Piano Therapy? Piano Teacher Edward Weiss has Novel Approach to Music Making

Music … it has so many therapeutic uses. From a soothing background in hospitals to a relaxing ambiance in restaurants.

But the use of music as a healing agent isn’t anything new. It’s been around since people started making music thousands of years ago.

And now, pianist and teacher Edward Weiss wants to spread that message.

Weiss owns and operates a website that teaches beginning adults how to play New Age piano music. The site now boasts over 1000 subscribers and offers over 100 lessons teaching students from all over the world how to create their own healing sounds on the piano. Weiss remarks:

“Many adults just want to be able to sit down at the piano and connect with music on a personal level. The great thing about my method is no note reading or experience is required. Anyone who wants to play piano can do so. All that’s required is knowledge of a few chords and the willingness to try.”

Traditionally, piano lessons consist of a live teacher, a method book, and weekly visits that include back and forth trips on the highway. The Internet is changing all this as more and more are searching for what they want online.

Weiss, who also teaches privately has this to say…

“The Yellow Pages used to be the first thing prospective students reached for when thinking about taking piano lessons. Not anymore. Thanks to the Internet, anyone can find what they’re looking for. They can also find many non-traditional types of instruction that simply don’t exist in the brick and mortar world.”

Weiss is currently offering a 'Summer Sale' where prospective students can get over 100 New Age piano lessons for $19. A free workbook is also offered at Online Piano Lessons by Quiescence Music.

Learn How to "Speed Listen" in a Few Easy Steps!

Most of you have heard of speed reading That's where people skip and skim through the written word to get to the "gist" of the material. But did you know you can also learn how to speed listen? That's right!

You see, the key to speed reading is reading "for something." That's it. That's the entire key and once you understand this, you'll understand how people can literally flip pages of a book and seem like they're covering vast territories. Yet all they are doing is searching for information they want.

For example, let's say you have a non-fiction title you want to speed read. How to do it? First, before anything, you ask yourself "what information am I looking for?" By asking yourself this, you bypass "read mode" and instead go into "search mode." Of course, it helps to skim the table of contents first, but after that, you can find the info you need fast because you know what you're looking for.

We can also apply this concept to listening to music. For example, let's say you're listening to a Mozart piano sonata and want to know what's going on. How do you do this? Easy. You listen "for" something. In this case it might be he harmony, form, how he uses dynamics, etc. Do you see how this can help you? By deciding what to listen for before hand, you become a search engine ... literally listening and waiting to hear what you've decided to learn.

Let's take a concrete example. In my YouTube video "Piano Therapy" we have a short piece of music lasting a few minutes or so. Now, suppose you want to know what the form of this piece of music is. How can you quickly determine this? Easy. By listening for the form.

To do this, you must pay attention to how the composer uses the tools of repetition and contrast to construct his music. In this case, the form of the music is a simple ABA. You can go further. You can listen for the arrangement of the piece or how many times the composer repeats certain sections. If you want, you can take pen and paper and write it out as you listen. I used to do this to discover how music I liked was constructed.

You can listen for introductions, transitions, modulations ... pretty much anything you want to learn. The key here is to determine what it is you're listening for and then do it.

Edward Weiss is a pianist/composer and webmaster of Quiescence Music's online piano lessons. He has been helping students learn how to play piano in the New Age style for over 14 years and works with students in private, in groups, and now over the internet. Visit http://www.quiescencemusic.com now and get a FREE piano lesson!