mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat J mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat J mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat J mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat J mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat J mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat J mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat J mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat J mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat J mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat J mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat J mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat J mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat J mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat J mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat J mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat J mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat J mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M mynxcat J mynxcat Jan 10 19:26:20 2004 S M m42 responses total.
This is a keyboard which can play chords, I presume? The first electronic keyboard I got could only play one note at a time. I am a two-fingered pianist: I play piano the way some folks type. I admire the skill of anyone who can play full parts simultaneously with both hands. I also admire the skill of anyone who can pat his head and rub his belly at the same time, though that is less artistically moving an effect.
resp:2 How about playing and singing at the same time? I acquired that during my years of accompaning for church services and education classes. resp:1 E key a little loud? Playing that key too hard? Unless your keyboard has touch sensitivity, I doubt it. Beware that the action of electronic pianos and acoustic ones tend to be very different. Electronic piano keys generally respond to a fairly light touch; you will be in for a surprise should you play on an acoustic, more so because the action of the keys might vary with its age. I remember at least one concert I did where the piano keys were really stiff. Beginning piano books for adults are available-- Alfred has one. It moves through concepts a bit more quickly, and addresses the concept of chord positions when simple fingering sufficed for children. Glad to hear you're getting piano lessons. Having a teacher is invaluable even when you've got skills-- everyone can use a coach and a mentor. If you can find one, get a teacher who can arrange and compose- - they can specifically address problems with your skills by writing if they can't find existing exercises or repetoire. My roomie wants to learn but hasn't been very diligent in asking for my instruction. I explained the clefs to her so she could better understand how to read standard notation.
Glad to hear you've got the piano and are enjoying it. I looked up the Roland EP-75 on the web. It features touch sensitivity and weighted action, so key response is probably at least approximately like that of an "acoustic" piano, although jaklumen is most likely correct that the touch is somewhat lighter. There's a picture of the instrument at http://www.harmony-central.com/Newp/SNAMM97/Roland/ep-75.jpg Did it come with a sustaining pedal? If not, you'll probably want to add one at some point.
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Some things you'll need to "master": 1) You need to learn to "count". That is, to recognize (when reading music) the "values" of all the notes *and* rests, and make sure to play the music accurately with the right rythmns. 2) They are "boring", but you need to learn your scales - they train your fingers to "go the right places" even when you're not playing scales. And you'll need to play scales simultaneously on both hands - good training for when you advance to playing both hands of a music composition.
To that I would add: 3) You need to master patience. Playing music is a synthesis of a number of different skills, and they won't all come easily or fall into place at the same time. They come with practice (and more practice, and yet more practice). Sounds like you're motivated to practice, though. From your description of the lesson, it sounds like your musical training is off to a good start too.
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resp:4 I recognize the name James Bastien-- I've used his books. resp:7 Yes, play your scales slow until you master the fingering. Fingering is so crucial to smooth playing. *chuckle* Eventually you'll find out what the Hanon scale studies are all about. I'm glad I wasn't a piano major-- I would have had to master them eventually. I replaced them with the Segovia scale studies, hehe (for guitar). Hmmm.. lost my last copy. I'll need to get a new one. Remmers is right about patience. I really had to learn it all over again when I started guitar. I had forgotten that my piano skills were developed over years. Still, I had the love and used it to get where I am now-- I've had to work without an instructor and I am so ready to get one again. Don't lose that love. One thing that you will eventually want to do is get some recordings of master pianists to get a sense of expression. If you can view concerts on television, so much the better-- you can study their technique. But this is down the road.
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Re: speed: *Accuracy* is far more important than speed, and here is why: A music teacher of mine once taught me something I have found to be true: By repeating your mistakes, your are actually "practicing" your mistakes, and you therefore get "good" at your mistakes and they can then become permanent. That is, if you charge right through the easy stuff and then always slow down or stop at the hard part, your "muscle memory" will learn and remember that behavior, and it will be a plague to cure. So with your scales, play them sickeningly slow until you can plan them accurately every time. *Then* increase the speed, bit by bit, until you can play them accurately at the higher speed, and so on.
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I don't know if you need a metronome yet, but what you could do is just use it when practicing scales. Start by counting 2 or 4 clicks per note in the scale, and eventually work up to one note per click and beyond.
It's useful to be able to play with a metronome. It's also useful to be able to play without one. In my experience, playing with a metronome doesn't really help your rhythm when you're playing without one, or vice versa -- they're two different skills.
Huh? I seriously doubt that to be true or people would have stopped using metronomes years ago. Indeed, I have run into many musicians who seem to skip metronome work, as reflected by their serious inability to keep a steady tempo. And for any group with a *good* drummer, the non-drummers should be playing along just as if with a metronome. I guess I just don't understand your point, so maybe you can give some examples. Are you thinking about recording/performing with a "click track", which is often done to keep everything in synch with prerecorded tracks (although sometimes a "click" will be used for initial tracks as well)?
Ditto #14 - playing with a metronome is very useful in when you don't have a steady beat to play with. And I've worked with drummers with that problem, and it sucks.
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At some point, yes. When I started playing music, I was in bands with good drummers almost immediately, so they were my metronomes. Later, when I wanted to develop better practice habits in non-band situations, I used a metronome. There are also a number of tricks you can use when you get more experienced, like setting the metronome for the back beat (beats 2 and 4 of a four beat bar) or setting it only to hit the first beat (again out of a four beat bar). Since you aren't playing in a band, you might want to start right away, for the "good practice" reasons mentioned before. I would also suggest isolating each hand sometimes and play only one hand or the other with the metronome. I say this because I have notice most musicians tend to be slightler faster or slower with one hand or the other. Having said all this, you should also remember that certain styles of music involve tempo changes and nuances, either as a matter of interpretation or as called for in a score (mostly in classical music). Still, it's a very solid foundation, and most musicians that don't have rock solid rhythm will always sort of suck no matter what kind of chops they otherwise develop.
Since scales are boring yet a necessary "evil", you might as well get all the boring drills "out of the way" at once - after you have learned the scale fingering and have convinced yourself you can play them repeated correctly at a snail's pace, maybe that's the time to introduce the metronone. Set it for a *steady* snail's pace, verify your scale accuracy, and then dare to increase the tempo a bit.
Metronome work has been very useful to me. I have a tendency to speed up the tempo when I play; practicing with a metronome makes me conscious of that and thus helps me keep the tempo steady when I'm *not* using a metronome.
resp:10 Accuracy and avoiding "practicing" mistakes is right on in my experience. It's harder to play slower sometimes, especially when that tempo doesn't sound enjoyable, but it's worth it. A metronome is indeed a useful tool. Electronic ones will be the most consistent. I'm not sure how useful tapping your foot to the beat is alone, but I suppose if you do it with a metronome running you may be able to internalize tempo better. It takes some coordination to do it while you're playing, but I'm sure it will help. resp:9 Teaching skills can be gained only after some time and experience. You're fairly new to this, so you shouldn't expect to be able to teach someone right away.
BTW, avoid battery operated metronomes and use one that plugs in. I once had the bizarre experience of listening to my drummer practicing with a metronome and still slowing down. It damn near drove me nuts until we figured out the metronome was slowly reducing the tempo as the batteries drained.
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I've never noticed a problem with my battery-operated metronome - that drummer must have had some really crude design to actually slow down with low battery power. For that matter, I'm not sure I've ever needed to even change the battery in my metronome.
You might enjoy the book
Piano Lessons: Music, Love, & True Adventures
by Noah Adams
Re #23: Well, this was about 25 years ago, so hopefully technology and batteries have improved.
About learning the wrong note - my brother learned a particular tune from a parody of the song which deliberately included a wrong note. Now he can't sing the original song without putting the wrong note in.
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re metronomes: I see I've misspoken. I think here's what I meant to say. Keeping good time in solo playing is one thing. Playing well with a drummer, say, or following the tempo of a soloist you're accompanying, that's something else. In the end you want to be good at doing both, but getting better at one doesn't seem to necessarily make you any better at the other. There are musicians who are great at following a beat but terrible at keeping the beat themselves; there are musicians who can keep perfect time on their own but are terrible at accomodating to other people's playing. Practicing with a metronome is great for learning how to play with a drummer. And there's other things it's useful for: double-checking your tempos, gradually increasing the speed of your scales and whatnot, etc. But for learning to keep a steady beat on your own (with no drummer, no click track, no conductor, etc.), practicing with a metronome has always seemed pretty useless to me. Of course, that's just my personal experience, and I'm definitely a low-level amateur, not a serious musician and certainly not a professional. I'd be curious to see what some of the other musicians here think.
Using a metronome seems useful for solo play, to me anyway.
Well, Dan, that's why I suggested tapping your foot along with the metronome. When you take the metronome away, keep tapping. I think physically doing it helps internalize your sense of beat. Or maybe following the flashing light on your electronic metronome might work.. There's also the TAP system.. are Midwesterners familiar with it? It was developed in Bellevue (Seattle area) but I would gather many music majors should have heard of it. The old system involved tapping a button on a machine with a counter that was sensitive to an audio patched tape player. You would tap out rhythms to various recordings.. I remember the theme from Sanford and Son and a selection from Wendy Carlos's "Well-Tempered Synthesizer" being among them. We were stuck with the machines at Central although a company called MusicWare bought the rights and reengineered the system to a software program. You should be able to find it online. It will cost you some money unless you can prove you're a teacher or an educational institution in need of it.
A variation on the "tap along, turn off" method: Pick a recording you know has rock solid tempo. Count or tap along with it while turning down the volume for a few seconds, then turn it back up. Gradually increase the "volume down" time. If you are still on the beat after ten to thirty seconds of silence you are well on your way to developing good rhythm.
(great item)
Isn't it, though? Music in action.
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That's all it takes. And make your practice time count. Other tips: Tape record your practicing, and then go back and listen to it with the music to pick up your mistakes. Play duets with your teacher. There's a lot to be said for ensemble experience, and this is a place to start-- you'll be able to rely on a teacher's strengths somewhat in tempo and continuity.
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C D7 G7 C :-)
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C D7 G7 C is a common chord *progression*. The notes might be thusly: C - G C E G D7 - A C D F# G7 - G B D F C - G C E
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There are some inverted chords there all right.
You have several choices: