Jetzt auch in Englisch: Piano Chords Step-by-Step

Zeitgleich zur Buchmesse 2017 in Frankfurt erscheint das erfolgreiche und sehr beliebte Akkorde-Buch nun auch in englisch! Damit geht das Autorenteam Janssen/Scheid konsequent den nächsten Schritt in den internationalen Markt.

Die englische Ausgabe ermöglicht nun auch Piano- und speziell Akkorde-Interessierten in englischsprachigen Ländern einen umfassenden Einblick in die Vielfalt und Systematik der Klavier-Akkorde.

Foreword

During my long career as a pianist, piano teacher and piano tuner, I developed the habit of sitting at the piano before or after a lesson and improvising; that is, just playing off by heart without any music.

This surprises anyone who happens to be listening and I’m often asked: how do you do it? How can you play this piece without any music? It sounds great! I wish I could do it too.

The magic word is: “Chords, chords, chords.”

You only have to choose the right chords for any tune you’ve just heard or have in mind and to play any piece of music off by heart.

Of course, it isn’t as easy as I’ve described it, slightly tongue-in-cheek, because most people only learnt to play with music in front of them. From childhood onwards, many pianists learnt to play using sheet music and are not able to sit down in front of the piano and play for their friends if they don’t have the notes in front of them.

That’s why I’ve decided to write this book together with Uwe Scheid. Step-by-step, we’ll introduce you to the world of chords and harmonies that will allow you to play piano freely without any sheet music, using chord symbols alone straightaway.

Now you’re asking yourself: there are so many books about harmony and chords. Why write yet another book on the subject?

The advantage of this book is that a substantial part of it focuses on chords, the most important tool for improvisatory piano-playing. We’ll teach you how to construct and use chords step-by-step, as well as giving you an overview of essential chords for every key in simple, easy-to-read tables. Learning and practising chords is the most important foundation for improvisatory piano-playing.

This is an exercise book you can put on your grand piano, upright piano or keyboard, so you can try what you’ve just read about straight away. It’s suitable for both beginners as well as more advanced pianists, who’d like to leave their sheet music behind.

Although this book is more of a practical handbook, we’d also like to introduce a few elementary concepts of harmony to give you a better understanding of chords.

We hope you enjoy experimenting!

Bernard Janssen and Uwe Scheid