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Alizee posted:Without grabbing the book I'd say the easiest Chopin nocturne to learn that is also amazing awesome is Nocturne in e minor. Ladies love it.
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Dec 28, 2009 01:53
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OctaviusBeaver posted:We need to kickstart this thread, the guitar people should not be beating us. What is everyone working on at the moment? I've been sightreading a bunch of Chopin Mazurkas lately. I play piano for ballet classes; there are a bunch of famous and awesome mazurkas that work great for classes with little or no arranging. The occasional runs are annoying for casual play, though, especially when I have to keep the rhythm rock solid. Thanks for doing three quintuplets in a row, Frederic! Aside from that I've been working on jazzing up stuff I already kinda know in preparation for doing serious jazz work. As someone from a mostly classical and especially baroque background, this has been difficult. Got some nice transcriptions of Astor Piazzola tangos, so mostly those have been getting the jazz treatment lately. Oh yeah if anyone has any questions about havin a job playin piano for ballet classes I'm happy to field em.
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Feb 3, 2010 12:30
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Archer2338 posted:Do you guys think that having played the violin and trombone for even a little might help? One area I think it'd help the most is developing your melodies. I didn't really understand how to get a singing melody (or even that I could or what it was) until I started listening to violin concertos I was used to as keyboard concertos. Also I started singing around that time. Bach's preface to his two part inventions stresses that they should help players develop a cantabile, or song-like, quality in their music, so hopefully that'll help.
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Feb 4, 2010 01:31
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Eli Cash posted:Does anyone have a website or a PDF of counting time signatures? I need something with each time signature, a range of different notes, and how to count them (what I I say out loud, "one and two?). Wikipedia has a pretty decent one. As far as counting, I'd say it's mostly just one and two and for any duple meters, or one and a two and a for triple meters.
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Feb 5, 2010 03:08
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There are some pieces with tricky rhythms that are hard to learn starting out. Part of this is that in general it's best to practice a new piece hands separately, especially when you're just starting out on piano. However, this can actually make learning the rhythm harder; if you're doing off-beat stuff in the right hand but the left is on the beat, it'll be harder to keep the beat with just the right. This is where a metronome can come in handy, or you can even try working on both hands together, but simplifying one of them. Instead of doing chords or a baseline with the left, just play one note per measure, on every beat. Helped me a lot on certain pieces.
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Feb 8, 2010 03:28
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Alizee posted:If anyone has some awesome suggestions for a rachmaninoff piece to learn other then the g minor and c# minor famous ones, let me know. His prelude in G# Minor is pretty nice http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbRZYoiJRww Also, Elegie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL9PX4VkN4I
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Apr 28, 2010 19:35
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Bach's Two Part Inventions are great for beginning sightreading. His Well Tempered Clavier is also excellent because there's a lot of different techniques involved, and the fugues are good for working on sightreading with equal complexity for both hands as well as inner voices that switch between the two, so consider those as well.
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Apr 29, 2010 09:48
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For warmup I like to do some pieces I'm really comfortable with but that still have some challenge to them. One nice thing about this method is as you improve you can start warming up on pieces that were once impossible to play! Or you could always soak your hands in steaming hot water for a few minutes. Worked for Gould 
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Jun 24, 2010 05:52
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Bob Shadycharacter posted:What piece is it? Heh I love seeing really weird accidentals. Bach's Prelude in F# major has a G## (trilled!), which is the oddest one I can think of offhand. I feel like I've played a Chopin piece with a Dbb, maybe the sixth Etude opus 10? Wild Bill posted:I've been learning for about four months and I'm almost done with the second book of Adult Piano Adventures by Nancy and Randall Faber. I don't think there's a third book. Where should I go next? I wish there was a list for stuff like this, but it's all pretty subjective anyway. Ideally you'll want something anywhere from slightly to fairly challenging, but I don't know the technical level of that book. I'd grab one of those classical music anthology books, maybe a 'light' or 'beginner' level one, but try to avoid simplified versions. Hopefully you'll find stuff you like and stuff you can learn from, maybe both. If you find a composer whose work is a good fit, there are lots of places online with public domain scores.
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Jul 1, 2010 09:17
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Organ music is sposed to be played on organ but noone told Liszt  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c71soZNePz4&feature=related
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Jul 7, 2010 07:40
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RobattoJesus posted:Does anyone have any tips for becoming really good at (cold) sight reading? Particularly when sight reading in keys other than C major / A minor. I think you just need to sightread in a lot of different keys. You get to the point where your see a key signature and your hands automatically go for the accidentals without having to think about it, so in C minor you'll go "ah that's a C" and then see the E and your finger automatically goes up a minor third. I don't think that's what you mean by "absolutely" knowing the key, but it works for me. Basically just sightread a lot of different stuff and you'll start improving. Yeah definitely start out with easier pieces; I think the biggest gains I made sightreading were with Bach. You can always print out the 2 and 3 part inventions here, but I'd recommend getting a copy. Work up on the two part inventions, then you can move on to French and English suites and eventually the Well Tempered Clavier, which pretty much takes care of every key you'll ever run across.
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Jul 8, 2010 02:34
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Bob Shadycharacter posted:It's sort of academic, the idea is that that note IS in both melodic lines so it makes more sense to put it in both than it would to have a rest breaking up one of the lines or whatever. And if there was a rest there in one melodic line it might lead you to inturrupt your legato, say - I don't know the exact passage in question but you get the idea. Basically this. Although it isn't actually academic! Remember that Bach's keyboard work was primarily intended for the harpsichord, as the piano was yet to be invented! Harpsichords came in the dual-manual variety, meaning they had two rows of keyboards. These could be adjusted to have different sounds or "stops"; you could have a regular harpsichord sound on one level with a lute sound on the other. Playing an invention like this, with one hand on each keyboard, gives it the sound of two different instruments, letting you hear the different voices more easily. It also means you can hold a note with one hand and then play the same note again on the lower keyboard with the other hand without releasing the first. It's pretty unnecessary for the vast majority of his works, but certain three part inventions (looking at you B minor) and a lot of the Goldbergs become immensely easier. Here's what I was talking about with different stops. And yeah some of the middle movements of English Suites (menuets, gavottes) are easier than inventions because they don't give each hand equal difficulty, so feel free to check those out.
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Jul 8, 2010 21:33
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Bob Shadycharacter posted:Oh lord, it's embarrassing that I didn't think of that too. I'm too piano biased! Ya my dad's working on his third right now iirc, they're totally awesome. But one day I will talk him into building a pedal harpsichord addon  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv64B1bG5jA&feature=related
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Jul 8, 2010 21:57
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Monti posted:um C#=Db Sounds more like an Eb7 for the right hand with the root in the bass in that case
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Jul 11, 2010 02:47
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Monti posted:Or just Eb major with a diminished root. Like I said, some kind of diminished chord. HARMONY CHAT I really need to work on my chord knowledge, mostly I just sightread but I need to start adapting stuff just from jazz notation. My studies show that turning Jobim bossa nova songs into waltzes could work very nicely but the scores I have aren't helping me enough. Need to hunker down and get used to it I guess
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Jul 11, 2010 06:40
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Those pieces are probably too complicated for your level of sightreading. Bob's suggestion is good; try reading and playing with just the right hand, then just the left. Pick a piece to try this on, and keep working on just one hand (maybe the simpler one) until you can play it at a faster tempo with no problems. Then try adding the other in. If that's still too hard, consider picking an easier piece of music to try it on. Getting better at sight reading is a pretty incremental thing, but if you do it every day you'll make noticeable progress.
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Jul 19, 2010 22:50
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Man I'm tired of this thread hitting page 2, let's move it up. Speaking of bad editions, I was just playing from a Kalmus edition of the English Suites that is incredibly bad. It's not the source; it's edited by Bischoff, but there are sooo many technical mistakes. In one hilarious instance, in the preface Bischoff writes about versions of the English having errors present from copying mistakes and there's a typo in one of the words. In the score itself there's wrong notes all over the place, and in the 2nd Bourree from the first Suite it actually leaves out the key change from A major to minor, which really confused me the first time I sightread it. Editions: You get what you pay for
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Aug 5, 2010 05:04
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Lusername posted:Thanks DukAmok, that's perfect! I thought it might be something you'd hear in a silent film, but couldn't quite put my finger on it. Maple Leaf Rag shall be going on my to-learn list. The Maple Leaf is a great piece, and not really as difficult as it sounds. It's one of the earliest "real" piano pieces I learned. That said, it still does have some technical challenges; the left hand 'stride' style can be tricky at first, and when it goes into D flat (around 1:30 in the vid) it gets waaaay harder. Ragtime rules so much though, try to get a book with a lot of Joplin's other pieces if possible. Pineapple Rag, Bethena Waltz, Solace, are all pretty sweet. Also watch The Sting.
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Sep 13, 2010 05:40
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Lusername posted:Thanks very much for the tips and songs. I plan to watch The String this week. Sting, not String. But yea, ragtime is great for working on leaps. I'm currently working on two Chopin etudes that rely heavily on stride; opus 25 numbers four and nine. Number nine, also known as the Butterfly etude, sounds weirdly close to ragtime, it's awesome.
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Sep 18, 2010 01:45
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One thing that helped my ear a lot was whistling. Try whistling whatever you're working on, and really try to get the pitch as close as you can. Or singing or humming or whatever works for you.
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Sep 20, 2010 19:43
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dudemanbudguy posted:For those of you that are into jazz/blues/improvision, do you know any good books to check out? I know a lot of theory so it can be theory intensive. I'd just like to be as good at improvising on piano as I am on guitar. Thanks! I used to have a copy of The Jazz Piano Book and really need to pick another one up. I haven't had it for years, but from what I recall it was pretty comprehensive. And awesome.
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Sep 29, 2010 04:40
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Hawkgirl posted:It's actually good for me because it's really clearly showing how much I depend on that stupid pedal (even though it's stuck down it's not actually sustaining anything). I don't like practicing anymore though. Only play Bach, and pretend you're Glenn Gould suitcase of drugs optional, but recommended
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Oct 1, 2010 08:50
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I'm no Gould scholar, but iirc he was a pretty heavy user, and it may have contributed to his death? I need to rewatch 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould.
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Oct 2, 2010 03:42
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postirony posted:Maple Leaf Rag is pretty obnoxious, which is probably why I enjoy playing it. And also, the guy that plays The Entertainer in The Sting leaves out a whole section. Oh yeah they change the music all around; I think they play The Cascades, but only the 2nd part, not the 1st, 3rd, 4th, etc. Great movie though. I have trouble myself with dynamic range, especially with really quiet bits. Something to consider is getting a cheap tape deck or something and recording yourself playing. It's kinda like when you hear a recording of yourself talking; the differences can be pretty startling. Good resources for sightreading online would be yeah simpler Bach stuff, download and sightread the hell out of it.
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Oct 4, 2010 22:43
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O hei speaking of Maple Leaf Rag, turns out my school has an electric keyboard hooked up to a computer with garageband so I can finally record myself. http://tindeck.com/listen/bllq Too bad the keyboard is terrible, I couldn't get the sustain pedal to work, and I forgot to bring music, but still. Baby steps.
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Oct 6, 2010 22:36
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Flowers posted:I just started playing piano again a couple weeks ago (I haven't played since I was 10) and I've got a weird question about how you think about the music when playing. I don't think there's any absolute 'right' or 'wrong' way to sightread; whatever works best for you. In fact I think most people start off with the F#-G approach but then move on to intervals. When you're sightreading, having to think 'oh ok this note is an E' is a lot clunkier than thinking 'oh up a major third' because the latter makes more sense to your hand. Also yeah it translates a lot better to other clefs, even the dreaded (shudder) C clef. So I'd say you're on the right track, keep it up 
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Oct 7, 2010 19:24
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I've found that a lot of good independent bookstores have a sheet music section which is usually full of pop music (and the occasional classical gem). Sure, you can find stuff on amazon and sometimes cheaper, but then you have to send it back because it turns out it's only guitar tabs and they never mentioned that online. Also the larger public libraries tend to have giant sheet music sections, I've photocopied shitloads.
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Oct 9, 2010 22:32
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Deep Winter posted::\ 400-500 kinda' counts as "breaking the bank" for a college part-time worker student bringing home 150 a week. Almost every college will have practice rooms with (lovely) pianos. There's usually a hierarchy of who gets dibs, like faculty>music students>students>non-students, but in the off hours they're usually deserted anyway. At least that's in CA I dunno about the south YMMV
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Oct 11, 2010 04:14
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polyfractal posted:Ah, well there you go. Thanks! I've only seen a downward arpeggiate or roll once that I can recall, and it did have the arrow next to it to let you know. Otherwise yea upward unless you got a good reason not to.
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Feb 1, 2011 04:52
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Alizee posted:Just play things that require you to actually do stuff with that hand. This. Different stuff depending on what you want to work on; for basic mobility/accuracy Bach is a safe bet, two part inventions probably a good place to start.
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Feb 6, 2011 05:01
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Alizee posted:It's better to be specific about what easy Mazurkas and Nocturnes you're learning, rather than being like Bach > Chopin in difficulty. Yeah I think overall of course Chopin's going to be harder; but I still think there's an element of difficult in Bach's stuff that is rarely found in Chopin, as far as equal weighting of both hands. The only one I can think of offhand (lol) is Etude 4 opus 12, and most of the difficulty in that piece is technical, not counterpoint driven. Now that I think about it, Bach did write keyboard works rivaling Chopin's in difficulty; they just happen to mostly be for the organ. Although there are piano adaptations...
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Feb 6, 2011 21:39
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Improvising is something I've wanted to do for a long time, but again I'm a hardcore classical sheet reading type. What I've been working on to try to transition is improvising on top of sheet music, like doing an arpeggio base instead of stride or vice versa, or taking waltzes and playing them in 4/4, etcetera. I'm hoping I'll need the sheet music less and less, until I'm just improvising out of nothing. Even if that doesn't quite work out, it's a lot of fun, and has been helping my technique quite a bit. As far as essential piano repertoire, there's so much great music out there, even if you're only doing the really well known stuff. For Chopin alone, there's the minute waltz, revolutionary etude, fantasy impromptu, nocturne in Eb, heroic/military polonaise, probably plenty more I can't recall at the moment. Funeral march, hahaha. I think the idea of a 'must play' repertoire is kinda silly. Nothing wrong with having some well known pieces to bust out on occasion, but really, just find what you like to listen to, what you like to play, and go for it. Also there's a lot of public domain sheet music type websites up; I use the Werner-Icking Music Library quite a bit.
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Feb 18, 2011 06:49
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that Vai sound posted:I'm reading music theory, and one thing that was covered was stressed and weak beats. Duple meter is strong-weak, triple is strong-weak-weak, quadruple is strong-weak-kind of strong-weak, and so on. Is that something I should think about when playing the piano, or are the dynamics noted on sheet music all that I need to think about? Also different types of music, especially 'folk' styles, may have different emphases. IIRC Mazurka is weak-weak-strong, Polonaise weak-strong-weak, to name a few. Sometimes there'll be cues to indicate this, but not always. A lot of editions will have a preface in the front to help explain this sort of thing.
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Mar 21, 2011 07:24
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I've just started composing for the first time, as well, just a few days ago. It's way weirder than I expected. Some advice I was given was not to be overly dependent on basic major, minor, and dominant seven chords, but to also consider suspended 4ths, minor sevenths, half-diminished, and so on. You don't have to know the theory behind using them; I just tried out a bunch of different ones until I found some that worked at that point in my piece. And remember, not even Bach or Mozart wrote a masterpiece the very first time they composed.
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Mar 27, 2011 20:40
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ArbitraryC posted:My one problem with it is I wrote it for a technical skill greatly below my level (because I realistically had to be able to play each segment on the first try or so to decide whether I liked it or not). I wonder if you know enough about music theory that you can write something that would take weeks/months for even yourself to learn. I would say it's quite possible, although not from personal experience. Oftentimes the difficulty of a piece relies less on the whole 'music theory' side of it than in its arrangement. Most Ragtime is relatively simple harmonically, but can get difficult quickly due to rhythm, stride bass, and full chord voicings. Theme and variation are also good examples of how to take fairly basic harmonic structures and make them difficult as hell.
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Apr 9, 2011 08:18
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ArbitraryC posted:I dunno I just don't feel super confident in my abilities because it seems there's always harder stuff out there. You would think when you get better at piano, there is less and less hard stuff out there but actually it is the reverse. The better you get, the harder the stuff you work on is There's always harder stuff out there, I've been playing for years and years and still get frustrated trying to learn new stuff sometimes. If you want to feel like you're good at piano, go back to what you were working on six months/a year ago and marvel at how easy it's become. It's easy to get demoralized if you're always working away on difficult new pieces, don't forgot to go back to ones that were hard long ago. Now you can mess around with dynamics, or play them way too fast! As long as you're playing piano, and enjoying it, I'd say you're a piano player.
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Apr 9, 2011 22:58
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Big hands you say?! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgYfys7vErI&feature=player_detailpage#t=61s Could hit white key twelfths The Rachmaninoff piece is more big jumps than big hands imo. As far as intervals, if you can hit an octave comfortably, 99% of the piano repertoire is accessible. .9% has some ninths, .1% demands tenths (looking at you, Scriabin  ).
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Apr 21, 2011 08:47
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that Vai sound posted:What's the likelihood of me reaching half note = 108 BPM for School of Velocity? Is it a "practice and it will come" scenario, or is that sort of speed not possible for most? I've barely glanced at the School, so I'm not the most qualified on it, specifically. That said, it's astounding the technical ability and speed people can get with enough work, and Czerny is probably a great place to work at it. One of my coworkers, another ballet accompanist, has phenomenal technique, and attributes it to Czerny. He's in his 50s, but didn't pick up piano until his late 20s. I'd say, putting tons of effort into reaching a goal is a good idea. Just don't push yourself too hard or fast, and don't get discouraged if you're not progressing as fast as you feel you should. Don't be afraid to step down your tempo even if it feels too easy at that level, and start raising it incrementally. Moving a metronome up bpm by bpm, with plenty of time at each level, can actually get results quicker than moving it up to where it's 'mostly' comfortable and trying to advance too quickly.
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May 15, 2011 23:04
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The Dark Wind posted:My old piano teacher, who went to Jacobs School of Music and took lessons from a pupil of Claudio Arrau (who was a student of Martin Krause who studied under Liszt who studied under blah blah blah) Since this quote's from Wikipedia, grain of salt, but Wikipedia posted:(Czerny's) most famous student was Franz Liszt, who began studying with Czerny at age nine. Czerny was Liszt's only teacher. Upon taking him on as a student, Czerny forced Liszt to abandon all repertoire for the first few months, insisting he play only scales and exercises to strengthen his technique. And Liszt ended up with the best technique of the century. Again, though, I don't speak from experience; I barely did any technical work at all, apart from the smallest bit of Hanon. I've never even put that much time into basic scale and arpeggio work, learning most of my technique from slowly working through Bach, Chopin, and many other composers. Sometimes I wish I had done more basic, mechanical practice. I feel my technique might be stronger now. I would've been soooo bored, however
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May 16, 2011 15:17
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Consider working on some actual pieces with scales and arpeggios; there's a boatload of Scarlatti Sonatas that sound great, and have plenty of technical work without being overly difficult. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZrVLLAf330
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Jul 6, 2011 23:24
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