Thinking in Key Playing – Honing Awareness of Musical Characteristics

John Stonko, owner of Atlanta Piano Teachers, uses a variety of innovative techniques to improve student fluency. John Stonko teaches students his Thinking in Key Playing methodology to help them connect with different key signatures.

Throughout the history of Western music, composers and players have noticed that different keys have different characters. Christian Schubart, a writer and composer from around the turn of the 19th century, characterized C major as pure and innocent, while D major was passionate and wild; F minor, he believed, felt like inconsolable depression, while C minor almost celebrated the pain of unrequited love. Musicians attributed this difference to the ability of an additional sharp to add brightness and light to a piece, while flats on the other hand provoked sadness and internal reflection.

When students learn to hear these differences in character between the keys, they are better able to begin to ‘think in key’ when playing a particular piece. This understanding then translates into their muscle memory so that their fingers know when to reach up for an F-sharp in the key of G, or down for a B-flat in the key of F. Their playing becomes more fluent, and at the same time more in tune with the emotional tone of each individual piece.