Hi, I'm Bill Romer

I'm a professional piano player (dueling pianos at a minor league ball park in this photo), and on this site I share my favorite and most effective techniques for creating beautiful, professional sounds on the piano... without spending years of your life or thousands of dollars on traditional piano lessons. Learn how to play piano or just grab a copy of my free printable piano chord chart below (no sheet music reading skills required!).

A Little Goes a Long Way

It's often the simplest change that makes all the difference - where a chord is played or dropping the bass an octave. I'll show you the techniques that really make you sound good!

Chords are Key

Once you learn just a few chords, you'll almost immediately be able to play hundreds of songs, create solid two-hand accompaniment, and improvise to your favorite tunes.

Break It Down

It's easy to get overwhelmed looking at 88 keys on a piano or pages of sheet music. The key is to break things down into manageable components - chords, bass, rhythms, etc. I'll show you how.

Here are a few things about me:

  • I began playing piano when I was about 5 years old, learning to sight read with my Mother's help.
  • Without formal piano lessons, I really couldn't play anything unless I had the sheet music in front of me. Looking back now, it was a bit like a ball and chain.
  • When I was about 24 years old, after trying to teach myself to improvise and play without sheet music, I started formal jazz piano lessons and quickly took my playing to the next level. I've been playing professionally by myself and with other bands and musicians ever since - at church services, wedding receptions, private parties, piano bars, fundraisers, concerts... you name it.
  • A few years ago, after careers as an aerospace engineer, salesman and operations manager at a publishing company, I finally left the corporate world and began pursuing music full time - playing gigs and sharing time-tested techniques and my love of piano with thousands of students all over the world.
  • PianoFast evolved from a single e-book I first started offering online in 2009. "Professional Piano Chords for Everyday Pianists" shows you how to take a simple melody line and chords - a "lead sheet" - and create your own rich-sounding piano arrangement. I've since added videos to reinforce the concepts, and piano students all over the world continue to boost their skills with the course.
  • My free printable piano chord chart has been downloaded by many thousands of pianists all over the world. Filled with beautiful voicings in every key, this visual guide shows you exactly what keys to play without any sheet music!

Whenever I sit down at the piano - from the time I was five years old - I really just want to play songs! I don't want to trudge through a bunch of exercises and method books first. Not that there's anything wrong with that! If you want to have lots of different chords and scales ready to play lots of different songs, it is going to take some practice and repetition, but it is also possible to play simple, popular songs with just a handful of chords and techniques.

My goal is to help you play the songs and styles you want on the piano - with simple, effective techniques - as quickly as possible.

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My Story

I've played the piano for as long as I can remember. My Mom played, and her Wurlitzer spinet piano was either in the dining room or living all through my childhood. Being the curious type, I began tickling the ivories somewhere around age 5. When my Mom saw how interested I was in playing, she taught me the notes and how to read music and, with her stacks of OLD sheet music, I was off and running!

Traditional Piano Lessons Were NOT For Me!

By the time I was in third or fourth grade, I could play fairly well from sheet music. At some point, either my parents or I thought it would be a good idea to take private piano lessons. But, since I was somewhat of a sensitive over-achiever type with perfectionist tendencies, lessons just stressed me out and didn't really help me to play more of the sheet music I was already playing! So, I quit lessons.

I continued to sight read and accumulate a nice collection of sheet music, including lots of pop songs from the 1970's and 1980's, but it wasn't until I moved away from home for good in 1987 that I began yearning for something more in my playing. I wondered how some piano players could make it look so effortless, seemingly playing whatever they wanted from memory or improvising over just about any song.

When the Student is Ready, the Teacher Appears

I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but I found a jazz piano teacher who was a professional, performing musician. I quickly learned a bunch of chords and scales, and she soon had me playing gigs of my own. I was finally able to play professional sounding chords, create my own bass lines and arrangements of lead sheets, and break free from the ball and chain of traditional sheet music.

This short period of lessons literally changed my piano-playing life forever. I don’t think I can tie this directly to those piano lessons, but I did meet my wife of 25 years in a wedding reception band, which she had joined as lead female vocalist. So, playing piano has literally changed my life!

How Do Those Piano Bar Guys DO That?!

About 20 years after those life-changing lessons, something got me interested in playing “dueling pianos“ in piano bars, so I went out and auditioned. During a brief training period with a couple of fantastic piano players (one of whom couldn’t read a lick of sheet music), I learned a handful of ridiculously simple techniques that made a huge difference in my piano playing, and which I still use today.

Sometimes You Just Want to Play a Song!

At about the same time I was being trained, I began to feel like I had to share these techniques with the rest of the piano players in the world. I just knew they could make a world of difference for a lot of beginning and intermediate pianists. Don't get me wrong... I don't mean to knock traditional piano lessons, because they are perfect for some students, but some people don't have the time or budget for long-term lessons, and some people just want to sit down at the piano and play their favorite songs!

And that's why I started creating videos, blog posts and courses, many of which you can find here on my site. Like most things, it's still a work in progress (especially since I'm still a one-man show), but it's a labor of love... love of music and love of the piano. Be sure to check out the blog posts above, or get your free printable piano chord guide and six free video piano lessons below. Let's make some beautiful piano music together!

Join 15,000+ Others!
Get your Free Printable Piano Chord Guide
And 6 Free Video Piano Lessons

372 chords covering all keys, and NO sheet music to read!

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