Left Hand Patterns for Beginner Music Lessons in Oklahoma

Hi, this is Andrea with Curtis Music Academy, and I’m here with another podcast on a behind the scenes look at what we do at Curtis Music Academy and some other thoughts and musings as well. So today, I would like to talk to you about this awesome new book I got for my students and their beginner music lessons in Oklahoma. The book is called One Hundred Left Hand Patterns Every Piano Player Should Know, and it also says Play the same song One Hundred Different Ways. That is so exciting to me about the variety that you can have on the piano during piano lessons. I’m sure that all musicians have come to the problem of no matter what they play on the piano, it all ends up sounding the same. In beginner music lessons in Oklahoma at Curtis Music Academy, we offer a lot of variety.

That’s because we all have a unique sound and a unique style. Vince Guaraldi, for example, the jazz pianist who’s in my mind most famous for his music for Charlie Brown. He has a certain style and a certain sound. Bono from U2 always has that same sound. I don’t mean that as a negative thing because I really feel like as musicians, we all have a specific sound to release in the earth and it’s unique to us. And it’s it really in the best case scenario, it’s not just copied from other musicians, it’s actually given from above. So I actually realized this with myself. I usually tend to have a unique sound that I release as well. There are exceptions to this. There are musicians who tend to have a variety in their beginner music lessons in Oklahoma.

But I think for the most part, most musicians do have a specific sound that you could listen to and you could be like, Oh yeah, this is Ed Sheeran or this is Linkin Park, for example, to two bands that are just on the top of my head. So anyway, we all do have our own unique sound in music. But I think to be well grounded in music, we should challenge ourselves and embrace other genres as well. So let me just go ahead and read some of the things from the table of contents that could be so helpful in beginner music lessons in Oklahoma.

So the things that they cover in the one hundred left hand patterns, jazz, blues and boogie woogie, rock and pop, left hand patterns, new age, left hand patterns, practical application, and then a fun fake book full of children’s songs, American folk, patriotic songs, Christmas music, classical music and gospel and spiritual music. The last part of the book is Improvising with the Right Hand, which is also so important because in the right hand I feel like sometimes it’s really easy to get bored when playing lead sheets. So this will be like a little bit of a challenge for piano lesson students.

So when I am teaching beginner music lessons in Oklahoma and I am focused specifically on teaching my students how to read chords and how to read lead sheets, we really spend quite a bit of time on the left hand. And so that’s why I thought this book will be so helpful, because it just gives them examples of what they could do, not necessarily that they have to follow it, just reading it and memorize these specific patterns, but it also just gets their creativity going for what could be my favorite pattern is the new age patterns. It just really sounds romantic and floaty and restful. And I’ve noticed that when I sit down on the piano that is the go to pattern that I have. 

The Best Beginner Music Lessons in Oklahoma

It’s almost like an octave reaches five fingers on the root note, second finger on the fifth thumb on the higher octave. So I can kind of like ebb and flow with some different ideas with that pattern as well. But it just depends. Now, I don’t really think that I’m ever going to play jazz or blues or boogie woogie, but because I’m opening up myself to a new option on the piano, it’s first of all challenging me to understand music in a better way. And also just opening up some different sounds as well. When I was playing in a church band several years ago and I was kind of a floater in the sense that I would play keyboards some weeks, I’d play acoustic guitar some weeks, and it was a lot of fun. 

And the coolest thing about this was some of the musicians. There were excellent musicians. They’d been playing for years and probably decades, actually, and they performed. They had their own bands that they would perform at festivals and different things. And so it was a really cool experience. And so I remember talking kind of like the band leader. Who  totally could do anything on the piano. So anyway, just kind of a fun side story, but he mentioned to me that it’s important just to get to know other genres of the piano that you could do in beginner music lessons in Oklahoma, not that you would ever really play them, but just that it would challenge you and to bring another element into your own playing. 

So even when I am playing at church, I might have a gospel chord progression, for example, that normally I wouldn’t have had or I might have like a blues chord that adds a little bit more depth or an extended chord or something like that. So it just has a little bit more variety. And the more I teach piano, the more I play piano, the more that I’m understanding that variety is our best friend. Because I just feel like one of the blocks of me personally playing the piano was just, well, I feel like I’ve learned everything I can learn when it comes to playing chords because I just know major and minor and inversions basically and some other little things as well that i’ve picked up from beginner music lessons in Oklahoma.

But there’s actually so much more out there to challenge ourselves with. So I am so excited to bring this in for some of my students to learn most of the time my adult students. Actually, I think this will be a benefit for them as well. But I can especially see this being a benefit for students who are in their preteens who are wanting to learn how to play chords a little bit. I think this will be a really solid thing that they can understand and go with and just enjoy. So thank you so much for listening to this podcast of my new awesome book I got from Amazon, the one hundred left hand patterns every player should know. I can’t wait to use it in my beginner music lessons in Oklahoma. We will see you at the next podcast with more information about piano lessons.