Dave Miller Piano & Keyboard learning

Dave Miller Piano & Keyboard learning Learn to play, create, improvise, read and perform music from beginner to professional levels in all styles. Can provide references.

If your desire is to do all of this with Piano & Keyboards then, you'll be happy to know its not as complex as often perceived to be. In addition, I am always available for questions, suggestions and challenged learning needs

Learning to play music increases our brain functions and many other abilities, try it !
12/04/2025

Learning to play music increases our brain functions and many other abilities, try it !

10/25/2025

*Piano teachers should always be teaching chords of all types, chord progressions, cyclic chord movements, circle of 4ths/5ths understandings, all 4 chord qualities, movement to different key signatures, how to apply written or improvised melodies over those developed chords, just as much as they teach how to read music and musical arrangements.
**Students need those scales, chords, chord inversions, arpeggios, fingerings, etc....all the building blocks.
***At the same time introduce blues scales, blues note usage, pentatonic scales, chords, chord inversions, altered chords, improvising techniques. If your teacher isn't doing all of the above in some form maybe ask them to, or find a teacher that will.
Cheers :)

PENTATONICS ! These 24 "Five" note scales hold a deep short cut of understanding when applied to improvisation. Penta...
04/04/2025

PENTATONICS ! These 24 "Five" note scales hold a deep short cut of understanding when applied to improvisation.
Pentatonic Scales = 5 notes each
Blues Scales = 6 notes each and are related to the Pentatonic Scale.
Play all 24 of the below listed Pentatonic scales. Just put each 5 fingers on the 1st five notes of each scale shape and play anyway you wish or individual fingerings anyway you wish while taking a mental picture of each shape. Wala ! You're instantly there !
The first 12 are Major Pentatonic scales and basically form the shape of a Major 6Th chord (with the octave note added).
Use the Major 7Th chord or (C△7 = Jazz code for Major 7Th) written above each scale to play these 12 pentatonic scales over as they will magically work well and sound good.
The second group of 12 Pentatonic scales are minor and basically form a minor 7Th chord (with the octave note added). So use a minor chord or minor 7 chord to play the minor pentatonic scales over.
Once you've gone over those we will move on to how they are related so closely to the 12 Six note Blues scales and how this fast tracks "ANY" player towards improvising ! You will quickly be able to master basic improvisation skills by just knowing these 5 or 6 note scales and how they are applied in songs.
BONUS ! Another IMPORTANT point to explore is; play the same individual 24 pentatonic scales in all FIVE inversions and enjoy the different harmonics & iterations available (just use the exact same notes and explore them in their five different possible shapes).
The reason pentatonic scales sound good and work well over their matching chords is because they are based on quartal harmony. If you look at the 1st pentatonic scale and stack the notes on a keyboard starting with the 3rd note of the scale you will get ALL PERFECT 4Ths stacked ascending (e,a,d,g,c) Ha ! Bonus ! By playing 2 notes at a time you can get Major 3rd's, Minor 3rd's, Perfect 4Th's, Perfect 5Th's, Major and Minor 6Th's, and a Minor 7Th. Therefore, so much harmony is also available for improvisation ! Magic !
Cheers
**Questions are always welcome. Let's go get some improvising🎉🪗🎹🎻🎷🎺🎸
!

03/09/2025

You can play Rock, Blues, Edgy licks over literally all tunes using Pentatonic (5notes) & Blues (6note) Scales. Stay tuned !

03/02/2025

Stay Tuned ! We will be unpacking chords, polychords (chords within other chords), extension notes, deep chordal symmetry :)

MORE CHORDAL SYMMETRY :)All Major 6Th chords share the exact same notes as ALL of their matching minor 7Th chords !For e...
03/02/2025

MORE CHORDAL SYMMETRY :)
All Major 6Th chords share the exact same notes as ALL of their matching minor 7Th chords !
For example: C6 = am7 or (a minor 7 - they share the same notes)

All Minor 6Th chords share the exact same notes as ALL of their matching half-diminished 7Th chords or ( 7b5 chords) !
For example: cm6 = aØ7 (half-diminished 7th or ( am7b5 - they share the same notes)

**Though the two groups of chords listed above share the same notes they often have different functions when used. It's amazing that they have different sounds but can also be substituted for each other quite often, depending on the inversions one uses.

***From a teacher to discovering student aspect it is SO much simpler to know the symmetry of these chords initially !
WHY MAKE THINGS MORE COMPLEX than they need to be ?

Reference the chord columns in the chord chart below and you will see this magical symmetry that is often overlooked by teachers and this delays vital discovery of chordal understandings and progress.

Ask questions or email me at: [email protected]

Here are all three 8 Note Diminished Scales derived from juxtaposing one fully diminished 7 chord right next to the othe...
03/02/2025

Here are all three 8 Note Diminished Scales derived from juxtaposing one fully diminished 7 chord right next to the other 1/2 step apart, thus creating a half-whole step scale of 8 notes. Just click on them one at a time and they'll zoom up. There are really only three (half-whole step) diminished scales. It's magical in the sense that all of the chords listed on the sheets below are built from this scale. Bonus, many colorful sophisticated great sounding improvisation licks can be played using any of the notes over the matching chords listed on the sheets below.
Read through this (free) document that I put together for further understandings of the diminished family like symmetry. Once you start connecting the dots so-to-speak, you'll see it's a very big deal. Amazingly, there are a few more chords to add to this list but lets start here.
Please ask questions an begin discussions.

For those unfamiliar with modern chord code:
aØ7= A (half-diminished chord or Am7b5) or notes (a,c,Eb,g)
FB would only allow posting a JPEG, if you need a PDF, PM me.
Or
Email me: [email protected] See less

As promised, here ya go with Augmented Triads. There are two Whole Tone Scales that make up our 12 Tone Musical System. ...
02/26/2025

As promised, here ya go with Augmented Triads. There are two Whole Tone Scales that make up our 12 Tone Musical System. The notes of Whole Tone Scale #1 are: (C,D,E,F #,Ab,Bb), the notes of Whole Tone Scale #2 are: (Db,Eb,F,G,A,B). All the the notes of each Scale are one Whole Step apart which gives us great symmetry.
Below is an Augmented Triad matrix which lists all the possible Augmented Triads. The Augmented Triads are built on stacked Major 3rd's only and they give us a beautiful mystic unsettled sound. Please play through all of them and start to get used to that great sound which is used by many composers over centuries including Stevie Wonder, John Williams, Debussy, Mozart, etc... to name a few :)
There is much more to share about Augmented chords but this is a great start, so dive in.

Please ask questions, I'm here for all who are interested. You can private email or PM me.

Email me: [email protected]

Here ya go Improvisors, as promised ! This is a Quick Start on Diminished Scale Improvising and chord symmetry for free....
02/19/2025

Here ya go Improvisors, as promised ! This is a Quick Start on Diminished Scale Improvising and chord symmetry for free. Let the "MAGIC" begin !!
Just follow through on all the guidance and you'll be having professional fun immediately.
* Remember this is only one of three Diminished Scales and its matching Major Dominant 7 chords. There are two more (half-whole step) Diminished Scales and eight more matching Major Dominant 7 chords left. Pure Magic, give it a try now :)
**By using the three Diminished 8 note Scales you will "ALWAYS" be playing the b3,b5,b7 and above the octave b9, #9, #11,13 extensions. Yes, 5 of the 6 note blues scales plus, "Bonus", all the upper extensions in one beautiful scale with all the color tones !!
*** Ask questions, create dialogue. I would love to know how all of these posts are working for you.
****If you're more of a private person message me. I'll be glad to respond to any comments or questions.

If you need a Free PDF just message me or email me:
[email protected]

02/18/2025

We'll be taking a deeper dive into Diminished Chord/Scale symmetry and player approaches real soon. Stay tuned ! muzeeklern@yahoo.

02/14/2025

Next Topic on Diminished Scale & Chord Magic will be next week. STAY TUNED !

Email: [email protected]

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