports the flow of the melody. Thus, if you can get a good sense of the chord and bass progression during a song, applying the melody to that will be relatively easy. There are always some exceptions to this as with a complicated solo or improvisation, but if you can repeat the playback many times with a CD recording, eventually you can pick out the individual notes.
Advanced keyboardists thrive on the essence of the chord progression of any song, especially when it comes to popular music or jazz. By knowing the chord chart, cold, they can often transpose and play the same song in just about any key for a vocalist or another instrumentalist. So, as you are listening to the song in your study of it, write down the chords as you listen. If this is too challenging at first, then try to just focus on the bass line, at first. Then go back and see if the matching chords are either major or minor chords, 7ths, or some other variant. By industry standards, many "fake books" or lead charts are based with the understanding that the melody is the easiest thing to remember. This makes a lot of sense since a melody line is usually one note sung at a time. Likewise, remembering the chord progression (multiple notes played at the same time) would be more of a challenge to remember without any study at all. Thus, in these books, only the chords are written out for the benefit of the jazz player, who already knows the melody by heart. By writing out your own chord chart for new song, you will be accomplishing the same thing.
The next step is to play along with the recording on your piano or digital piano. You should be able to hear when your chords might vary from what is actually being played. And in many cases, you can substitute chords which may also fit well into the basic chord progression. While this liberty is often creative and fun to explore, keep in mind that your first mission is to get to the very core of the piece (the basic chord progression). Again, if you are still new to this process, select something which is rather simple and work your way up to the more complicated pieces in time. A good piano piece is not necessarily a complicated piano piece. Select something which is appropriate for your playing level and experience.
For myself, I have quite a number of pieces which I enjoy practicing, playing and even performing for others. You could say that this is a direct relation to the amount of music I have listened to over many years. There are also some exceptional pieces of music which I have on CD which I enjoy playing along with, and I never get tired of playing them. It is a combination of factors: these pieces were well-crafted by their composers, my piano accompaniment works quite well with them, and in many cases, playing along with a CD means that I can accompany a vocalist and other instruments, too, (drums, bass, guitar, strings, etc.) at any given moment.
By now, I truly have two sets of piano repertoires. One set consists of piano pieces which I can perform as piano solos. These are mostly "standards" which generally appeal to a great many listeners. The other set are those pieces which I can play along with a CD recording as my accompaniment. Both of these represent many years of listening to music, playing, and of course, frequent practice at the piano. There is no shortcut to piano practice. Even the best of musicians practice for many hours in order to perfect their craft, especially before they intend to perform in front of others.
Regarding Popular Piano Programs
There are many programs out there which claim to teach you how to play piano "overnight" or like the pros do in short order. In my view, there is no substitute for learning the essential basics of popular piano theory, whether it is designed for rock, jazz, or any other popular style. But in light of that, I am also not saying that you need to study piano theory for many years before you can play a popular piano piece. I do believe that you must first, at the very least, learn the basics when it comes to chord structure, timing, and general piano-playing techniques. For the most part, piano theory books are not easy to study on your own, especially if you are a beginner. It certainly helps to have someone teach you what you need to learn to get started, and then apply that to the material you are working on. But a good place to start is to get a good piano chord book designed for the popular pianist. Some study, practice, and actual application to any pop song will improve your playing skills.
Also, many of these magical piano programs fall short when it comes to the actual song selections within each program. This is more a matter of music licensing than anything else. The songs in these programs are usually quite simple and are "public domain" in terms of copyright.
My approach to teaching basic piano theory others is to first focus on singular notes, intervals, harmonies, and then chord structure. This is the literal backbone of any popular piece of music. Timing is also essential. With the help of someone who is more advanced in experience, they can show you how to apply basic chord theory to any popular song, but again, you must be willing to learn and practice on your own, too. Without exception, I found that the students who did not practice each day in-between lessons were not able to learn as fast as those who did. Once again, as they often say, "practice makes perfect."
Selecting Popular Songs To Work On
Although you may like to listen to complicated popular music, perhaps these are not the best to select for just the piano. Select a song which is intended for the piano while staying at your playing level. Perhaps this might be a vocal tune which can also easily translate into an instrumental piece. Again, not all pop music is appropriate for the piano, especially if a selection might be more appropriate for a guitar or rock band. If you have trouble finding good pieces, seek the advice of a professional musician or piano instructor. There are plenty of pieces out there to play.
Mark Prigoff
November, 2008
To hear some popular piano music from Mark Prigoff, click here.
