A LIGHTWEIGHT NOTATION FOR PLAYING PIANO FOR FUN by R.J.A. Buhr 1. INTRODUCTION Music notation gets in the way of the joy of making music on the piano that can be had without first spending thousands of hours at the keyboard to develop piano “wizardry,” meaning a combination of keyboard skill and mastery of music notation. The message of this document is the joy can be had, without any loss of musical substance, with no more wizardry than is required to read and play single melody lines. The vehicle is a lightweight notation I call PKP (for Picturing Keyboard Patterns) for annotating the core flow of harmony in interval terms above the staff. I developed the notation as an adult beginner with no training in music theory after becoming frustrated with the way music notation obscures the keyboard simplicity of harmony. That the notation has substance in spite of this humble origin is indicated by the following opinion of PKP provided by a music theorist specializing in improvisational music (see supplementary pages): “The hook ... , at least in my opinion, is that it's possible to attain a deep understanding of chords (and their constituent intervals) without recourse to Western notation. This has direct consequences for physical patterning, fingerings, etc. Essentially, your method combines the utility of a play-by-ear approach with the depth of a mathematically-informed theory of music.” PKP follows from two observations that anyone can make. One is the piano keyboard supplies only 12 piano keys to play all the notes of an octave that music notation describes in many more than 12 ways by key signatures and accidentals (sharps, flats, naturals). This presents pianists with a 12-half- tone chromatic scale in which the intervals that provide what music is to the ears are directly visibly to the eyes as musical objects defined by size measured in half tones instead of by pairs of note symbols expressed in key-signature notation. The other observation is chord symbols describe chords without reference to context (melody line, other chords) in a way that obscures the often beautifully integrated flow of melody and harmony.1 A sufficient representation that captures this flow is a harmonic core formed of a sequence of two kinds of building blocks, which are keyboard intervals (measured in half tones) chosen to represent chords in context. Building blocks are intervals that split octaves in half in two ways. The first kind consists of fifths (7 half tones) and fourths (5 half tones) that split octaves into harmonious pitch halves. The second kind consists of tritones (6 half tones) that split octaves into dissonant keyboard halves midway in size between fifths and fourths. The closeness in size of these building blocks means that sequences of them establish smooth flow that cues what comes next. This works because chords described by chord symbols are formed either of single building blocks with a middle note (triad chords) or overlapped combinations of 2 or 3 building blocks (seventh or sixth chords). A melody line plus a harmonic core consisting of a sequence of primary building blocks captures the essence of the most sophisticated features of the harmony. It also identifies context in the form of tonic scales in play, enabling missing details to be filled in by eye and ear. The PKP notation for annotating this above the staff is easy to extract from music notation and is helpful for learning new pieces, all the way to guiding improvisations based on them. 1 The following ugly chord progression obscures the beautifully integrated flow of melody & harmony of a haunting minor blues with a simple, mainly-black-key melody line (see Chapter 3): E♭7♯9—B9(13)—EM9—A7♯11—D♭9sus—B9(13)—D♭7sus—E♭7—A♭m11— B7(13)—Fm7♭5—B♭7♯5♯9—C13♯11—F7(13)—B7—EM7—A7(13)—A♭7—B♭7—D♭7—E♭7♯9—B7—EM7♯11—A7♯11. www.pianotheoryman.com 2. CONCEPTS & NOTATION I was puzzled as a youth, when I picked up playing the trumpet in school bands, by the heavyweight notation required for music with tonic changes that could be effortlessly handled by ear by anyone when humming, whistling or singing a tune. I wondered why music could not be written down as simply as it is heard, but accepted that it could not as one of the mysteries of life and got on with the business of learning to read the notation as best I could. The puzzlement resurfaced when I took up the piano as an adult beginner. This time I decided not to ignore it. Music notation is here to stay and must be dealt with as it is by anyone aspiring to be a piano wizard but I wasn’t aspiring to that — I only wanted to play for fun — and I was not convinced that such heavyweight notation was necessary for the purpose. I was motivated to play harmonically sophisticated pieces from the “jazz and standards” repertoire that are available in numerous fake books. I had in mind pieces by the likes of, in no particular order, Bill Evans, Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Michel Legrand, Charles Mingus, George Gershwin, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane and many more. Beyond specific pieces, I also wanted to learn how to play blues, which is often complex in music notation because its scales and chords tend to be strongly chromatic (an example is footnoted in the previous chapter). I once heard a jazz musician say in a radio interview that learning to play the blues before learning music notation had prepared him for anything music notation later threw at him. I wanted to focus practicing on pieces I loved instead of on developing general sight-reading and pianistic skills needed to become a piano wizard. I thought that a suitably lightweight notation to guide such practicing might be possible in terms of intervals instead of the notes of key-signature notation, and so it turned out to be. The concepts are very simple but be warned that they go strongly against conventional wisdom. They are simple if you shut music notation out of the mind until they are grasped. This is not to suggest discarding music notation. PKP is an aid to understanding it, not a replacement for it. No one is better qualified to shut music notation out of the mind than a skeptical adult beginner not yet versed in it. Skepticism followed from the visible mismatch between chord-progression-ugliness of the kind footnoted in the opening chapter and the simple beauty of the music it represents. Looking for a lightweight notation became an absorbing retirement hobby. A LIGHTWEIGHT NOTATION BASED ON INTERVALS Key signatures are the basis of written music, so a lightweight notation based on intervals must start with the scales of key signatures if it is to be helpful in understanding written music. The chromatic scale of a tonic octave on the piano provides the basis for this. Chromatic Scale Any tonic scale on the piano can be understood in terms of the intervals of the chromatic scale of the tonic octave represented by a line marked off in equal intervals representing half tones, as shown next. Every proper tonic scale is framed by the tonic notes an octave apart and the pitch center of the octave, a fifth above the bottom (a fourth below the top). pitch tonic chromatic scale center tonic @ $ @ <== tonic scale "frame" An unadorned divided line of the form shown above, displayed horizontally or vertically on the PKP 3/9/16 —!2— ©copyright R.J.A. Buhr www.pianotheoryman.com page will serve from now on as a representation of the chromatic scale of a designated tonic octave on the piano, understanding that the thicker markers identify the asymmetric divisions of the frame. Intervals have the same number of half tones whether they are understood in terms of this picture of the piano’s chromatic scale, or in terms of pairs of notes of music notation.2 The difference with music notation is not in the number of half tones but in their individual sizes in pitch terms. The half tones of music notation are nominally slightly different pitch sizes for overlapped octaves. Piano keys would need adjustable pitches to play the differences, and they don’t have them. One octave of the piano keyboard can be tuned to the musical perfection implied by music notation but this would make octaves overlapping it sound different. Instead, equal temperament tuning is used to make overlapping octaves sound the same, making them all nominally slightly out of tune. The book How Equal Temperament Tuning Ruined Harmony strongly expresses the opinion of its title, and the book Lies My Music Teacher Told Me explains that singers in choirs trained to sing the slightly different pitches by ear can find singing with the piano slightly uncomfortable. Opinions and comfort aside, the piano is the way it is and delivers intervals that are musically accurate in terms of sizes measured in half tones. This enables PKP to dispense with sharps and flats. Seasoned pianists tend to think they are needed as indicators of the musical functions of notes because they use them for that, but the fact is that the positions of notes relative to tonics are sufficient. Why not take advantage of this simplicity? The very thought goes strongly against musical tradition and conventional wisdom. I have been accused by piano wizards of being a musical know-nothing for even suggesting it. Read on and judge for yourself.