Piano Clues

Every three months the members of the Adult Beginners Forum over at Piano World get together for an informal recital.

Everyone who wishes to participate performs and records a solo piano piece and then uploads it to a special website.

On the day of the recital, all entries are made public on the Piano World Forums.

Last month we had our 10th recital, and it was awesome (as always )!

With 63 participants, this was our biggest recital ever. People from all over the world, old and young, ranging in experience from complete beginners to seasoned players, created over 3 and a half hours of piano music.

Any style of music goes, as long as it’s played on a piano. Last time we had classical, jazz, new age, pop, you name it.

Visit the recital here

You can also listen directly to all the tunes using the online streaming player.

Go check it out!

And if you play the piano, be sure to send in a recording for recital 11 on August 15!

Work and other things are taking up too much of my time these days to do any writing for this site.

However, here is a list of topics that I intend to cover in the future, if time permits:

• How to recognize chords from sheet music
• What are modes?
• How to put a Flash-based music-player on your own site
• How to make a leadsheet in Lilypond
• How to make a full piano score in Lilypond
• How to read leadsheets
• Playing keyboard with auto-accompaniment
• Beginning jazz
• Learning songs from MIDI files
• Chord voicings
• Quartal voicings
• Composing and improvising
• Using Transcribe!
• Chord substitutions
• Tritone substitutions
• Beginning blues
• Modulation
• Rhythm changes
• Polychords
• Walking (jazz) bass
• Ostinato patterns

Stay tuned!

If you know the melody to a tune, then how do you find the chords to accompany that melody?

My best advice: join Piano Magic

(Really, I mean it!)

In the mean time, here’s a quick summary of how to harmonize melodies:

1. Find out what key the melody is in
2. Learn the I, IV and V7 chords of that key. In the key of C these would be C, F and G7.
3. Press the I chord and play the first notes of the melody.
4. When the melody and the chord no longer seem to fit together, switch to one of the other two chords. This usually happens at the beginning of a new measure.
5. Repeat until you reach the end of the song. Usually the song will end on the I chord.

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People occasionally email me to ask which digital piano they should buy. I’m not really an expert, but I can give some tips.

There are too many brands and models to go into details, but here are some things to keep in mind:

Stage piano vs. cabinet piano

Some digital pianos are meant for performing. These are called “stage pianos”. They are extra sturdy yet light enough to carry around (if you have a strong roadie ).

Stage pianos often don’t have built-in speakers and are limited in features. If you want to get one, you’ll probably also need to buy external speakers and a stand to put it on.

My advice: if you are going to perform in a band (or carry around your piano a lot) then get a stage piano. Otherwise, don’t.

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About a year ago, I set myself the challenge to compose (or improvise) and record one new solo piano piece every week.

Each piece had to be at least 2:30 minutes in length. I aimed to produce only original pieces but once in a while I also did my own variation on an existing piece.

I posted these pieces on a blog and a podcast, not because I expected to find a big audience, but to keep the pressure on.

However, I managed just fine and actually did more than one piece per week on average, so I’m happy about the results.

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This is what “3-over-2″ or “3 against 2″ or “2 against 3″ looks like:

It’s a complicated rhythm that takes a while to get the hang of. In the bass clef are straight quarter notes but in the treble cleff are tuplets, which means three quarter notes played in the time of two regular ones.

So for every two quarter notes in the left hand, the right hand is supposed to play three quarter notes.

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Improvising is the art of making up music on the spot, without relying on sheet music or a memorized tune. It may sound hard but actually it is pretty easy.

The hardest part of improvising is allowing yourself to mess up. You must give yourself the freedom to play anything, no matter how awful.

Let’s face it: your first improvisations won’t be any good. But they’ll never become any better if you don’t allow yourself to be bad at it.

If you already know how to play by ear, you have a headstart because playing by ear and improvising are in essense the same thing. Improvisation is just a little scarier because you don’t have the safety net of an existing tune.

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In my overview of online piano courses, I mentioned that I am a happy member of Piano Magic, the course that really teaches you how to play by ear.

This past weekend, Michael Anderson — who is the Piano Magic teacher — opened up the “Piano Magic Concert Hall” to the public.

In the Concert Hall, there are 20 performances of solo piano music by Piano Magic members. Everyone is playing their own arrangements — by ear.

Some of the performers have only been with the course for several months, while others have been around for one or more years (like myself).

So for some excellent free piano music, and for proof of what this course delivers, visit the Piano Magic Concert Hall!

What does this have to do with playing the piano? Let me explain…

If you look up free sheet music or chord sheets on the internet, you often run into something called “guitar tabulature” or “tabs”.

This is a simplified type of sheet music that is easier to read for guitar players than traditional notation. It basically displays the fretboard of the guitar.

What if you want to play that song on the piano and you can’t find the sheet music? Then you might get lucky with the guitar tabs.

Translating tabs to notes on the piano is not very hard but you’ll have to learn a bit about how the guitar works.

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Ready for more fun with the Circle of Fifths? Here we go!

Minor keys

There is also a circle for minor keys:

I put the names of the minor keys on the inside of the circle. This is because each major key has a relative minor key.

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