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Very interesting post, and one I've been popping into Musician's Lounge occasionally hoping to read. A couple of months ago I fished out my brother's 61 key rather cheap keyboard with the motivation to be somewhat competent at piano. Obviously i wasn't going to be able to learn how to properly play piano on such a cheap piece of equipment, but I wanted to learn the theory and see if I stuck with it. I've been really enjoying it and now want to get better. Your post was interesting and helps me structure my future somehow. My aim is a mix of the two goals you mentioned. My long term, years long goal is to be able to play classical music. I'm not expecting to perform concertos, but be able to play for my own enjoyment. In the more short term, whilst I learn the theory, I have been learning the chords and simple melodies to songs (stuff like Muse which seems piano friendly), however I really want to be able to learn the theory so I can both improvise and play with others, and maybe write so very very mediocre stuff myself one day. So what do I know now? Well, from here I have learnt a lot of the basics, major and the many minor scales (and more importantly for me, mnemonics that help me remember the number of semitone gaps between each), arpeggios, the many triads (and how to work out what they are by just seing the name) and inversions. That's put me at a state where I kind know some basic theory and I'm hungry for more 1) I am fitting in a schedule to practice everyday, for an hour. Any suggestions on what to concentrate on and for how long? Should I set myself goals of pieces to play by certain times. Just general practice advice really. 2) I'm very confident with my right hand but seem noticeably weaker with my left hand. Obviously something I have to work on, just wondering if anyone else had this and how they overcame it. 3) What should I turn to next? Considering my goals, should learn to improvise (more importantly, how?!) or learn to play standard pieces? If it's down to preference, won't one be better to learn first to make the other easier? All these questions and more will be helped if I find myself a teacher which I think I will end up doing in the next month or so but until then I'd appreciate any advice. I'm looking up the Brown Scale Book you linked and am happy to invest in that (if I can find it in the UK), but looking forward to other contributions form pianists here to pick up tips.
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Sep 6, 2007 00:00
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Nog64 posted:What do mean by this? Is it that the left can't hit the notes good at all, or is it that it's hard to play left and right at the same time? Anyway, I would suggest you go and learn some songs. A good one to start with is Fur Elise if you're looking for the classical track. House of the Rising Sun (notably done by the Animals)is good if your looking for arpeggios. Well, on it's own it is notably slower than the right hand and trips up a bit more (probably down to practice though), but I'm really it hard to play left hand and right hand at the same time also. I know both those pieces so I'll go search fo the sheet music, thanks. I do not know what a Fake Book is. Sounds mysterious.
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Sep 6, 2007 00:58
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Alizee posted:Fat Turkey: I recommend buying a RCM Studies book, this will both aid you in your quest to become fairly proficient at classical music and will help you to become proficient in all aspects of playing. You sir, do not have to explain away the necessity of learning theory, that is the route that I have been wanting to take all along and with your helpful advice I hope I might get there! One of my personal goals is to get to a level where I can listen to a piece of music and recognise what it does (scales with dominants in left hand for example) and really understand the theory behind it. I'm not looking for the quick fix learn-how-to-play-the-songs-but-not-know-why-they-work-as-music line. You seem to understand this and so I'm happy to follow your instructions. quote:The hard part for you would be finding out what Grade level you are. My grade level is pretty easy. None. All I've ever done is practice scales and memorise scale sequence, and practice arpeggios and inversions. Slowly but surely I think I'm getting better but still not actually any good. I'm not yet tried to play a song beyond at the end of practicing, hammering out the chords to songs I like. I have downloaded a copy of Fur Elise cheet music from https://www.furelise.com and will give that some practicing. If you have any other recommendations for individuals songs to find out my level, go ahead. If we find a level I seem to be at, I'll happily buy the grade book (from the UK). Your suggestion sounds the best way for me to go as although I acknowledge a teacher would be best, I'd like to get a little better before I do it. quote:
You say start with song analysis, but I don't understand yet how to analyse songs. Don't really like the sound of a fake book. Seems fine if you want a 'cheat shete' way of playing some selected music, but I'd like to know the proper way of learning music.
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Sep 7, 2007 18:12
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Corbet posted:What exactly does learning the Major scales accomplish? I\'m going through this kid\'s lessons on YouTube and I am learning alot, but he hasn\'t really explained what exactly the scales result in. C Major was incredibly easy but I haven\'t learned the rest yet. I eyed up those kid's videos and they're not bad for a free quick lesson where you can see and hear what you're supposed to do, not just reading from a book/screen (initially). He himself would admit he is gpoing through it very quickly and what he is showing requires you to practice a lot to commit it to memory. I'd say it's good to test the water. I've linked this page before because it was a really nice introduction to piano theory, but I promise I'm not affliated it or anything. I just think it outlines scales, triads, inversions and arpeggios well. You said you had trouble memorising the scale order, with C being easy. I'm going to guess wherever you learnt about scales talked about them but didn't explain how to work them out, or didn't do it in a memorable manner. I have the order for each key memorised for major, harmonic and melodic minor scales, so hopefully I can pass it on this tip. Below are the 'mnemonics' I've learnt for them, which I sing in my head as I play the notes, to the tune of "Do Re...Do". The initial note I say W but it's just a placeholder, all other words remind me how many keys to move up. Major Key - (W)WWHWWWH. So I know from the initial note, to jump up two semitones twice, then a single semitone, then three sets of two semitones, then a single semitone. Practice it on the C major scale to get the idea, then try on other scales. Natural Minor - (W)WHWWHWW Melodic Minor (Ascending) - (W)WHWWWWH Melodic (Descending, so playing downwards) - (W)WWHWWHW Harmonic Minor - (W)WHWWHMH - H = Half = moving up one semitone, one key, usually from white up to black or black up to white. W = Whole = moving up two semitones, two keys, usually from white to the next white, or black to black. M = More = moving up three semitones, three keys. - So for A Major Scale, I [PLAY] and (SAY): [A](Whole), [B](Whole), [C#](Whole), [D](Half), [E](Whole), [F#](Whole), [G#](Whole), [A](Half). For G Harmonic Minor: [G](Whole), [A](Whole), [A#](Half), [C](Whole), [D](Whole), [D#](Half), [F#](More), [G](Half). I hope that makes sense. I use it because it just means I have to remember five variations of the words whole, half and more. With those memorised, I can start at any key and play any of those four scales, just by recalling the mnemonic. Very useful indeed. Fat Turkey fucked around with this message at 23:50 on Sep 10, 2007 |
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Sep 10, 2007 23:19
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Whoever said it on the end of the last page, this is indeed too interesting a thread to die, and I hope some more people in my boat join in. Since I last posted I haven't done much more, just still doing over the scales, trying to memorise them and play them well. I've decided to try learning three songs in October. One will be Fur Elise, another will be the Mario Theme Tune, any suggestions for another one, and possibly where to find the sheet music? I'm still awful with my left hand 
Fat Turkey fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Oct 5, 2007 |
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Oct 5, 2007 20:59
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Thanks Alizee. I think I'll sling Moonlight Sonata on there as I know and love it already. I've not seen any trailers for Halo so don't know the Copin piece, but I'll possibly give that a try, four to learn. Is it better, worse, or no different to already know how the piece goes before you start playing? Lastly, can you tell me more about grades, what each is and how different they are from eachother. I know next to nothing other than they rank piano skill. Goon krisis linked this in another thread, but I think it is a fantastic guide to music theory
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Oct 10, 2007 23:58
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Alizee posted:Apparently you're learning Fur Elise, that is a grade 7 piece. The problem though is you really can't just start out in grade 7 just because you can throw down Fur Elise with some hard work. You'll have bad technique and bad habits in both playing and learning. I'm not yet a teacher myself so I can't go too far into the specifics of why it's a bad idea, but... I'm pretty sure it is. I thought in an earlier post you mentioned to try out Fur Elise, but looking back you don't, you just mention it is a Grade 7 piece. I don't mind scrubbing that out, I would just like to know some songs to start off with that are both satisfying and challenging.
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Oct 11, 2007 08:13
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Lethardio: I'm interested in what you suggested, but him straying from majors/minors (what I've been learning) and doing something else I don't know of is a bit daunting. --- Regarding the left hand issue, when learning a piece, is it better to learn the left and right hand parts at the same time, even if it is slower and more clumsy, or to learn the left and right bits seperately and then try and play them together? Got some pieces that are basically arpeggios on the left hand and a simple melody on the right which seperately I can play but together because a slow mess.
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Oct 16, 2007 20:49
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This thread needs to be kept alive by updates from budding pianists!Cragz posted:Good to see the thread reanimated. Argh, you've summed up the area I need help. I've been studying, making notes and testing myself on music theory from the dolmetsch theory site I posted earlier and i'm really happy with it. It's the practice that I'm finding difficult, and the quoted section sums up how someone else got the hang of it. so how did you do it? My big proble is the left hand. My right hand can quite happily play the melody line, and whe I'm practicing can pull off a lot of (to me) the more challenging chords like Bb, Bm, and of the 7s or whatever. However I cannot mimic this with my left hand, it just isn't the right shape. Bm feel natural to play with the right hand but is twisted awkwardly on the left hand. I can't play any chords or arpeggios that involve four fingers on my left hand. Does anyone have any exercises or tips to improving it beyond trial-and-error hard practice? I think this is the thing really holding me back, as the right hand seems fine (although I feel I may be picking up some bad habits, will have to see a piano teacher soon). Edit: Oh and something that should probably really obvious, should I be hitting standard three finger chords with 1 2 3 or 1 3 5? Fat Turkey fucked around with this message at 21:32 on Nov 8, 2007 |
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Nov 8, 2007 19:26
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Not much has changed since my last update. After initial fast progress with the theory, been hitting a brick wall recently. This is mostly in the form of being quite happy with my right hand but very poor with my left hand. As I said last time, i'm probably going to try and get a piano teacher for a few lessons and see how it goes from there. Until then I wanted more info on how often people practice and what do they practice. I imagine people do it every day, but for how long? And how much do you concentrate on which issues? Basically, what is a typical practice routine?
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Dec 9, 2007 20:40
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Not made much progress at all since I posted on here several months ago  Well actually I managed to upgrade the keyboard I was on to a full 88 key electric piano, and I picked up a couple of books at the library to help me understand theory a bit more. On that front I feel fine. I just can't break the barrier of playing both hands at the same time. My right hand i happy, but my left is still slow and lumbersome. More practice I guess, but can I have some suggestions for some of the more simple pieces to practice this kind of thing with? I think it may be time for me to get a tutor.
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Jun 7, 2008 00:17
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Hey, posted in this thread in its infancy and I'm still kicking around with the piano, although I've not gotten anywhere decent. I just really like trying to play popular songs I know (usually Muse or Killers) and practicing the theory, with little patience to sit down and learn a piece. Going to try a bit harder now that classes and all are over. A page or so ago someone was explaining a way of learning improvisation, so going to give that a go. I'm also printing out the e-book previously posted. Good stuff in this thread. But now I have a question: I was mucking around playing chords of a song I was trying to inject some life into, and alternating between G and Em, and G and C. I accidentally hit F#/B/D for the last G into an Em and to my delight I found it bled nicely into the next chord. I tried the same thing with a transition into C and found that it works as well, although I get the feeling one of these is correct and the other is a little off. I know that in music in general this transition thing is commonly used but I never knew what the rule to find it was. I have one progression I made up but no doubt have copied from somewhere as it is very simple, playing F#M->D->B->D with the right hand and using the left hand to play the base note of each chord an octave lower four times per chord, and one day found that I could make it sound better by making the last base note rise/fall by a tone to lead into the next note. Finding stuff out on your own is fun! But I want to know how to spot them in future, and make my chords more satisfying. So I'm trying to work out why those seemed to work. F#/B/D is playing a Bm chord, so why does it segue well into C or Em? Is there a rule for each chord? Is there no actual rule and what I found just seems to work in my head but isn't really there?
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Jul 13, 2009 22:24
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A belated thank you to Vanmani and el Trentoro to explaining the Bm thing is good detail. Nice to see two different approaches to the same question, and it shows me there's still a lot to learn about the theory. I know a little bit about the Circle of Fifths and general music theory (I actually really like learning about the theory and find finding time and discipline to practice to be the hardest bit!) but the explanation was good and although there were bits I didn't understand too well, I think I get the idea and will do some more reading to fill the gaps. Going to check out the link you provided. I can see why the shift of the one note to F# sets up Em so well. Although it doesn't seem to 'fit' so well, I actually like the use of it to flow into the C as well, it just seems to make it sadder yet grander than the expected shift to Em. I tried what you said (changing the Cs in the C chord from the Bs in the Em chord) and with right hand alone, it seemed to segue in nicely, I was pleasantly surprised! I'm not sure whether I just got used to the non-inversion C, but I think I prefer that one even though, in fact, maybe because it's a little more jarring, but I can definitely see how on a less sad song that the first inversion sounded better. It's stuff like this that makes me enjoy piano. In fact I keep saying I want to get better but I need a better structure to getting better. As I said I enjoy reading the music theory, but get frustrated easily when practicing, and don't know anything about how to prepare for playing or even how to practice beyond just finding some music. I have some basic books of piano music but it's either too simple and boring, or it's two handed and too hard. Which is when I tend to just find chords of songs I like and try to improvise between them (like above). Which probably isn't a good way to learn, but if someone can suggest a particular method I'd be interested in following it. As in the actual practice playing bit, not the theory. The "Fundamentals of Piano Playing " Ebook recommended earlier in the thread is interesting but is taking a while to get through and isn't helping with the actual practice. I may try the exercises in the teoria site linked above. Fat Turkey fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Jul 27, 2009 |
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Jul 27, 2009 23:13
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