Frequently Asked Questions
The Answers You Need
What exactly is EasyKey?
EasyKey Music is the trade name of my company, taken from the key component of my flagship line of products – the Easy Keyboard Visual Music Notation System™. Like its name suggests, the EasyKey Visual Music Notation unlocks the world of music and allows you to see exactly what you are playing. That’s why you can read music written with the EasyKey notation almost instantly. This is our patent-pending system for representing key presses and duration on a musical instrument in a visual layout – one that exactly mimics the way you play your instrument – so there is no language or complex symbols that you must learn. Once you understand the basic layout, music becomes obvious and easy to read and play.
Who was EasyKey created for?
The Visual Music Notation System™ was created for anyone who wants to be able to read music and play it on the piano or keyboard. Everyone loves music, and most people wish they could sit down at a piano or keyboard and play something that people recognize as a song. The problem comes when it’s time to read the music. It literally takes years before people can confidently read even a basic song when it’s written in a difficult key. That time has been cut to a fraction as both adults and children can learn to read music and speak in musical terms in just minutes. What’s more, it has been shown that adults can understand and master EasyKey faster than most children. If you have always wanted to learn to read music and play the piano, EasyKey is the perfect way for single adults or an entire family to learn at the same time.
Is the Visual Music Notation System™ based on the current method of writing music, with just a few tricks throw in to make it “easier”?
Not at all.
The EasyKey Visual Music Notation System™ is a completely new and revolutionary product, based on years of research and development. Although current technological advances may resemble EasyKey Visual Music Notation System™, it has been in development for decades.
Will I be able to play any song written with Easy Key immediately?
There is a distinct difference between being able to read a piece of music, and being able to play it competently, and that difference is practice. There is no replacement for the muscle memory gained by performing drills and exercises created to familiarize you with your instrument. Some musical pieces have been created specifically to showcase years of training, but, using the various products of the EasyKey line will allow you to bypass the years of schooling necessary to sight read traditionally represented music.
If I can read and play a song using the EasyKey Visual Music Notation System™, will I be able to read and understand that same piece, written in traditional, or some other notation?
Only if you already knew how to read that other music notation. The EasyKey Visual Music Notation System™ is a new and unique way to represent music, and is not based on any system that has come before it. Understanding it is easy, because it visually represents what you do when you play an instrument, although of course you will gain speed in reading the EasyKey Visual Music Notation System™ as you become more familiar with it, your instrument, and the patterns that form music.
Most other forms of notation require you to translate some set of symbols that have no actual relation to the musical notes they represent, so time and effort is spent in translating from the written language of notation to the mental language of position, time and space that tells your body what to do. The EasyKey Visual Music Notation System™ simply tells you where to put your fingers, and how long to hold them down, in a way that accurately represents what you are doing, no matter what language you are used to seeing, or thinking in.
I found learning to read and play music was boring and hard – how can the EasyKey Visual Music Notation System™ be any different?
Failure is hard and boring. Success is FUN and EASY. With Easy Key, you really can’t go wrong. There is no mistaking one symbol for another, or hours and hours of trying to remember acronyms for note placement, no worrying about whether it’s a sharp or natural - it’s all represented visually, so you naturally know what to do, and can play what you see, without having to translate it. Wouldn’t it be fun to be able to learn a new song in less than a day? During trials of Easy Key, children with no demonstrated musical aptitude were playing within 5 minutes of first seeing EasyKey material. In fact, the consensus was, if music were taught this way in school, everyone would be in the band. It’s just that easy.