Being a good note reader is not a requirement to becoming a good piano player. If you want to become a concert pianist and play concerts with symphony orchestras for a living, you probably (make that definitely… ha!) need to learn how to read full grand staff music notation very well. But assuming your interest lies instead in playing just about any and every other style—be it pop, jazz, blues, country, or gospel, for purely recreational reasons—you do not.

Take it from none other than Sir Paul McCartney, who proves how totally fallacious the idea that you must learn to read music notation well to have fun playing piano really is in this fun clip!

So in the video, Paul starts with Middle C, uses that note to find a chord, then starts moving his hands in that same triad chord shape around on the piano to make and learn different chords, and eventually moves those chords around in some different orders and different directions to make a full sound and a little bit of a tune just from scratch in a few seconds. Sound familiar?! That’s because this is the EXACT no-fuss, chord-based method that I use to teach adults in my online lessons.

One of my favorite comments on this video says, “He bypassed the drudgery and went straight to the music.” That is the perfect summary of what I am trying to teach people with Piano In A Flash… because it is possible for ANYONE, not just rock stars. That’s because my method eliminates unnecessary excessive notation and memorization to get straight to the most important part of music formation… the chords! By putting an emphasis on chords with your left hand, melody with your right, we can understand how music works, play what we love, and make it our own so much faster.

Now you may be thinking… Well, fantastic songwriters like Paul McCartney are only able to play songs like that because they’ve been classically trained before. That couldn’t be further from the truth!

Sure, we will probably never reach his level of genius when it comes to writing melodies, but we can still use the same methods with absolutely no classical training. In fact, in ways classical training can be pretty mentally limiting when it comes to playing like Paul as it gets you SO reliant on needing to read from the sheet, versus playing from your heart. Take it from my student Tamara in Nova Scotia who said…

Are you not a student of mine yet and want more information about playing by ear / chord style piano? Check out this comprehensive guide about my method. In it, I’ve compiled years’ worth of information about my piano secrets, answers to frequently asked questions, musical terms, piano buying guides and so much more. Give it a download and let me know what you think of it below!