Posts Tagged ‘reading music’

How To Start Playing Piano Again as an Adult

Monday, September 29th, 2008

- Many, many adults today learned to play the piano when they were young, but gave it up at some point. Although some of these people don’t miss it, there are others that secretly desire to play piano again.

Some have no interest, but many have a hidden goal to someday start playing the piano again. And when they do start taking up lessons again, they’d prefer it to be with a modern teacher who knows the difference between Bach and the Beatles. Also, it’s difficult to add regular lessons to their schedules which are already full.

How do you do this, then?

There are two linked circumstances present in today’s world that give adults a new chance to learn to play piano in a way that was never possible before. Today, we have the Internet, a continually growing treasure trove of information. Until around year 2000, aspiring pianists usually took lessons from teachers who were of practical distance from their residences. That’s no longer the case. Many piano teachers even give online lessons using the cyber world. There are also DVDs and CDs that have been produced to assist the learner during all stages of piano playing, from the beginner to the advanced. Also, they are simple to find. Searching for such phrases as “piano lessons for adults” or “piano playing for adults” on a site such as Google will bring forth many possibilities for those looking to learn. (Give it a try and find out for yourself)

The other step has always been around, but often hasn’t been described well enough for people to understand. To put it simply, there are three ways to learn how to play the piano, and adults may choose to use one, two, or all three in any combination, and will learn far better than if they used only one method.

The three ways are:
First) Reading music from the score which is printed. The majority of piano lessons require the ability to read sheet music and make your fingers do what your mind tells them to do. The customary way to teach piano was with repeated technical exercises and drills, and reading music pieces starting from the very simplest piece engaging only the thumbs, gradually working one’s way up to complex classical works like the “Moonlight Sonata” by Beethoven or the challenging “Prelude in C# minor” by Rachmaninoff. You can find an online instructor to teach you how to read musical scores. Some search terms you can try to find these people include “learn to read music” and “classical piano lessons online.”

Second) Playing something by only hearing it first. Not many people could play the piano entirely through auditory perception and these people no longer need piano lessons because they can play any piece of any style they want. Playing by ear can be taught to some extent, but anyone who thinks they can end up playing like Ray Charles is kidding himself or herself. But in reality, most people can acquire the skills of recognizing a tune by ear, and by adding a couple of chords to the melody, can have a lot of fun entertaining their family and friends.

Third) Using chord symbols to play with. “Fake books” are popular with professional pianists, especially those who specialize in jazz. Fake books are song collections in a format known as “lead sheet”, meaning that the melody is written in addition to the chord symbols needed to harmonize with the melody. This method requires merely learning some simple chords found in the songs you intend to learn; and reading the melody in the treble clef, which is considerably easier than learning to read dense clusters of musical notes in both clefs.

Most people have no idea that this kind of playing exists, or if they do, they mistakenly believe it is only for the professionals. Not true. The process is simple and will produce results fairly quickly. You might be amazing your friends in weeks instead of years with these quick results.

Any of these ways will work and are available online. Incorporating aspects of all three methods brings the best results; the combination of reading sheet music, playing by ear, and learning chords and their proper progression can help a person learn the most efficiently.

It doesn’t matter which method you pick, just pick one and start. You’ll find its great fun and boosts your self confidence.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Chords & chord progressions, Piano for Adults | No Comments »

Music Reading For Pure Beginners: Reading The Notes

Saturday, September 20th, 2008

Music reading for beginners -- reading notes
New pianists learn notes first. An understanding of musical notes and their values is the foundation for learning any instrument. That includes the piano. The values of the notes are easy to remember because their names denote their values.

* Whole note: A whole note looks a bit like an egg on its side. It is round or oval-shaped and not shaded/solid. A whole note is held for four beats in 4/4 time.

* Half note: A half note is so called because it is held for half as long as a whole note. In other words, it is held for two beats. It resembles a smaller version of whole note, but with a line attached to its side.

* Quarter note: A quarter note is held for a quarter of the time a whole note is held: one beat. A quarter note looks like a half note, with one minor difference. While the half note is not shaded, the quarter note is.

* Eighth note: The eighth note is, of course, an eighth of the value of a whole note. In other words, it is held for half a beat. It looks like a quarter note with a curly “tail” at the end of its line. Eighth notes can also be joined together in groups of two, three, or four. If they are joined, they are connected by a bar across the top, rather than having a “tail.”

* Sixteenth note: The sixteenth note is one-sixteenth the length of a whole note when held. It is held for a mere quarter of a beat. A sixteenth note looks similar to an eighth note, but has a double “tail.” When two, three or four are joined, they are connected by a double bar.

There are seven different names for the keys on a piano. If you look at the keyboard on a piano, you’ll see that the keys repeat their order every eighth white key. The names of the keys are denoted by letters of the alphabet. The middle white key on the piano is called “middle C.” Going up the scale from C, the rest are D, E, F, G, A, B, and they start again with C. The notes from any C on the keyboard to the next C make up an “octave.” It is so called because it contains eight keys, or eight notes.

The notes in a song or scale are written on a “staff.” These are the series of lines and spaces that you’ve probably seen on a piece of music. The staff consists of a treble clef and a bass clef. Each line and each space on the clef denote a particular key/note. The notes on the treble clef begin on the bottom line of the staff with E above middle C. The notes on the bass clef begin on the bottom line of the staff with the G below middle C.

Which type of note appears on which line or space on the clef determines which key is played and for how long that key is held. In other words, if a whole note appears written on the bottom line of the treble clef, then the instrumentalist would play an E above middle C. It would be held for four beats. Once the note types and names are learned, the beginner is ready to start playing!

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Read Music | No Comments »

How To Play Piano Using Chord Symbols

Saturday, August 30th, 2008

Chord Symbols

Chord symbols (for example, Cmaj7 or G6) are a type of notation used frequently in jazz and other areas of modern music to notate chord progressions and changes. This type of notation differs from that of classical music in that chord symbols don’t show the function of a chord the way the Roman numeral notation does. Chord symbols, for modern music with lots of changes, are much easier to read. They function as a sort of shorthand for change-heavy music and are written with four chord parts in mind: the root, the quality, the extension, and the alterations.

The first part in chord symbols, the root, tells the musician which note is the root of the chord. In an E6 chord, for instance, the E serves as the root. Chord symbols also allow for inverted chords, or chords with a root other than the bass note. These chord symbols express that by showing the bass note with a diagonal slash under the original symbol.

Quality, the second part in chord symbols, denotes whether the chord is major, minor, diminished, or augmented. In a Cmaj7, the maj tells us that the C chord is major. The abbreviations for this area in chord symbols are maj, min, dim, and aug, respectively.

The extension in chord symbols, written after the quality, shows the musician if the chord differs from a triad (a third chord), such as an eleventh or seventh. This part of chord symbols is not always shown; if there is no indication of an extension, the musician is to assume that the chord is a triad.

The last part in chord symbols, the alteration, is usually but not always expressed. Think of this part as the “notes” section in chord symbols; it gives the musician any specific (and sometimes irregular) instructions for playing the chord and is always written in parentheses after the extension (or the quality, if no extension exists). For instance, (no fifth) would tell the musician that the chord is to be played with the fifth tone left out. Sus – short for “suspension”, would mean to play the 4th scale note instead of the 3rd. A minus sign would mean to lower (flat) a chord tone, such as C-9 which would mean to flat the 9th of the chord. Conversely, a plus sign would mean to raise (sharp) a particular chord tone.

Reading music using chord symbols allows a person to use written music as a map, rather than a note-for-note approach. By just reading the melody note and the chord symbols, musicians can improvise to their hearts content and create their own sounds on the keyboard.

The best of all worlds, however, is to be able to read music as it is written in a sheet music score, but also be able to read the chord symbols. Then the musician is free to choose which is best – the written part, or an improvised part. The sky is the limit for musicians who can do both. For a course on playing piano using chord symbols, take a look at “How To PLAY More Notes Without READING More Notes”

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Chord Symbols | No Comments »