The approach used here is simple in its starting point, but structured in a way that allows understanding to grow naturally. Rather than learning isolated pieces or memorising large amounts of information, you begin with a small number of foundational elements and learn how they connect. This makes music become more organised, and playing becomes intuitive and flexible, then complexity grows.
Start with simple music felt deeply
The material you play initially will be very simple. Using rhythmic units or cells that weave through a small group of notes working together as a single block of tonality, you create simple musical shapes that unfold within a clear sense of the structure of pulse.
These are not exercises to get through, but musical elements to stay with — to use expressively and become deeply familiar with. By repeating and exploring music using them, you begin to notice how they feel, how they move, and how they relate together structurally so that they make sense as part of a larger whole.
Working with rhythm and pulse
Rhythm is not treated as something to count mechanically. Instead, it becomes something structurally stable and flexible that you can know reliably and feel very deeply. A clear, unfolding beat structure or metre, that houses rhythmic cells, creates a sense of movement that can carry the music forward.
With this ground of metre, a rhythmic matrix, to carry you, you do not need to manage every detail. Instead you learn to trust the underlying structure of time, and to let simple patterns sit naturally within it.
Understanding the keyboard clearly
At the same time, the keyboard stops being a collection of separate notes. It begins to appear as a clear layout.
Using simple tonal blocks — fixed configurations of keys — you start to recognise where you are, rather than searching for individual notes. This makes it much easier to:
- move around the keyboard
- see relationships between sounds
- and stay oriented as you play
These blocks are not theoretical elements, they are physical. embodied elements that resonate deeply and meaningfully. Tonal blocks — specifically harmonic blocks — provide a solid grounding for the musical ear. They are already familiar on an intuitive level and with practice, you can summon them on demand as meaningful tonal foundations or rooms that we inhabit.
Bringing the elements together: the model
When rhythm and tonality are combined, something very natural begins to happen. The rhythmic cells move through the tonal blocks, and form musical shapes — small, complete units of music that can be heard, felt, and played. By experimenting playfully, you explore permutations and experience or "say" them directly. This is how music starts to be a language, rather than a set of instructions.
Underneath all of this is a clear structure, (the matrix, the tonal map, and the musical shapes that connect them). You don’t need to analyse this in detail at first. It becomes useful precisely because you begin to experience it in practice. You get to know it through use and you start to feel what you can say with it.
Keeping it simple — and staying with it, letting the complexity evolve
A key part of the process is not making things too complicated too quickly. Instead of constantly adding more material, you stay with the basic elements using them to play something small and simple, long enough for it to become internalised, embodied and alive.
This often means:
- playing something simple without trying to improve it
- allowing yourself to repeat things or change them only slightly
- giving yourself time to know how they work and how they feel
Sometimes, this can feel slightly exposed — as if you are no longer “hiding” behind complexity or your sense of aesthetics or design; but loosening your grip on those handrails of safety and control is how it feels when clarity of musical understanding and natural, unforced expression emerge. You move away from managing results into fluent communicating. As the structures and elements become deeply familiar, and your focus can monitor them in real time, you no longer need to expend effort on managing the musical results. With no need to think about each note in isolation, no need to hear the music in terms of "how it goes" or how good it sounds, you can trust and follow the unfolding shape of the music, moment by moment.
The result is a way of playing that feels:
- more connected and embodied
- more responsive and flexible
- more natural, communicative, unforced, even conversational
Rather than trying to produce something amazing or adequate, you simply allow music to unfold naturally and meaningfully, using the elements you know — tonal blocks and rhythm cells that become shapes — unfolding within the structures that you know — the rhythmic matrix and the keyboard map.
A gradual process
Whilst progress is sometimes rapid, this way of working is less about progressing quickly, more about deepening or internalising your awareness of musical language. It can take time to release the psychological and emotional resistance to this process — those gremlins that we all have in our heads that make us seek hard control of results and approval. It can take time, patience and gentle discipline to deepen trust in our relationship with the musical language and allow ourselves to use it naturally to express feelings.
Over time:
- the keyboard becomes like an extension of the body
- your inner musical ear guides your movements and choices
- and the music you "speak" feels coherent and expressive
What matters most
What makes this approach work is playing simple, natural musical forms that you can know clearly, whilst allowing them to be deeply meaningful. A small simple musical statement that you grasp with complete clarity can express a vast and richly complex feeling. To do this, what matters is:
- staying with the simple foundational elements that form musical language
- trusting these basic structures and elements to convey real, deep musical messages, rather than seek impressive results
- becoming less perfectionist, careful, controlled and more directly expressive
From there, everything else grows.