When most people look at a piano keyboard, they see a sea of black and white keys. They can't understand how someone can sit down at this confusing combination of notes and create music.

Of course they can't! They haven't learned how to look at the piano keyboard in such a way that it all makes sense. All they really need to do is understand how to see it like the pros do. And pros see the piano keyboard as scales and chords.

All you really need to know to start out is to learn chords and that's it. Just think of the guitar player as an analogy. They begin to make sense of their instrument rather quickly. Why? Because they are taught chords from the beginning. They learn to play the 3 most important chords in any Key right away and begin to make music. They begin to look at the fretboard as more advanced player's do - as a way to produce music through chords.

They then learn how to finger a scale and the guitar fretboard no longer seems a mystery but an acoustic terrain to be mastered.

The same principles apply to the piano. Once you have a few chords under your belt and can play the scale (much simpler for pianists than guitarists) you will begin to see the piano keyboard in a new way.

For example, I'm a big fan of something called the open position chord. It covers more than two octaves of the piano keyboard and gives the beginning player a modern sound right away. Once students begin playing it, they soon discover that they can quickly make music just like their guitar playing counterparts!