Notes? Chords? What to do?

Our kids and teen classes started this week. Crazy! While waiting for their class to begin, the teens grab sheet music off the rack and play and sing. O yeah, it's noisy in the piano store. Playing from the chord charts and singing the tunes; all at the same time. Mana, her name itself is a long story, a wonderful story, not tonight; grabs a piece of sheet music off the rack and runs to a piano, opens the score, and says, "I can't play this, there aren't any notes." What she means is, there aren't any chord symbols. You see, our kids know that to perform a piece of pop music authentically they must vamp chords and sing the tune. They know you never double the melody with the keyboard part. My Russian-trained teacher used to say that music is simple, only scales and chords. He was exactly right! Pop music is simple: vamp the chords - sing the scales. Check out the new, partial tutorial, "Set Fire to the Rain" by Adelle on the Tutorial page of www.WillBailyPianoTunes.com for some ideas. Happy Playing - Happy Teaching!