Diana Mascari's Transformational Approach to Piano, (TAP System) is a distinctive method developed over 46 years of playing and teaching piano. The concepts can be applied by beginners as well as those returning to music after years have passed. Whatever your level, you will feel empowered from the start to personalize your way of playing piano, by adding enormous definition, style and energy.
Focusing on the left hand accompaniment:
Right from the beginning, you'll learn to play simple chords with the left hand. Creating a solid foundation with your left hand gives you the freedom to embellish and interpret the right hand melody of the song you are playing. By learning a variety of accompaniment styles your playing will be interesting and exciting and for you as well as your listeners. To learn about some of these accompaniment styles sign up for Diana's free mini course: Arranging Styles to Energize Your Piano Playing.
Hands on music theory:
As you learn each song Diana will help you understand how music works when you apply the principles of theory to each song. As time goes on your knowledge of chords will expand so that your songs will sound more colorful. With this knowledge you'll be able to choose chords that reflect your musical taste.
Repertoire at Every Level:
Reviewing songs on a regular basis is the only way that you can keep your favorite pieces under your fingers. At every level of your musical development you'll learn how to organize your songs for consistent review You'll find yourself much more motivated to practice than if you were playing lots of scales and exercises. Before you know it, you'll be playing songs much more expressively. This is extremely fulfilling.
Arranging Songs:
As your skills develop in using a variety of left hand accompaniment styles you'll learn how to apply different patterns to each section of the song so that there is variety and enjoyment for you and your listeners. Read Diana's blog on this TAP System Approach on How to Arrange Songs.
Memorizing Songs:
Although it's possible for some students to memorize songs quickly through repetition, with the TAP System technique you'll truly learn each song from memory so you'll be confident and focused regardless of distractions. Read Diana's Blog to learn how to memorize songs in this unique way.
Improvisation:
You can start with a two-chord vamp using the pentatonic scale and next take a motivic approach to blues improvisation to become comfortable with the art of improvisation. As your skills develop, you'll use what you've learned from TAP's
Hands-On-Approach-To Music-Theory
to know what scale or mode to use to improvise on short sections all the way up to creating solos for one or more choruses of a song.
