learning keyboard to become a better guitarist

[broy]

Hi all,

My kids have a keyboard and I was thinking of putting time into it to try and learn it a bit.

I do not have a desire to learn keyboard, I don't have any songs or anything I'm thinking would be perfect with keys - but I'm a self taught kitchen table player without much instruction on theory and from what I heard is the piano gives you a good foundation in chord structure, spacing between notes etc...

I know there are many very good musicians who play multiple instruments on this forum, in your opinions - would it be worth learning some keyboard to further my guitar prowess, or would I be best off staying focused on guitar if that truly is where my interest lies?

Just thinking out loud, but appreciate any input.

Rgds - Bill

[Matthew Sarad]

My guitar teacher, a superb fingerstyle jazz player, used the Mel.Bay books

[simpl man]

The keys are nice because all the notes of the scale are in a row. This makes all the basics easy to 'visualize', in my opinion.

Everything else from there, sky's the limit.

[The Bard Rocks]

I have long thought that there is more music to be made and learned from a piano (or any keyboards), than on another other instrument. For one thing, you have 10 fingers to make individual notes with. No other instrument does that. And you learn harmony and chords - try doing that on a sax or trumpet! You can sing with it, unlike a clarinet or trombone. And you learn to play bass clef.

The assumptions here are that you are playing in one place only, as pianos are not portable. And if you substitute with a keyboard, you'll need electricity to make any sound. And you do not need to bend notes... And....

I don't play piano, but my wife and daughters do. They learned faster about these things than I did. Now would I be a better guitarist if I'd learned piano? Not sure, but I might be a better musician for it.

[Bob from Brooklyn]

It's all right there in front of you. Figure out the major and minor chords and it's off to the races.

[Glennwillow]

If you already know the rudiments of how to play the guitar, playing the guitar more and learning more songs will help you become a better guitar player.

Learning to play a keyboard can be very helpful if you want to record yourself and you want to add keyboard sounds to the recording. That's the only reason I mess around with keyboards. And learning to play the piano or a keyboard is certainly a worthwhile skill. I can kinda play a keyboard, but I don't sound like I know what I am doing until I put in a whole lot of practice. Then again, being good at the guitar takes a whole lot of practice, too.

Learning to play the keyboard will likely make you an all-around better musician, but it's not going to make you a better guitar player. Playing the guitar helps with that.

- Glenn

[Ryan51]

I started piano at a fairly young age and then started on guitar a few years later. One thing that helped with learning guitar was already knowing how to read music. I started with guitar method books where the lessons were written out in standard notation. There was no tab back then.

It is certainly possible to learn chords and scales on keyboard but with no desire to learn to play songs or some kind of music it probably makes more sense to just devote the practice time to guitar playing.

[JonPR]

Learning keyboard won't make you a better guitarist. But it will make you a better musician.

I.e., what Glennwillow said. Learning keyboard gives you another (very useful) perspective on music, especially on harmony and composition, and helps you realise the guitar is just one tool in the box. Getting better on the guitar comes from playing the guitar more - it's a technique thing. But the keyboard will give you a broader understanding of what you are doing.

I taught myself rudimentary piano a year or two after starting on guitar - I learned any other instrument I could get my hands on as well, but most of those were guitar-related (banjo, uke, mandolin). Piano is sufficiently different to give a whole other angle.

The great thing about keyboard is (at least for studying theory and harmony, or composing songs, or overdubbing stuff on recordings) you need little or no piano technique to get a lot of useful stuff out of it. You just need to learn which note is which, and then you just drop your fingers on to whichever ones you want. Much easier than guitar!
Of course, learning to perform on piano - to actually play a song on it - is much harder (I never got as far as being able to use two hands, because I could only look at one at a time!). But then - as a guitarist - you don't want to do that, right?

I still remember, from jazz workshops and summer schools I used to attend, being impressed that all the jazz teachers, whatever their main instrument (sax, trumpet, clarinet, guitar, bass, etc) could all play piano, most of them two-handed - if not to actual performance standard, certainly well enough to knock out quite fancy chord progressions in time. IOW, it was clearly regarded as a foundational musical workhorse. It was the instrument you used to learn about (and demonstrate) harmony, and the instrument you would use to compose or arrange a tune - if only because its range (on an 88-note keyboard) contains every note that any other instrument could play. and any voice could sing.
You don't need 88 keys for general keyboard use, mind. Certainly not for MIDI recording (because octaves can be changed) or theoretical study and chord investigation (4 octaves, 49 keys, is enough for that, and you could get away with 37).

[Methos1979]

Self taught guitar player here as well. I took two years of piano lessons after buying an electric piano for my daughter and signing her up for lessons. I thought if I took lessons as well that would motivate her to take lessons. She never took a single lesson! I took them for two years. Music theory makes zero sense to me on a guitar. I makes complete sense on a piano keyboard! Unfortunately, my guitar playing and more so our (wife and I) acoustic duo was really taking off and as I was still working back then there was just not enough time to dedicate the amount of time needed to do both so I reluctantly let the piano lessons go.

I often wonder just far along and how good I'd be had I kept taking them. I don't regret focusing on the guitar/duo because we've gone so far, well beyond our hopes and dreams. I agree that taking piano lessons won't make you a better guitar player but it will definitely make you a better musician. I would like to think that at some point being able to read music and understand theory would surely have to bleed into your guitar playing. But understand that to do it properly (with an actual instructor and weekly lessons) it is a significant investment in both time and effort. But well worth it if you can afford both the time and cost.

[hubcapsc]

I like comparing what little I know about both of them
and thinking about how they are the same but different.

You can't slap a capo on a piano...

-Mike

[ljguitar]

Hi bro…
I have a teaching degree in music (elementary and secondary instrumental and vocal) and a minor in theory. I taught intermediate and advanced fingerstyle guitar for 40 years locally (till I retired). I always recommend guitarists who want to learn 'music theory' (or flutists, or bass players, singers etc) learn basic theory on piano.

I have a sub-$10 battery powered keyboard (Casio) bought at a thrift store, which I used for years to teach major/minor scales and chords to guitar students. It's so much easier to understand intervals and building them into chords on keys. Half an hour learning chord formation on the keyboard can bring years us understanding inversions, sevenths, ninths, minor sevenths (ninths etc), diminished, major and minor progressions. And it doesn't even require note reading on a staff. I teach guitar students chord work in the key of C.

Music Theory learned on keys and then applied to other instruments it becomes powerful. It's not that one cannot learn these concepts on other instruments, but after seeing and [i]feeling[/i[ them on keys, it falls together better with other applications.

I started with 11 years of accordion (starting age 8), the trumpet joining three years after I started accordion, and the uke/guitar starting at age 14. I haven't played the accordion since I stopped lessons (early teens), but still benefit from the lessons that carried over into my other instruments…including transposing, improvising, chords, inversions, melody, harmony etc.

Almost everything I apply to my guitar (61 years later) points back to my keyboard days.

Hope this adds to the topic…

[ghostnote]

Yes. These folks are correct. It’s easy to see how all the notes in a chord relate to each other on a keyboard; not to mention things like inversions. I’m not a keyboard player by any stretch of the imagination, but I’ve played lots of keys on home recordings, when I’ve had time to rehearse the part over and over. It’s amazing how much you can learn just by doing that. Although I hardly play it, there’s always a keyboard in my music room set up and ready to go.

[tbirdman]

I started playing the guitar 3 years ago. I started to play the piano about a year ago. I was amazed how easier music theory was on the piano. However, it is harder with trying to read music for both hands. Then you have to learn the bass clef in addition to the treble clef. I had some music reading experience as I play the classical guitar in addition to the steel acoustic guitar.

I took 4 semesters of piano at a local community college. 3 semesters were course for music majors. I struggled, but I did have end up with excellent grades. i learned a lot of music theory from these classes. I now take weekly singing, guitar and piano lessons.

I took a guitar lesson from fairly well teacher. He thought learning the piano was a great foundation for learning the guitar as the piano was more difficult as you need to learn hand independence for the piano.

The other benefit of the piano is with singing with the ability to plunk a melody on the keyboard for songs I'm learning. I sold the cheap $100 keyboard I started with, moved onto a digital piano and now I play mostly a grand piano. Nothing beats a nice acoustic piano. Currently Bach is now kicking my butt!

[rmoretti49]

The OP's question is exactly what I have been wondering about for years. The replies so far are helpful to me in emphasizing the point that guitar technique can only come from playing guitar. But I suspect that many of us on the AGF, while wanting to improve our guitar playing, aren't really going to pursue the route of becoming guitar pros.

For me, I like to sing along with playing. And I like to write songs. But I have noticed that I tend to hit roadblocks when trying to actively create melodies. It would seem like a keyboard might be ideal in overcoming this obstacle.

I look forward to more relies to the OP.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by hubcapsc

I like comparing what little I know about both of them
and thinking about how they are the same but different.

You can't slap a capo on a piano...

-Mike

Hi hubcapsc
All my electronic keyboards have a 'transpose' button - the keyboard equivalent of the capo.