classical piano

[miszmelissa]

why is classical music studied when learning piano? why not any other type of music? are there any resources where i can find the answer to this question? or is it merely an opinion?

[Brian Healey]

It's just usually what happens. Not every student starts out that way, although the majority do. I have a teenage student who had no prior piano experience and wanted to play jazz, so that's what I've been teaching him and he's progressed very well in a short time. I actually started the same way myself. I started studying jazz piano first, then added classical study a little later on. There's no rule that says you have start with classical studies, that's just what seems to usually happen.

[jacobspauly]

I think that becoming literate in music is a very broad and difficult task and classical music is the only style that encompassess all the different aspects of music. Starting with jazz only would be good because you would learn a lot about music theory and ear training, but studying notation reading and form might be lacking. Most popular styles don't require much music literacy and can just be learned through trial and error after getting through a few basics.

Just my thoughts,
Paul

[quasimodo]

An obvious answer to me is that the huge repertoire of classic music for piano gives a lot of material for acquiring piano technique...

"Learning jazz" sounds odd to me. I'm curious to know how do teachers teach jazz...

[rlefebvr]

Actually learning Jazz means learning a lot about scales and Chords and their progressions and relations to one another and how to use them especially for improvisation. Contrary to popular believe, improve does not mean just playing any note that sounds good. A monkey can do that.

The only problem with Jazz if you want to call it that,is that your left hand lacks development that you get from learning the classics. So learning a couple of pieces from classical music is still good, if only to improve your left hand.