Live Piano Lessons Using Skype with Talc Tolchin

Professional musician and teacher Talc Tolchin advocates theory and ear training over note reading. This 2-hour introductory tape includes all the basics you'll need to get started on the keyboard. "Learn the Essentials of Piano Volume I" is geared for the beginner, the student wishing to brush up on basic theory, or someone who has had a reading-oriented approach to music and would like to experience a more contemporary approach.

Piano lesson 1 orients you to the keyboard, naming the notes, and the challenge of keeping time.

Piano lesson 2 introduces the concept of scales, focusing on the major scales and their fingering.

Piano lesson 3 gives suggestions on how you can rearrange scales and apply them when improvising, with Talc supplying the chordal rhythmic background.

Piano lesson 4 gives you an understanding of how all the major and minor chords are based on the scales you have learned. It then applies them to an actual piece of music, Pachelbel's Canon.

Piano lessons 5 and 6 take four chords and show step-by-step the variety you can express through rhythm. Methods of using simple bass lines are also worked in with the chords.

Volume II builds on the information presented in Volume I, expanding your understanding of chords to include augmented, suspended and diminished chords. You gain hands-on experience of sixty, three-note chords.

The major portion of the tape teaches you the process of figuring out a song by ear from a recording. This is made significantly easier because the theory is applied to an actual song. Using the Beatles tune "With a Little Help From my Friends," Talc shows you how to hear melody and chord changes and how to voice and invert chords.

This tape gets you started in developing the skills you'll need to become a street-smart musician. Once you have the ability to figure out how to play tunes you hear, everything recorded becomes your teacher and a source for your musical development.

Volume III is an introduction to the blues. You will go a step further in your understanding of chords by learning four different note chords: major 7ths, dominant 7ths, minor 7ths, and minor 7ths b5s. This will add 48 more chords to your repertoire.

Some of these will be used in the following lessons in the blues. The major and minor pentatonic scales are also covered. These form a basis for improvisation. Talc patiently illustrates numerous standard "licks." You can then recombine these musical motifs to form your own.

Talc teaches you various standard blues progressions as well as some of his own. He then introduces some more intricate bass lines. This is a very interactive tape, proving that you don't need years of study to make music. You'll feel like a musician jamming with Talc throughout the piano lessons on this tape!

The first half of this tape is an exercise tape, which will develop speed, strength, and independent hand movement. Talc demonstrates how some of these exercises will aid you in writing your own music and developing your own improvisational lines.

More advanced scale work, arpeggios, and patterns are shown. The second half of the tape goes more in depth with chords, covering 9ths, 11ths, 13ths, and chords based on 4th intervals.

The tape closes with chord resolutions.

With all the information presented in the prior four volumes, you are now ready to write your own music! This tape covers the most popular song forms and how to approach beginning and completing a song.

Specific suggestions are illustrated using 10ths, progressions, pedal tones, bass lines and repetitive rhythmic lines, aided by the use of drum patterns and a sequencer.

This keyboard video is a demonstration showing how to demo a tune. Talc takes you right through from the beginning of a tune to the completed version.

He introduces you to the benefits of a sequencer and how it is an integral part of song-writing and production today. Multi-track recording is also used to further layer and fill out the composition.

- Music Theory
- Fingering for all 12 scales
- Techniques for practicing
- How to keep time
- The circle of 4ths and 5ths
- Key signatures
- Exercises for improvisation

- Left hand bass lines using "Autumn Leaves"
- Alternate voicings for the left hand
- Accompanying a lead instrument or singer
- More improvisation ideas

Complete set of all ten DVDs, including Series 1 Basics (volumes 1-6) and Series 2 (volumes 7-10). A remarkable savings of $150!