Welcome to Musicarta, a collection of piano lessons online and creative keyboard tips and techniques! Where young keyboard players and adult re-starters, songwriters and budding composers will find creative ideas for home study, music theory work-outs and a wealth of starting points for keyboard exploration and improvisation.

Welcome to Musicarta’s piano lessons online!

What's Musicarta about?

Musicarta offers a structured and creative home-study approach to learning popular music performance styles and theory online - from scratch and all the way up.

For many people – adults with busy lives, young or semi-pro musicians wanting to up their game and anybody living far away from possible teachers - organising your own learning is the only alternative.

Musicarta is here to help you succeed in doing just that – and have a great time doing so!

Site content and navigation

Musicarta has hundreds of web pages packed with learning material and creative ideas. To help you navigate the site and find the material you need to progress as a musician, the contents are grouped on the main left hand navigation bar (navbar) as follows.

First come the 'main course' study courses: The Pyramids Variations, The Canon Project, the Pentatonics Workbook, Key Chords Volume 1, Musicarta Easy Piano Style, etc. - all-level courses which combine explorations of the various ways you can put music together at the keyboard with tuneful, modern-styles original repertoire.

Below these are the repertoire offerings - Solos Volume One, 'Mariaan', 'Majestic River', 'Greensleeves' and more. These are all achievable solos, lighter on theory and long on practical teaching, with satisfying 'stepping-stone' performances all the way through.

Listen to 'Chords for Carl' as you browse:

Click down to the Repertoire Section here.

Next come the Study Focus home pages. Whether it's focused practice on rhythm and syncopation, or learning about chords, scales or inversions, you can dip in anywhere and access a wealth of creative home study material.

Click down to the Study Focus section here.

Below these are the rest of the Musicarta admin tabs.

But right now, let's get down to thinking in a detailed way about your own possible way forward with Musicarta.

Musicarta’s recommendation for getting your own study programme under way would be one of the Musicarta digital home-study courses.

Purchase gets you:

• An illustration and music-rich workbook PDF to print/study from;
• Access to password-protected web-page lessons with video and audio demonstrations of the learning material.
  
• Play-along backing and drum tracks and other useful resources (see download home pages for exact specs).
• On-going exploration of course material to keep your interest fresh.

Some Musicarta courses are also available on third-party video hosting services (see course ads) - but please purchase direct from Musicarta! It's much more convenient to study from web pages with embedded section videos than it is to scroll through one long video...

Here are snapshots of the seven principal Musicarta workbooks, with links through to more comprehensive try-before-you-buy sample content pages.

Musicarta's flagship Pyramids Variations course aims to exceed expectations by coaching beginners and re-starters to an impressive ‘Concert Performance’ performance and a host of variations all based on a simple hand position, with key aspects of music theory explained along the way.

Below is a picture of the 'Basic Music-Making Position' and an audio of the first-lesson performance you play from a chord chart.

After building up to the Concert Performance, you explore a set of variations which show how a creative contemporary keyboard player can play a chord sequence in any number of ways.

Listen to a few of these examples.

The Pyramids Variations offers a great entry-level introduction to the endless delight of “messing around with chords”! Don't leave in a hurry and miss out - click through to the Pyramids Variations home page for more try-before-you-buy sample material.

The PYRAMIDS VARIATIONS With website audio and video support, the Pyramids Variations provides methodical support for your creative journey, offering pianists of all ages and stages fast-track guidance to a performance beyond expectations and a practical, step-by-step introduction to 'composing at the keyboard'.

Get the download for only $19.95 LEARN MORE!

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These scales are easy to learn and generate lots - probably most - of the music you hear every day, from pop tunes, blues and heavy metal through to mainstream rock jamming.

You'll recognise the sound of the minor pentatonic instantly. Here's one of the first pieces in the workbook.

Pentatonic scales are great for improvising because they provide a limited set of notes which sound good over a maximum number of chords. Because there are only five of them, it’s easier to pick a note, and it’s more likely to be a good one.

Like all Musicarta material, the Pentatonics Workbook provides the progressive exercises you need to build true creativity. Here's you learning the C major pentatonic scale tones, for example.

Baby steps, but you're on your way either of these examples - a major scale-tone study or a minor blues workout. Take your pick!

Learn more about the Musicarta Pentatonics Workbook on the expanded content sample pages.

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The twelve-bar blues form, in its many guises, has practically universal appeal, and there’s hardly a pop/rock/jazz musician who can’t play along to some extent. With its simplicity of form and driving rhythm, the twelve-bar is an ideal pop-rock musical training ground and a great warm-up for any music-making.

The answer is that the thirds in the first example have been 'inverted' into the sixths in the second one.

This is what makes the Twelve-bar Piano Styles workbook so much more than just a collection of riffs! 'Theory you can use' means you actually learn how to put together your own riffs, as well as seeing how the masters do it!

Part Two of the workbook goes on to teach the harmonic and rhythmic building blocks you'll need for your own ever-expanding twelve-bar keyboard 'chops'. Here are some of the riffs you'll learn.

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Pachelbel’s Canon in D is perhaps the most famous chord sequence of all time, and its regular structure makes it the ideal place to start learning about harmony, playing chord sequences, melody writing and improvisation.

The first two audio samples below are of a learner practising musical elements over the backing tracks (included), and a fuller performance.

The Canon chord sequence forms the basis of numerous other pieces of popular music too, and you’ll be able to apply what you learn in the Canon Project modules to lots of other chord sequences going forward.

The Canon chord sequence is a perfect introduction to that most wonderful of pastimes - 'messing around with chords'. (Mister Musicarta caught the bug early, and has no intention of giving it up!)

In fact, if you can play and understand the Canon chord sequence, there isn’t much in popular music harmony you won’t be able to figure out.

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Most of the music we hear is built on just four of the chords in a particular key. Guitarists regularly learn these chord families as a matter of course, and seem to be strumming along with the pop classics in no time at all.

Musicarta Key Chords Vol.1 aims to make it just as easy for keyboard players.

Key Chords builds your chord vocabulary by progressively introducing the 'key chords' - the tonic, subdominant, dominant and relative minor (I, IV, V and vi) – and practising changing between them in contemporary riffs, with easy step-by-step rhythmic build-up of impressive keyboard syncopation. (Drum backing tracks are included to help keep the notes coming.)

Here are the exercises for the first two pairs of chords and the first three chords combined.

Only a methodical approach like this will give you true creative skill, way beyond copying this riff or that one!

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If you use this pattern and the one a key to the right ('up'), you can easily make up pieces like these.

Here are some more of the pieces you can generate by meandering further up and down the keyboard using this texture.

The Musicarta Easy Piano Style shows you 'the music in the keyboard' - you could soon be improvising tunes like these.

* The MEPS Workbook web pages are currently undergoing video-fication; some still have mainly audio support. Musicarta Patreon subscribers are also enjoying access to the revamped pages!

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The modes offer the modern popular musician an interesting and productive alternative to conventional major/minor harmony, and many classic pop chord sequences are drawn from the modal chord families.

Sadly, most information about modes is dated, and irrelevant to the pop-styles musician.

The Musicarta Modes Workbook has turned things around and - while still academically 'respectable' - concentrates on putting compelling modal chord changes under your fingertips, as well as helping you 'think modal' in your own composing and improvising.

Here are some typical modal sounds.

Modal chord changes have traditionally provided great support for improvisers across many musical genres. An optional theoretical background module opens the series – but you can skip straight through to the riffs if you want.

Click through here to browse more modal sounds.

* The Modes Workbook parallel web study pages currently have mainly audio support.

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Take a break and just get some tuneful solos into your repertoire!

Playing a melody plus its own full, satisfying chord accompaniment is THE benchmark achievement for the modern-styles keyboard player.

Both the 'Chords for Carl' and ‘Mariaan’ video courses build a performance step by step, and provide a great foundation for mastering solo chord-plus-melody playing.

Lighter on theory but more than "just the dots", these pieces can be mastered even without reading music.

 'Chords for Carl'

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 'Mariaan'

In a steady four-four, 'Mariaan' is a slightly faster, more challenging example of the 'Chords for Carl' texture. 

Here's a typical 'stepping stone' performance - just one chorus of the chord accompaniment only, with the tune whistled over it. ('Mariaan' comes complete with lead sheets for your soloist!)

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 'Majestic River' - chord study

Here's a dedicated chord study to give you structured, progressive practice applying broken chord textures to a chord sequence - just like the pros!

Listen to the (very basic - no strings attached!) performance and "see the music in the keyboard".

The 'Majestic River' chord study is currently only available on Musicarta Patreon. Click through to check out the full offering!

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 'Greensleeves'

A standalone eight-lesson mainly video course designed to get your own unique arrangement of this beautiful tune into your repertoire quickly and easily.

The lessons explore how an arrangement can build in rhythmic and harmonic complexity. Take it as far as you can with an achievable performance every lesson and always something to reach for.

Listen to the 'Concert Variations' - one possible medley of the arrangements you might learn.

A nice 'time out' for the hard-working classics player, and ideal for adult re-starters. And people never tire of asking you for "something we all know"! Click through to the extensive try-before-buy series sampler page here.

GREENSLEEVES Keyboard Creativity Course A two-hour-plus video course teaching beginners, continuers and classical cross-overs to craft a unique arrangement of this timeless classic from scratch – and learn a raft of 'really useful music theory' along the way. Give your musical journey a helping hand today!

Get the download for only $14.95 LEARN MORE!

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 Piano Solos, Vol.1

The eleven pieces in Musicarta Piano Solos Volume 1 all spring directly from this approach, and are created from the 'composing at the keyboard' techniques in The Pyramids Variations, Musicarta Easy Piano Style and other workbooks.

PIANO SOLOS Volume 1 Piano Solos Volume 1 is a collection of eleven solos from across the Musicarta spectrum. Each solo has a couple of pages of notes explaining how the music is put together and offering useful practicing advice. Easy-inter to inter-advanced solos with audio and MIDI files and player and a 50-page PDF (A4/US Letter).

Get the download for only $19.95

Click through to the Piano Solos Vol.1 home page for a full audio index of first lines and description of the course download.

Well, that’s just not true! With the right learning material, anybody can be much better at syncopation than they ever thought possible! What's needed is a head-on, methodical approach with rhythm skills centre-stage.

Take a look at these four exciting and challenging Workbook modules.

 The Snake Dance Syncopation Challenge

It's the most fun way to get you started with big two-handed syncopations.

 Syncopation and Anticipation Tenths

Perhaps not the smooth cocktail jazz you were thinking of, but...

• The rhythmic skills coached here are timeless and indispensable;
• The simplicity of the material makes focusing on the rhythmic component easier, and
  
• The step-by-step progression leaves no-one behind.

 The Swinging Hanon

(Listen to the paired demonstration audios above. NB: They're videos in the course!)

Yes - you could probably make these up yourself, but - will you? Rather just grab them off the shelf, practise one a day, and hear your skills build!

 Rhythmic Pentatonic Scales

Access more sample content via the Beat and Rhythm home page.

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Click through to the course home page or hit the sign-up button above, and solve your finger exercise needs for years to come!

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Musicarta's 'Chords’ material is now part of the Musicarta Patreon Tier One offering.

Any creative musician knows a lot about chords, and taking a methodical attitude to studying will speed your progress radically.

In the Musicarta Patreon Chords zone, you'll find:

• Triad Shape Drills to put all the inversions in all the keys under your fingers, and give you a 'feel' for the keys you'll need to know.
• The Scale Keyboards - a unique visual glossary of the keyboard as affected by key signatures. No more fumbling around for the right black keys!
• The Musicarta Chord Generator - a visual guide to all the major and minor triads in all the major and minor keys. Stare at this for a few days, and the chords will stare right back at you!
  
• A comprehensive video tutorial on how to form and recognise triad inversions. Triads can have any of three chord-tones at the top, and they should all be equally familiar to you.

• Broken chords are inversions played - broken up...! 'Practically music already', broken chord pattern are the building blocks of nearly all keyboard accompaniment textures.
• Suspensions are a great way to get more out of the chords you already know, and a huge part of 'what music sounds like'. Bringing suspensions into your music-making is a real game-changer.
• Sevenths chords are baffling, but unavoidable. Five types, four inversions, in twelve keys... The only way to get a handle on them is to master the theory (it's not that bad!) and play the drills.
• The Roman Numeral System of naming chords is a way of 'thinking about chords in any key'. That is, thinking and talking about harmony, pure and simple. Essential for taking it to that 'next level'.
• Most keyboard accompaniments are broken chord patterns using the root, fifth, octave and tenth. This series of workouts explains and drills left hand accompaniment patterns you'll find useful for the rest of your playing life.
  

The Musicarta 'Chords 101' collection of video-rich tutorials is an invaluable contribution to the ambitious contemporary-styles keyboard player's ongoing education.

Click through here to the series home page - or just sign up for Musicarta Patreon right here - it's the only place this collection is available!

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 Study focus: Scales

There are two good reasons for learning and practicing the musical scales. One is to develop finger dexterity; the other is to learn the keys.

All musicians should practice playing up and down the notes of their instruments quickly and evenly. Scales offer a perfect answer to the ‘Which notes?’ question and simultaneously teach you the ‘look and feel’ of the advanced keys you need to know if you want to be a ‘real’ musician.

The Musicarta Scales page has solutions to take the pain out of learning scales (and keys) – and maximise your scale practice benefits.

 Study focus: Suspensions

Then listen to the suspension-release technique applied to some
Musicarta Key Chords material - a piece called 'Longing', from the Solos No.1 Album.

The Musicarta 'Suspensions' material is now in the 'Chords 101' collection, exclusively available on Musicarta Patreon (sample material page - or sign up right away).

Other artists

Enya’s haunting Celtic melodies are a gift to the ‘New Age’ piano soloist, and Mr Musicarta's annotated Enya videos and associated Musicarta Patreon  pages sale as close to the copyright rocks as

Enya’s keyboard performance texture is easily grasped and a great springboard into keyboard improvisation – indeed, it's the basis for the Musicarta Easy Piano Style. See the videos on the YouTube playlist.

Jann Tiersen’s ‘Comptine’ has also become a much-loved classic of its type. It’s within most players’ reach and offers many opportunities for variation and improvisation.

Musicarta’s ‘Comptine’ improvisation mini-series shows you how to practice and master this little gem, which should have a permanent place in your repertoire.

Why not watch one of the many YouTube ‘Comptine’ videos, open the Musicarta ‘Comptine’ improvisation page and get started right away?

The series is one of the many modules with accompanying free MIDI files to download, so you can see-and-hear the musical examples and improvisations playing on MidiPiano or Synthesia - safe, simple virtual keyboards that could speed your progress.

Keeping it alive

Musicarta knows that keeping your musical development powered up and on track is a mission – and is ready to try and help! First and foremost, you will want to subscribe to the newsletter.

Of course, you'll bookmark your favourite Musicarta page(s) to make getting back to work and play easy, and once here, you can search the site from any page using the Search tab in the left-hand column. There’s an index facility on the Search page as well.

Mister Musicarta YouTube (see next section) also premieres new material regularly – subscribe to the channel to receive news of new postings.

Mister Musicarta YouTube/Facebook

The Musicarta YouTube channel (MMYT) hosts hundreds of short teaching and performance videos, and is an important part of Musicarta’s educational material.

Some of the videos are trailers for Musicarta home study downloads (arranged conveniently in playlists). There are ‘Diary’ entries also – ongoing explorations of workbook material like the Pentatonic Hanon exercises.

(NB: These free-to-air videos all have extra learning material or fuller versions reserved for Musicarta course participants and Patreons!)

There are pure theory videos covering inversions and so on, pure performance videos like ‘Mariaan’ and ‘Southern Comfort’, and videos which illustrate certain chord sequences like 'I and vi in Three Places' or harmonic techniques like suspensions.

Spend a little time browsing the channel, and subscribe to get automatic notice of new uploads.

There’s are links to the playlists in the web page right-hand column (bottom) site-wide.

New postings are also signaled on MisterMusicarta Facebook. 'Like' to stay in touch.

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So...

Welcome to Musicarta!

Please stay and browse the pages via the links on this page or using the navbar tabs on the left. Bookmark us and come back regularly to see what’s new – you’re sure to find something to get your creative juices flowing!