How the Rockmaster System Works

Fig. 1 is a typical song music sheet for voice, guitar and piano. The top staff is the melody line and is used by the vocalist. The second staff is the chord notes and is played with the right hand. The bottom staff is the bass line and is played with the left hand.  Above the staves you will see letters and a diagram. The letters indicate the name of the chord to be played. Below the chord name is the diagram of a fret board. The fret board diagram tells the guitar player what string to press and on which fret, to play the desired chord. This has been a invaluable tool for guitar players for a long time. Do you think something like this for the piano player would be helpful?

Well there is nothing like this for the piano player.  Until now.  Take a look at Fig. 2. See the piano keyboard diagram above the chord name indicating which keys to play to get the desired chord.  This would be helpful but would be very cumbersome as the piano keyboard diagram would be much  larger than the fret board diagram and would not fit very well on the song sheet  if there is more than one chord in the measure.     

Look below the keyboard diagram and you will see X’s and ▬‘s. The X indicates a white key to be played and the  ▬ indicates a white key to be skipped. Now we can fit this much smaller diagram on the song sheet to help the piano/keyboard player with the chords. This smaller diagram will fit even if there is more than one chord in the measure.  See Fig.3.      

Many song books now don’t even have the piano notes, just the melody line and the guitar chords. See Fig.  4.

Piano chord tabs work very well with those songbooks. See Fig. 5.

            Piano Chord Tabs 

   Fig. 1

 

Fig. 2

Fig. 3

 

Fig. 4

Fig. 5