Day 1 – Learning The Piano (Andrew)

I have an app: Simply Piano. It’s American. I can tell it’s American because it keeps telling me to play along with Maroon 5, a band so bland it could be used to paint hallways.

When it’s not telling me to Move Like Jagger it’s also asking me to play Ode To Joy, which at least has a memorable tune. Unlike Maroon 5 who only have a tune if they buy cough sweets.

The good thing about the app is that it mixes playing with showing you how to read music. And Ode to Joy is the first song it provides in sheet music form.

Except I don’t think it’s right. There is one note that doesn’t sound right to me so I play a different one instead.

It’s only day one and already I’m not following my lessons. I’ve rejected technique and musical theory and I’m playing my own songs. Is this how Maroon 5 started? They knew what to do but they started to play their own stuff and eventually they produced the musical equivalent of greek yoghurt and it was too late for good taste. Was I destined to go down the same road?

Perhaps. But given I only know five keys on the keyboard and I can’t use my left hand, the only Jagger I move like is Chris Jagger, Mick’s brother.

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