Customer Reviews

Piano Chords & Progressions:: The Secret Backdoor to Exciting Piano Playing!

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I feel like I've died and gone to heaven. Man am I excited and motivated because of this book. I can now play dozens and dozens of tunes and they sound good. I feel like the musical world is at my feet after learning chords. I've learned from this guy in a short period of time what would have taken years going to piano lessons. The book lessons make you understand and be able to apply them to the piano. I have a real good idea about what I'm doing now and have been shown the piano is played with the brain and that once you understand chord relationships, you are off and running musically - and all of a sudden I'm a heck lot better than I thought I could ever be - geeez, I wish something like this was available years ago. The sax had been a hobby most of my life so I could read the melody but had no idea what was going on with the chords. When I reitred I wanted to learn the piano and found there was no shortcut; until, I found this book. I took lessons for a while and had to see a teacher every week and learned maybe two things each time. Never did completely understand, and then drill, after drill after drill - this was going to take years and I didn't have the patience or motivation. The book changes all that and teaches you dozens of chords in a short period of time and you understand them and can use them immediately and the author makes it fun with a humorus real life practical approach. What a wonderful comprehensive tool this is for learning chords and chord progressions.
I can play tunes I never dreamed possible and jazz is fun, I am really stoked, thanks pianoman Shinn.

Man... I've been playing in Jazz Combos for over fifty years, hearing all those tunes, (we call standards) Listening to all those bass lines of songs, keeping rhythm. But I never understood the reason, for all the changes, until I bought this book from Duane Shinn "Piano Chords & Progressions:"
Now I understand just how important a I, IV, V chord progression is!
It is used in playing Blues, all the time!!!
I've been playing those progressions all this time and did not realize how music was structured?
Duane Shinns' book makes it very easy to understand why music sounds the way it does and how you move from one key to another. Even though I don't read music while playing drums, I have been known as a musical drummer, because I listen to where the sidemen are going with a song and anticipate where changes are made. This book explains that!
As a mater of fact, since reading and using this book, I can now sit in on piano and play blues and a few songs. People think I can play piano too. This is a great book! Thanks Duane Shinn...

This is a wonderful piano chord music book with one exception, which I consider very important, it doesn't give you any music that goes with the chords. Just learning chords is boring! If it had some music to go with it, even simple songs, it would be more palatable!
Because of this I was very disappointed with the book and am looking for one that has music that goes with the chords.

When you have to learn large number of chords, there are 2 ways to go about it.

- Learn each without understanding the relationships between them. You can certainly do it but it takes longer and it is not fun.

- Learn the simple rules that relates these chords and you can learn whole groups of them. It is lot easier to remember the simple rules than remember notes for each chords.

This book breaks the vast number of piano chords in to well defined groups and explains the simple rules that allow student to move from one group to the other. The rules are explained very simply in lay man terms and not using musical jargon that some other books tend to do. Even with in a given chord group, the author suggests very clever ordering (i.e. Do chords with all white keys first, follow that by chords with white on the outside and black on the inside etc) that is very intuitive, easy to remember and fun.

The book assumes some basic music scale knowledge so it may not be for beginners. It was perfect for me and my 2 young sons who already knew major and minor scales and some chords. The book gave us a clear structure to proceed that was even better than a live instructor. It was so good to see the twinkle in the eyes and the Ahaa coming out of my 7 year old son when I was teaching him from this book. It was even better to see him make rapid progress in learning chords based on the simple rules.

The binding and paper quality of the book does not make justice to the excellent way the information is presented with in.

I have bought many books in the hopes of learning chords quickly. None of them came close to this book. Highly recommended.

The book summarises all the chords in what the author calls "chordland". It is however, not a book for people who do not know anything about music as one needs to have an understanding of musical scales in order to have a grasp of how the chords come into place. So, overall, a good book for the intermediate pianist, but not advisable for a novice.

I've been playing the piano for over 30 years and never could master chording. Since using this book, it makes sense. Duane has the ability to make learning new things palatable and fun! I had never made the connection that playing with chords and not just notes on a page required rational patterns of thought. I now get excited about playing without music in front of me. What a huge world of endless possibilites has opened to me. Thank you, thank you Mr. Shinn for providing those of us with mental blocks renewed hope in playing ad lib!

This book is definitely not what I expected. There are many short chapters on how to form chords, followed by a few chapters on chord progressions. I found many labeling mistakes in the chord examples (I don't know if this was his fault, or the fault of the book printer). This book really didn't provide any new chord progressions or tell me anything I didn't already know. It is basic music theory. No secret - - I wish I had saved my money!

Wow, it looks like he printed it on an HP from microsoft word. It has all the chords and everything but the writing is awful and the music staff hard to read. But it has everything you really need if you want to learn chords. I haven't gotten to the progressions part yet so I can't say how it is.

The book is presented in a very succinct and comprehensive manner, yet it is very easy to understand. If a person is willing to invest the time following Mr. Shinn's suggestions, he/she will be able to learn chords and the progressions which could cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars in private lessons. I have played keyboards for many years and taken private lessons from several teachers. Yet I never learned to play well by ear or how to play jazz and the blues--which I've always wanted to do. With the Piano Chords and Progressions book I have finally learned the secrets to be able to do this. I learned positioning of hands to easily play complicated chords along with many other "secrets". I highly recommend the book and know that discovering the world of chords will bring many hours of enjoyment.

I was so disappointed when I received this book. You would be excused to think that you had received an English literature book rather than a piano lesson book. I must warn you that if you are thinking of a book that you can place on your piano as you try to figure out how to play the stuff in it then this is the wrong book. However if you are the type who play the piano with one hand while holding your music book in the other hand, then the book has some good stuff.