Proud Papa

[marnold]

On Christmas I was noodling on my Floyd (that sounds like a euphemism for something else, but I digress) while my 10 year old son was watching. He has been taking piano lessons for 2.5 years now. I wanted him to learn to play, plus I wanted someone else to teach him the basics of music before I try to teach him guitar, which should be interesting.

Anyway . . .

I played a C major scale and asked him what scale it was. He replied, "C major." I thought that was pretty good, but since a piano is basically arranged around a C major scale, I thought I'd mix it up a bit. So I shifted up two frets and played a D major. He said, "D major." Mind you, he knows next to nothing about playing guitar and he wasn't watching my fretting hand anyway. Amazed, I shifted down to G. He replied, "G major." I was duly impressed. I probably could have thrown minor and harmonic minor in there too because he has studied those. I told him that that ability to identify a key just by listening would serve him in good stead.

Now if I could do the same thing! I could tell you the difference between major, minor, harmonic minor, and probably Phrygian, in addition to the pentatonics, but I don't think I could pick the key out of the air. Obviously if I was watching someone's fretting hand I could.

[Spudman]

That's is pretty cool for 10. :master:

I worked with a keyboard player who could listen to a song on the radio and tell me what chords were being played. That sure helped my lazy butt in learning songs. I had my own human shortcut.

[duhvoodooman]

My daughter has similar capability. If I ask her to sing a note and then play that note on our electric keyboard, she is never more than a small fractional step off. It's a scary thing to see! My pitch sense is good on a relative basis, but hers is accurate on an absolute one....

[Robert]

The boy has TALENT! Great! Hope you can keep him inspired and continue to delve into the wonderful world of music.

[WTVintage]

Thats very good, a great skill to develop. Excellent!!

[marnold]

I wish I could say he got it from me! My sister is an excellent organist, so it's in the family someplace. I learned to pick out keys from singing bass in choir. Still, I can sing the key, but I can't ID it. I have to slide up and down my low E string to find it and go from there.