Piano playing carring over to guitar playing

[symphonyofdream]

IMO Shawn Lane is the greatest guitar player of all time and he started with piano and when asked about what he did to improve his guitar playing he said for him playing Piano helped his guitar playing and that he'd barely play guitar and just piano and improve on guitar. I heard this and i just thought Whatever he's just a freak natural talent. But then recently I've been extremely impressed with Marshall Harrison(big under ground player, vids on youtube) He started with Piano as well and after playing guitar for 2 years he was pretty much top notch. So this really got me thinking that piano really must carry over to guitar more then just the theory/ ear training. I've been playing piano for the last 3 months and less guitar then i've played in years and it seems my guitar playing is progressing well.

[1001gear]

Eric Johnson is another piannah playuh as is Tony Mcalpine. Must be zillions, me included. Legit piano will give you that universal neural matrix - (tactile command of rhythm, harmony, melody, and the inevitable COUNTERPOINT) - like nothing else short of alien brainwashing. Guitar will add somewhat, perhaps plentywhat in the expression and inflection dept.

[symphonyofdream]

 

Eric Johnson is another piannah playuh as is Tony Mcalpine. Must be zillions, me included. Legit piano will give you that universal neural matrix - (tactile command of rhythm, harmony, melody, and the inevitable COUNTERPOINT) - like nothing else short of alien brainwashing. Guitar will add somewhat, perhaps plentywhat in the expression and inflection dept.

 

 

 

I'm confused by some of what your saying. Do you think the reason it's so great is because you have to train your brain to do two different patterns or two different rhythms with each hand? When i first started just getting the scales down with proper fingerings was like a over load for my brain kinda like the pat you head rub your stomach thing times 10. Where as with guitar each hand is doing something different but working to produce the same notes

[JonR]

Piano is technically more difficult - because of the two-hand thing (you can't look at both at the same time, and it's harder to learn to feel your way around than on guitar). So that - as 1001gear says - might improve your brain "neural matrix".

But mainly - I suspect - piano is better for learning about harmony and theory, because playing all kinds of complex chords is pretty easy, with very little training.

 

My gf started learning guitar after being a pretty competent pianist. Some things certainly confused her (the way the hands and fingers have to operate, the note positions on the frets), but her background in theory and notation was a huge benefit. Not to mention the ear training of course.

 

Personally, I taught myself piano a year or two after starting to teach myself guitar. (Much easier than teaching yourself guitar! Well, apart from the two-hand thing, which I still haven't quite got.) I've always found it enormously helpful in working on harmony, and in composing.

 

One thing I've noticed about all the pro jazz musicians I've known (and I mean ALL), is that they are reasonably competent pianists, whatever their main performance instrument is. Remember, a guitarist can explore chords - to some extent - on his own. A jazz sax or trumpet player needs to know about chords - far more than a rock guitarist does - but he can't play them, of course (other than as arpeggios, which doesn't always hit the spot); so piano is a natural choice for second instrument.

As in classical music, piano in jazz is simply the workhorse for harmonic and compositional experimentation. You don't really have to be able to play it very well (to performance standard), but knowing your way around it is enormously useful and educational.

[1001gear]

 

I'm confused by some of what your saying. Do you think the reason it's so great is because you have to train your brain to do two different patterns or two different rhythms with each hand? When i first started just getting the scales down with proper fingerings was like a over load for my brain kinda like the pat you head rub your stomach thing times 10. Where as with guitar each hand is doing something different but working to produce the same notes

 

 

That, what JonR says; it's not just scales and method, it allows you to literally wrap your head around ALL the music.

[akapuli]

I think it's important to hear the music first and not concentrating on guitar-only things. (I wish I would remember this philosophy more )

 

Eric and Shawn are just perfect examples how to take different angles on our instrument.

 

Edit: Sorry, I went on lunchbreak before posting, so I see others also had this thought.

[jonfinn]

 

IMO Shawn Lane is the greatest guitar player of all time and he started with piano and when asked about what he did to improve his guitar playing he said for him playing Piano helped his guitar playing and that he'd barely play guitar and just piano and improve on guitar. I heard this and i just thought Whatever he's just a freak natural talent. But then recently I've been extremely impressed with Marshall Harrison(big under ground player, vids on youtube) He started with Piano as well and after playing guitar for 2 years he was pretty much top notch. So this really got me thinking that piano really must carry over to guitar more then just the theory/ ear training. I've been playing piano for the last 3 months and less guitar then i've played in years and it seems my guitar playing is progressing well.

 

 

That's a really interesting question. I think if you play piano it helps qith guitar playing in that it probably helps with theory knowledge/understanding. Theory is MUCH easier to understand if you play piano (I think).

 

But overall, you can't compare the relative difficulty of the two instruments. It's an apple/orange thing to me.

 

I work pretty regularly with a piano player named Bob Winter. Both of us play with Boston Pops Orchestra. Bob is one of the most brilliant pianists I have ever met. He can take a full orchestra score, TRANSPOSE it to a different key and reduce it down to a piano part ON SIGHT! He knows like a million jazz tunes, can improvise.... he's basically Chuck Norris on piano.

 

Two years ago he started playing ukelele. To date, he still has trouble making the shapes.

 

I know plenty of pianists in the same boat. I know other pianists who play guitar great!

 

I play a little bit of piano. I love it but I don't seek to master it because it doesn't feel like "my" instrument.

[1001gear]

Obviously not into fret boards, but that's the kind of player I'm talkin about. There's no better foundation than knowing the musical spectrum - voicings, sonorities, blends, to name a few pet items...

[TrickyBoy]

I took piano lessons in my youth, and the one benefit I always felt I gained from that is that it is infinitely easier to visualize things on the piano. When someone says play middle C, there's only one to play. Also, things like chord constructions, etc are much easier to visualize on the piano because it's all laid out in from of you.

[bigboy78]

I think they complement each other. I still play piano seriously, I hang out here because its probably one of the best theoretical - not just guitar - discussion boards around.

 

Playing piano helps you understand how everything goes together, as far as improv goes your left hand is a ready made backing track for any experimentation.

 

All theory makes obvoius sense when applied to a keyboard - it makes you wonder if the theory is actually describing the function of the keyboard and then those principles are applied to other instruments.

 

I think my piano playing improves from things I learn on guitar & vice verse. My "lead" piano playing steals ideas from my guitar playing and ideas/concepts I pick-up on this guitar based thoery site.

 

My guitar chord-melody/solo playing definitely is improved by the melody/harmony knowledge gained from the piano.

 

I've never been a shredder on piano or guitar, but I am sure some of the hardcore classical stuff (Rach. 3) would be great for working on you timing and basic finger speed - transferable either way.

[Steadfastly]

I very good piano teacher I know uses a guitar to get some of her students to understand the notes on the piano.

[PGAPIT]

When I learned Piano in college my teacher told me that it should be a bit easier for me than guitar and bass were--because piano is such a straightforward instrument. After a couple years of learning, I sort of saw what she means, but think that piano is as hard as any instrument to master. Because playing chord, scale, and arpeggio on the keyboard are so simplified, piano players take their technique to the frigging stratosphere. My opinion has always been that piano is an easier instrument to play the same material another instrument plays (playing a violin part, or a sax solo, or just a simple melody), but because of its simplicity, piano players can play much more difficult material--such as accompanying themselves during that same solo.

 

I agree with some of the other posters in that piano playing allows for the piano player to envision harmony, advance their ear training, and develop their musicality in a way that many other musicians often lack.

 

I know I had to give up my piano playing last year, because I just couldn't afford to maintain a piano and my guitars. It also is quite hard to find the time to play yet another instrument. I bet Tony M. killed himself during his childhood playing both guitar and piano--I know he claims his parents drove him to be very serious when approaching both instruments.

[GreenAsJade]

I actually fear that my piano knowledge hinders me learning the guitar properly, "natively".

 

I was quite a respectably pianist in my youth, and picked up guitar later. I find that I can't "visualise" theory except in terms of a keyboard layout. It's hard to learn the fretboard, and it's hard to think of theory in a "guitar-applicable" way when you have to keep visualising keys etc.

 

It's wierd that I can in a flash construct quite complex chords on the keyboard, even though I haven't been playing for _ages_, and I can tell you theoretical things about music while sitting at the keyboard playing it, wheras while I'm playing the guitar I am _still_mostly clueless about what the notes that I'm playing are and the thus the theory behind them. Sure I know that I'm playing an Bbm chord or whatever and can instantly play they chord if I need to, but it's based on _shapes_ ... and so unlike when I'm at the piano, when I'm playing a Bbm on the guitar I honestly have to _think_ about "so what is the 3rd, as a note", wheras if I was playing it on the piano, I would straight away know what 3 notes I'm playing.

 

Because I keep thinking in piano terms, I think this hinders me learning in fretboard terms

 

GaJ

[PGAPIT]

I actually fear that my piano knowledge hinders me learning the guitar properly, "natively". I was quite a respectably pianist in my youth, and picked up guitar later. I find that I can't "visualise" theory except in terms of a keyboard layout. It's hard to learn the fretboard, and it's hard to think of theory in a "guitar-applicable" way when you have to keep visualising keys etc. It's wierd that I can in a flash construct quite complex chords on the keyboard, even though I haven't been playing for _ages_, and I can tell you theoretical things about music while sitting at the keyboard playing it, wheras while I'm playing the guitar I am _still_mostly clueless about what the notes that I'm playing are and the thus the theory behind them. Sure I know that I'm playing an Bbm chord or whatever and can instantly play they chord if I need to, but it's based on _shapes_ ... and so unlike when I'm at the piano, when I'm playing a Bbm on the guitar I honestly have to _think_ about "so what is the 3rd, as a note", wheras if I was playing it on the piano, I would straight away know what 3 notes I'm playing. Because I keep thinking in piano terms, I think this hinders me learning in fretboard terms GaJ

 

Yeah I had a music theory teacher that used to say the exact same thing--she never could commit herself properly to the guitar because she was so used to piano. She would always go back to the piano, and just never could get used to the same note appearing in multiple places.

 

I often wonder what horn players, or drummers, or singers that learn guitar after mastering their instruments think about the process.

 

I started on a viola, but really was never very good at any instrument outside of guitar and bass. Only got to the point of playing some basic Bach, and a little Beethoven on piano (could play Fur Elise passingly well but was still cramping when I tried to learn Moonlight).