Musical instruments belong to a large family – all tightly connected to each other in one way or another. It might not have occurred to you, but learning how to play one instrument directly affects your skills with other instruments (in a way).
Today we’ll talk about the piano and how it can benefit your guitar playing skills, your hearing sense, the basics of music theory, and such. Without further ado, by learning how to play basic piano you will benefit from:
1. Multi-instrumentalists tend to advance their skills faster
Multi-tasking, in general, keeps us in occupied and sharpens our focus. This is the reason why learning to play piano (among other instruments) will greatly boost your guitar skills. Why the piano? Well, the answer is quite self-explanatory.
Some instruments share a closer connection than others. For instance, it’s quite obvious that the guitar doesn’t share too much with a French horn. Anyhow, the piano is the instrument that’s somewhat of a mediator between all others.
2. The piano will help you understand the basic principles of music theory
Now, this one is a long shot. You might think “People who want to learn music theory go to specific classes, why do I need it?”
The truth is, every musician needs to know the basics. Furthermore, it goes without saying that everything you do becomes much clearer and easier once you know what you are doing. There’s not a simpler way to learn the basic principles of music theory, actually.
The piano and music theory go hand in hand, and most music books were made using this instrument in particular. Now, to better understand this, let’s make a comparison. Guitar playbooks are usually too informative and complex when compared to piano playbooks.
A great example of that would be the complexity of chord progression, modulations, and such. With piano, it’s as complex as “press this note here.”
3. Your “music hearing sense” will greatly develop
The notes played on different instruments can overlap, which means that as long as you’re in the same key, every note will sound the same. Now, “the devil is in the details,” and you will start to notice that these minor details actually make a huge difference by a long shot.
Simply put, you will be able to expand your horizons. Not only will you be able to learn the songs by ear more easily, you will also be able to notice your mistakes with greater precision.
The piano is a great teacher, as it doesn’t leave room for error. You can strum the notes that are in disharmony on a guitar and they can even sound good. That does not apply for piano, and you will come to understand this soon enough.
4. Writing music – The piano offers more versatility
If you’re a music composer who relies solely on the guitar, you’re in for a pleasant surprise. Composing music with the guitar alone is beautiful in its own right, but there’s little space for innovation if you stick with that alone.
Plainly speaking, you can’t make the best out of your imagination and skills on the guitar, as one of your hands will always have to strum the strings while the other plays the notes. The piano removes this problem as you can play the rhythm with one hand and play the leads with the other.
5. Learning how to play the basic piano opens up the doors to other instruments as well
Some people find it pretty hard to switch from guitar to similar stringed instruments, such as the bass, for example. Why is that? The strings of the bass are wider, and the frets are harder to hold. If we take any other instrument the result would be the same.
Plainly speaking, the guitar is unique and exquisite, which is the reason why most people stick with it. The notes played on the piano are expressed in a beautiful range that will allow you to learn how to play any other instrument, including the guitar.
In conclusion, once you’ve understood the basic principles of playing the piano, you will understand the music theory better, your sense of hearing will improve, and you will get a nice, welcome boost to your guitar playing skills.
~ Raphael Taylor
