Killer Piano Playing Secrets of a Chord Addict!

Killer Piano Playing Secrets of a Chord Addict!: "Killer Piano Playing Secrets of a Chord Addict!
By Duane Shinn
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I wish you could have seen me play the piano when I was just learning. I was the nearest thing to �hopeless� that you could imagine. I was into baseball, not music � and my heroes were Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Ted Williams. (And by the way, I still have a picture of those 3 guys on my wall.) My dream was to hit baseballs like them, not to play the piano.
But an opportunity to play with a combo presented itself to me when I was a freshman in high school. Seems the piano player of the group had graduated the previous year, and nobody else played piano well enough to play in the school jazz combo. I didn�t know zilch about playing in a group, and I didn�t know chords. But I was excited to have the opportunity to play with older guys, and so I took the job.
The lead sax player told me I really should know chords in order to play in the group, so I searched through a music magazine until I found an ad for a chord chart. It cost two bucks, as I recall, so I sent off for it. When I received it in the mail I slipped it behind the keys on my parents old upright piano, and promptly learned to play my first chord � Dm7. I LOVED the sound of it, and was hooked for life on chords. The 2nd chord I learned was Cmaj7, then Em7, then Ebm7 � and before that first night was over I had learned to play �Frankie & Johnnie� � the tune in my right hand, and those fabulous 7th chords in my left hand!
I loved it � LOVED IT � LOVED IT! And it even sounded good enough to impress some of my friends the next day. I suppose that simple chord chart that cost me two bucks has been worth several million over the course of my"