Coming soon
Hello. I'm Nate. I was born in Atlanta, GA. Now, I live in Oakland, CA. About a year and a half ago, I decided I wanted to take piano lessons. I was specifically attracted to Blues music. I'm not an expert on the genre. However I'm aware of a number of greats such as (my favorite) Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis, or Oscar Peterson. I figured, I already like the music, so why not learn how to play?
As a child, I played the alto saxophone and the tuba. I played both very well. But I stopped formal music after middle school. No real reason, I was just indifferent about continuing music, so I didn't. Now as an adult, I feel motivated to jump back into it.I like that learning an instrument can be as simple or as complex as you want to be, while still making beautiful music. Since I live in an apartment, horns are out of the question, so I chose piano.
To me, piano is such a hard instrument to grasp. It requires so much dexterity. But I was still determined to learn. I thought it was so cool to have such precise control and do different things with your hands. I wanted to do that too.
I took professional lessons for about 10 months. I learned music theory re: piano as well as playing on the instrument. I believe my teachers (Blue Bear School of Music in San Francisco) were highly knowledgable, and taught me tons of theory, from basic scales and triads, to inversion and extended chords. I believe I've learned so much more than I can explain. I was taught as well as challenged. Challenged to play a bit differently, challenged to try in another key. If you seriously want to learn an instrument just to have a new skill to improve on like myself, consider a professional teacher for a few months.
Nowadays, I'm in between contract jobs, so I decided to pick up piano practice a bit more. I created Piano Voicings to give me an easy resource to refer to when I practice. I was tired of saving tons of social media videos and articles. They are helpful, but Piano Voicings is straight to the point, and also offers theory to explain the why behind the concepts presented.
I figured, why don't I blog my progress as well. So I created this. I'm not a natural writer. I don't know how often I'll update. But you should receive an email if I do. Thanks for reading.
Piano Voicings will always be free. If it helps you, please share with others.
