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The Harmony Wheel not only is a great addition to any guitar studies, it works amazingly well as an invaluable tool in helping the piano student and teacher arrive at very important insights at an accelerated growth rate, again by virtue of its overview of music theory and in fact as we journey through the piano keyboard we will see how the piano is set up perfectly for the Harmony Wheel and its unique approach to holistic and creative music instruction.
Again, and much like guitar, the 3 Essentials of Octave, Scale degrees, and musical alphabet of the chromatic scale of any given key are put to good use. The difference on the piano is that all the notes are laid out in such fashion, one right after the other in symmetrical repetition. Just as all the notes in any given key all start on different notes and follow the same exacting alphabetical order, so do the notes on the piano keyboard, though this fact barely goes through the mind of the beginner concentrating on the fingering and technique so crucial to the playing of the piano.
The Harmony Wheel illustrates this fact so easily and simply, that on the piano learning the "C" scale is as easy as playing the white keys, one right after the other and our consonant scales, are as simple as playing every other white key and moving the triads up one key at a time until we are back at the major triad of the "C" chord. Also, with all the sharps and flats being the black keys and the naturals the white keys, you can realize that by moving the tone centers up or down and repeating the process through the octaves, one can embark on a very much enlarged tonal sea of possibilities.
Also, by finding the essential "C "scale chromatic, and by starting each key on the wheel on the 5th of each new key thereby establishing a new tone center, that one only has to understand that one is playing the same interval pattern and replicating it throughout the keyboard octave by octave, thus understanding his /her keyboard "layout" very early in their studies allowing for a heightened awareness of all that follows.
Triads, tetrachords, voicings, understanding the "whys" of key signatures and many other tenets of theory that sometimes take the student exceedingly longer to grasp via traditional methods alone are greatly accelerated by the incorporation of the Harmony Wheel.
As to the benefits of the wheel, concerning theory, they are much the same as was discussed in the guitar section , so let us move on to the student playing piano, taking up guitar as a second instrument and explore these benefits, and how the Harmony Wheel can illustrate to the piano/keyboardist the similarities of his/her keyboard to the guitar.
Illustrating the similarities of guitar to piano:
The similarities of the guitar and piano are laid out via the Harmony Wheel and its unique method of having every note in western music on the face of the wheel, as does the piano on it's keyboard. It is therefore made all the easier, by converting the tone steps from keys to frets and therefore setting up the concept of scales and triads, only when illustrating the Octave, Scale Degrees and Musical 12 tone chromatic alphabet, one must go from the keyboard where much like the wheel, with every note in western music contained within itself, the keyboard is laid out in a linear and repetitious pattern of octave after octave the guitar is comprised of 6 strings across frets and which are shortened as needed producing a different perspective visually on what are very similar stringed and percussive instruments.
The similarities are again the same as described in the guitar section, but apart and differing from the piano is the guitar's property of just moving up the exact same scale patterns fret by fret, with no black keys to contend with and though easier to finger in many respects, the sharps and flats can be confusing, as until one becomes familiar with the fretboard, every fret resembles the next.
The one property of the guitar that the Harmony Wheel helps to illustrate so well, once again are the alphabetic certain repetition but on the guitar it is best shown by the 6 different strings and the 12 frets leading up to the Octave fret which is referred to as the octave fret which is where everything on the guitar is repeated.
Each string on the guitar contains every note in western music and the guitar is set up accordingly. The "E' goes to Octave "E" on the 12th fret, The "A" goes to Octave "A", "D"to octave "D", "G" goes to octave "G", "B" to octave "B", and "E" to octave "E".
The ease of understanding is again made easy by realizing the essentials of scales and triad construction as the diagrams of the guitar grids are by-passed in favor of realizing how the same tones are recreated via understanding of Harmonic laws spelled out by theory understanding. This leads to the natural understanding of their similarities, which are many and have been previously outlined.
If any questions remain regarding the Harmony Wheels basic use, you can contact me, Robert Creveling. I am the Harmony Wheel's creator, feel free to write me at Robert Creveling c/o Ducks Deluxe - P.O.Box 35677, Las Vegas, Nevada. 89133 - U.S.A. Thanks for checking it out!! Hope this helps you understand the immense world of music a little better!! - Remember, practice makes perfect!! Later, Dude