What are /r/piano's favorite Products & Services?

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I swear I’m not trying to be an ass, but this book was really helpful.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1465436049/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_WINyAbQ36QJ1S

I went back to playing music after 17 years and didn’t realize I had totally forgotten how to read music until I tried to. Everything is broken down really simply so you can pick up a concept really quickly.

The Cortot edition of the Chopin Etudes is fantastic. It has a collection of technique exercises paired with each etude which helps you work on the primary technique of the etude. It's great for indirectly showing you how to create technique exercises for other pieces you might be playing. They're hard to find, but there are some PDF copies, which you can get here

I've played this piece before; I believe the title is Trepak, and it's by a fairly recent contemporary composer. Hope you find it!

Edit: I found the composer as well; his name is Mark Nevin, and here's an Amazon.com link to the sheet music: Trepak by Mark Nevin. Hope this helps!

It's a theory, but in the mid-18th century, a handful of piano makers were experimenting with uprights. Domenico del Mela and German Christian Ernst Friederici both made these kinds of pianos. My thought is you're looking at one of these, mainly because of how close the pins are to the keys, and that you only have about 6 octaves (Pianoforte-style). Also, the hammers/actions are hidden, so not sure. That said, it could also be a wall-climber piano (in the style of William Southwell).

More googling leads me to believe it is a "Giraffe" piano. Couldn't find one with bookcases like yours, but it's the right build for it.

Best of luck!

edit:

/u/Bobb-o_Bob mentions that it could be a clavicytherium. Looking at the angles of the pin block, and the hidden actions, this is definitely also a strong possibility. I don't see hammers or plectra, so without that info, it's hard to surmise what it really is.

That said, this thing has been out of vogue for at least 150 years.

Good luck!

https://www.amazon.com/Hanon-Virtuoso-Exercises-Complete-Schirmers/dp/0793525446

This is a warmup book I have used for 10 years and I love it with all my heart. Although it doesn’t have any impressive technique or pieces, your keystriking and fluency while playing will improve if you do these warmups every day.

You owe it to yourself to buy this book ASAP. It'll end up answering so many questions for you, and if you really enjoy writing by hand, you'll probably just love flipping through and reading the little entries and learning a ton about all of the little notation rules we all take for granted in our reading.

It's amazing when you actually put pen(cil) to paper how much you start to realize little things like... "Wait... when do I change stem directions? How long should stems be? How do I space this thing?" etc.

Also, I would highly recommend doing this with pencil (I vastly prefer a nice 0.5 mechanical for consistency and precision). And if you're going to copy someone else's work, try to find something from a decent publisher/editor rather than learn from some of the highly questionable stuff you might find on musescore where people make all sorts of egregious errors with beaming and just general beat obfuscating note grouping stuff.

There are two keys to learning to sightread

1. Picking pieces WAY BELOW your ability level

2. Getting a LARGE REPERTOIRE of pieces to sightread

Get easy piano versions of pop songs. Learn Christmas carols. Learn church hymns (if you're into that). Learn easy arrangements folk/patriotic public domain songs. Find a book that's incredibly easy, has songs that are familiar, and has a ton of repertoire. The one that I used was the Reader's Digest Easy Way to Play 100 Unforgettable Hits. You might want to find something even easier than that (or from a different genre if you're not into "oldies"), but the general approach is the same. You need to play a lot of pieces and get used to the general patterns in the genres you want to play.

Pretty cheap here: https://www.amazon.com/Chrono-Cross-Soundtrack-Collection-Beginners/dp/4810863603/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1528337948&sr=8-1

I have a copy of the Chrono Cross, FF7 and FF9 books (all beginner/intermediate) if you'd ever like some sheets scanned!

Even just hanging a fluffy quilt or blanket on the wall will keep sound from echoing as much. If you want to get fancy you can get acoustic panels on Amazon nowadays, which is kind of amazing. You'd have to do a bit of research on placement.

But if you have a spare quilt the quilt thing is free and fast and worth a try.

Mine looks similar except I have a different piano bench.

I have this: https://www.amazon.com/SONGMICS-Adjustable-Wooden-Storage-ULPB57H/dp/B072WMPXMM/ref=mp_s_a_1_7?keywords=piano+bench&qid=1569954645&s=gateway&sprefix=piano+&sr=8-7

While I'm in the mood for nerding out over jazz harmony, here are a few more tips:

• The most important notes in jazz chords are the root, the 3rd and the 7th. If you are playing in a group with a bass player you don't even need to worry about the root! 5ths don't matter at all unless they are altered in some way, so always sacrifice the 5th in favour of a 9th or something.

• The 2-5 is arguably the most important progression in jazz. It's worth finding ways of playing it with tidy voice leading. It's so common even wikipedia has some suggestions.

• Jazz chords are in many ways more about the arrangement of notes than the notes themselves. For example on a G7(9,13), what happens if you voice the 7th above the 13? How about the other way round? What if they are right next to each other?
  You could voice it like this: G B D F A E ... but try this instead G F B E A?

Also my music teacher gave me this book a while back: A classical approach to jazz piano. It has a lot of great info about voicings, 2-5s etc aimed at classically trained musicians.

Edit: Spelling

I don't believe there is a good quality website for that. However, this book is an industry standard for adults to learn reading. The lessons are well-organized and it is possible to go through it on your own. It's probably better than anything you'll find online. You can order it on Amazon if you want to avoid stores!

Thank you for recording this! It's great to hear your interpretation. You struck me as a player who could do a lot with the improvisation section, and you delivered. You did a good job of incorporating melody fragments into your solo.

Coincidentally, just yesterday I got around to recording a version myself. You can hear it here if you're interested in a different interpretation. If anybody wants to take a look at the score, check it out here.

Thanks again!

> Is there any way I can do this a bit more efficient?

Yes. If you have a MIDI keyboard then get a copy of Synthesia. It's like Guitar Hero for the piano. If you pay the extra $25 to unlock the learning pack (and I recommend you do) then you can use it to learn the piece (it waits for you to play the right note) instead of just playing it as a game.

Then grad the MIDI file for the prelude and start practicing!

It's no substitute for learning to read the music, but it'll help you to learn the piece, which in turn will help you understand how the notes written in the score translate to the keys you need to play. It also makes it more fun, which is important to keep you interested long enough to overcome the initial difficulties you may have with reading the music. But keep at it. Each time you play it'll become a little easier.

Good enough? Everyone should know? If there were only a handful that were useful, then the others would not be taught. Sure, you’ll find that 80% of songs consist of the same 20% components/themes. But there’s no “easy hack to be good enough” — progress is made through establishing a consistent practice routine and setting measurable goals.

Don’t try to go the easy route and skip fundamentals; it’s counter productive when learning piano.

This is a great book for beginners of any age that captures the spectrum of elements to learn.

On a different note, you may find that a hymnal, ignoring the religious component, is an excellent example of the common piano music practices — chord structure, inversions, voicing, etc. If you can play through a hymnal front to back, you can consistently play most American piano music.

Roland FP-30, retails for ~700, 15% off is usually doable, adorama has had it on sale for $480 a couple times, including right now. Costco sells a very similar version (doesn't have bluetooth, might be the same otherwise) for $800 with stand+triple pedals, sometimes on sale for $600

https://slickdeals.net/f/10917919-roland-fp-30-88-keys-supernatural-digital-portable-piano-479-free-shipping

Casio px160: $500

Kawai ES110: ~$730

Yamaha P115: $600.

15% off is usually doable for the last three if you shop around, sometimes closer to 20%. Any of these four would be fine to start out on. All are slabs, youll need a stand+bench. Each has an optional furniture style stand if you want that look. Speakers aren't great on any, but with headphones they're each fine. Each comes with a sustain pedal, the Kawai one might be nice I'm not sure offhand, the other three aren't so great, budget ~$40-100 to get a better one at some point. Not needed right away though. At the high end of that you're getting a triple pedal set, not just a sustain pedal. Each is relatively stripped down feature wise. If all you want is to play piano, they're good options.

Non slabs (with stand built in): Look at Casio px760. The other brands have furniture style units too, but not in your budget.

I would definitely get a weighted, 88 key keyboard; as you start to get better playing, anything less than an 88 key, weighted keyboard is going to get worthless really quick. The Casio px-330 is nice but the Casio px-130 has the same weighted action, only less tones and other features, I believe. Unfortunately, it's a little higher than your budget (right at $550, the px330 is about 700), but it comes with the stand and pedals and all, might be worth saving for.

Alternatively, the Yamaha P95B also has 88 keys and is weighted. Again, although it depends on what you want to do with it, I would say it should have 88 keys and be weighted (important for technique and finger strength). Also, you're going to need a sustain pedal (check the keyboards you're looking at to see if they support a sustain pedal).

Is this what you want?

Before I provide an answer, a bit about my background: I was a music theory major for two years while simultaneously doing a math degree, and then dropped the music major. After dropping the music major, I was doing mathematics and music research and occasionally do some projects on my own when I have time. My name is mentioned in the acknowledgements section of this book.

From a typical musician's perspective, essentially anytime numbers are used, they think mathematics are involved. This wouldn't be considered satisfactory from a trained mathematician's point of view. Anyone who has gone through substantial training in mathematics would know that there is a lot more to math than numbers.

From my perspective, I didn't see any direct connection between mathematics and music until I had hit the junior/senior-level mathematics and the junior/senior-level music theory courses in college. Very, very few people (even professors) have this background. But if you want to understand what I finally realized, you would have to read this other comment I made.

To answer your other questions:

• Is this stuff useful for practical piano playing? Not really. It's just really interesting theory. When I'm analyzing piano works, I don't use math to do it. I use my music theory background. (Naming intervals such as 3rds/5ths etc. is not mathematics.)

• Can one manipulate an audience's response by a mathematical pattern? As someone who is a hobbyist composer, composition is very much an art which can't be adequately described by even music theory (if you're looking after the late-Romantic era), so trying to describe composition with math is out of the question. Sure, people have used math to compose. But I don't write music like that.

Warning: learning about altered chords will take you down the rabbit hole!

The most common alterations in a (jazz) chord are in the 9th and the 5th. In jazz, we tend to alter chords to fit with the melody notes. When it opens up into the solo section, the chords become a little more flexible and it's up to the comping instrument (piano or guitar) to fill in the harmony (or leave it intentionally vanilla to allow the soloist more flexibility).

So while you may be seeing a lot of altered 5ths in addition to altered 9ths, there's no rule regarding that. It was common in older lead sheets to simply write something like C7ALT. This allows the harmony instrument any combination of #5, b5, #9, b9 as long as they are still defining the chord with the third and seventh (so-called guide tones).

I use this handout with my students which might be worthwhile for you to read through? Although it might just lead to more questions!

I wrote up a quick summary not too long ago. Read through that and see if it helps you at all.

Edit: On second thought, I wrote up something for my students not too long ago that you might find useful. Check out the pdf here.

I'd say go with "First Lessons in Bach."

I've only been playing for about 2 months, and I'm finding Minuet in G to be a fantastic learning experience. I've got the first half down pretty well after just under a week of including 15-30 minutes of this into my daily hour long practices (along with practicing some Hanon's aerobics and scales/chords/appregios).

Amazon Link

Free First Book

It's a wood puzzle I got from amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07HDHXY4L/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Oh boy, do I have just the thing for you...

Get this!

I have played piano for literally twenty nine years, and I was always more into playing by ear and memory than by reading (I would muddle through reading a piece until I learned it and then just play without the music to perfect it).

I picked up this app and started playing it whenever I was pooping or just waiting for stuff, and the speed with which I read music jumped up tremendously. I can almost sight read some simple pieces now.

I did exactly what you did - something like fifteen years ago - I made a chart like this one and put it on the stand next to what I was reading. It helps a little.

Bonus: if you want to work on your hearing get this one

Full disclosure I bought the full apps for both of those recommendations and I would do it again.

Metronome Beats and Mobile Metronome are both really good

Since we're being particular, it's not a mordant, nor a lower mordant, but a lower mord*e*nt.

"mordant" is a word, and its origin can be traced back to the same Latin word as "mordent", but the two have different definitions. Incidentally, the page you first linked spells it correctly in the URL, and then proceeds to misspell it throughout the page.

Wikipedia, citing Eric Taylor's The AB Guide to Music Theory, notes that "inverted mordent" is, in fact, sometimes used to denote a lower mordent (perhaps because the added stroke in the symbol suggests a modification of the stroke-less symbol), so "inverted mordent" is not wrong. Still, using "upper" and "lower" avoids ambiguity.

This is something you can easily do yourself, especially since you have the sheet music. Get a music notation program like MuseScore or Noteworthy Composer and plug your song in. You can save it as a midi file and then throw it in Synthesia.

The two most popular ones are Finale and Sibelius. A common opinion is that Sibelius is easier to learn, but Finale is ultimately more powerful. They're really pretty similar though. The full versions are about $600, but they also sell to students, teachers, and churches for half price, and you can buy a copy at this price on Amazon without needing to provide proof that you are in one of these groups. There are also "lite" versions of each for far cheaper--try Finale Notepad.

You don't strictly need a MIDI keyboard, but it's definitely helpful. You can just enter the notes in manually, and it's not much slower once you get the shortcuts down. There are two types of MIDI connections:

• USB, which allows you to simply connect to the computer with a USB A/B cable
• DIN-5 (standard MIDI connector), and you'll need a USB-to-MIDI cable (actually a cheap MIDI interface).

It's not really independence as much as coordination. Your hands aren't doing separate things... they are subdividing rhythm and lining up within that subdivision.

I'm sure you can find easier exercises out there, but some of the ones I'm familiar with are in an old sightsinging text. Feel free to grab whichever old edition you can that's not some absurd college bookstore price or locate it through other means.

I wanna think Hindemith's Elementary Training for Musicians also has some of the exercises... but not sure.

Anyway, what you want to look for are rhythm reading exercises that basically have you pat the rhythms in each hand.

You could honestly do this with any piece of music and just ignore the notes and pat the rhythm (and I'd recommend it), but these books will have a lot of progressive exercises with the Ottman having the most.

Hey, I quickly turned this into a midi for you -- link. You could play (and "view") it with Synthesia. Of course, you really should learn to read music! It can be frustrating but it's worth the practise.

You play the left hand part an octave higher until the end of the dashes.

There is also one that makes you play it an octave lower. You can read and see the symbols here.

The $100 keyboards aren't really digital pianos. They may have some piano sounds but they don't play like a piano. The keys don't have the same feel that a piano has which makes it difficult to play with the proper touch that a piano requires. Worst of all the cheapest ones will play every note at the same volume regardless of how heavily you play a key.

The least expensive good digital piano, that I'm aware of, is the Yamaha P71 for $400. It's identical to the Yamaha P45. It has headphone outputs.

>and I'm thinking the ones Im seeing on Amazon are just bad then?

They don't resemble a piano.

They absolutely exist, just search for music stand arm on Amazon. They attach to something like a mic boom, which you will need to buy separately.

here's one example https://www.amazon.com/Stagg-SCL-MUS-Foldable-Music-Stand/dp/B073PTWD5M

Doesn't Casio have a reputation for poor sound quality? I'm not sure how true it is, but that's the vibe I've picked up. I'm pretty happy with my basic Yamaha. It's quite light too, at 25lbs

Great! You will like many of his pieces, very creative composer. Unfortunately his music is not in public domain (he composed these in 1958 I think), but you can find it on amazon or any online store!

Here is a link https://www.amazon.com/Lyric-Preludes-Romantic-Style-Pieces/dp/0874876494/ref=nodl_

I use Mobile Sheets (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zubersoft.mobilesheetspro) to do exactly that. I use a scan of the sheet, or I make them myself in MuseScore and save to pdf. Works great!

Take this and this; that's all I needed to read, play and write music.

Paying for lessons is recommended, they are a shortcut.

My advice: You have to keep your motivation alive: Watch videos of other people playing pieces you would like to play, it's as important as brushing your teeth. You require ambition but also you must acknowledge the nature of the process of learning; you will invest time, emotions and money to get there, keep that in mind.

Enjoy your journey, music is a beautiful investment.

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See page 27 of the user manual here. You may need to hold down the pedal when turning it on to reverse the polarity.

If you want an introduction, Berklee College of Music is offering a free online course (next one starting Oct 13) called "Developing your Musicianship". It's very practical, and uses the piano, and it touches a lot on blues piano.

I highly recommend it. The homework forced me to go up a level and I am very happy with where it got me.

Here is the link: https://www.coursera.org/course/musicianship

Not at all!

You may also want to check out Transcribe! or Roni's Amazing Slow Downer for more specialized software that won't change pitch.

Check out Robert Gjerdingen's Music in the Galant Style, it's well worth it. Some of his main points about schemata are summarized on openmusictheory.

Gotta say I think this is a great way to get a handle on smooth voice leading. These stepwise movements are the most common way that such chords actually show up in context, and much more "musical" than just drilling root position triads through the circle of fifths.

If you're interested in some similar methods that blend harmony and counterpoint, check out the 18th-century tradition of partimento. It was how Mozart and Vivaldi actually learned to compose, and there's an excellent book about it by Robert Gjerdingen called "Music in the Galant Style". It contains dozens of voice-leading patterns like the ones you have figured out, which he calls "schema", and his book is full of examples from actual compositions.

You might like Synthesia, which is free and is basically like Piano Hero.

There's also an app called Etude, which was released by Steinway and is pretty much the same thing.

However, if you're serious about learning I don't think anything can top regular lessons with a teacher.

This is an extremely broad topic of discussion, and a lot of it is extremely subjective. However, this is an example of what the notation looks like when the composer wants pedal in a specific spot. This notation almost always refers to the damper pedal, or the right pedal on an acoustic piano.

In this case, the point when you initially put down the pedal is notated by the Ped. The upwards pointing breaks in the line indicate a pedal change; allow the pedal to come all the way to the top so that the sound no longer resonates, and then push it back down again. The end of the bracket indicates that you should lift the pedal.

How important the pedal is depends a lot on what kind of music you're playing: in Baroque music, many people will argue that it should not be used at all, whereas Classical and Romantic composers made much heavier use of it. Anything past that and you're hurting yourself by not using a pedal.

If you're just playing arrangements of video game music or pop songs, pedaling will certainly help, but it's almost entirely up to you where you use it, since most of those songs will be arrangements, and thus won't have the specific pedal markings.

It will also output as MusicXML, if I remember correctly. That will let you import it into a truly free program like MuseScore, which won't have any restrictions on what you can do.

So if he played an actual piano, then there are somethings the keyboard should have, like pedals, weighed keys, and a full 88 keys.

So I have an actual piano, but while we were building a house, I got a keyboard and moved my piano to my parents’ house. This is one I was looking at and it is within your budget. Yamaha is generally a good brand. Yamaha P71 Digital Piano (Amazon Exclusive) Deluxe Bundle with Furniture Stand and Bench https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06WRWZX2B/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_R744BPF38JSQ18SFFJZB

I ended up getting a Korg G1. I really like it because it takes up little room (it’s only like 11 inches wide) and very solid and looks nice, but it’s like double your budget. I think they have a cheaper version, B1 or something which is like $699.

Edit: I just realized the link I sent you doesn’t have any pedals but you usually can get it as an accessory that plugs in

Start taking lessons if you can afford them, you'll definitely want someone to give you feedback and make sure you're learning things correctly. If not check out the lesson books by James Bastien WP2 - Piano Lessons - Level 1 - Bastien Piano Library https://www.amazon.com/dp/0849750016/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_2GQ5W1RZKXBT8HZXMGK3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1 it goes over all the basics and includes some nice beginner songs

I recommend the Masterworks Classics books. They are complete pieces from the standard classical repertoire, not adaptations or arrangements like in the Alfred's lesson books. If you sped quickly and easily through the Alfred's Level 1 book, I suggest you can start with a later Masterworks Classics book. Perhaps, Book 3: https://www.amazon.com/Masterwork-Classics-Level-Book-CD/dp/0739009656/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469628208&sr=8-1&keywords=masterworks+classics

Oh, and it's never too late for some Bach. Selections from Anna Magdelena's Notebook can be found easily on IMSLP, here for instance. http://imslp.org/wiki/First_Lessons_in_Bach_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian)

Though if you're looking for something a bit easier to read, the Schirmer edition of this book is not expensive at all. Just a few bucks on Amazon.

I did some checking on Amazon and I saw a bundle that seems to include the pedal you mention here.

I've posted this a few times but I think its well worth repeating:

I am using Alfred's Adult all in one and there is a guy on YouTube that covers each lesson with good instruction and tips. Here is the link: Alfred's Video

I also hired a tutor who I meet with every two weeks, just to make sure I'm not picking up bad habits.

Amazon link to Alfred book

>modes, modulation, key changes, chord relationships,

Dynamics of Harmony was the book that was recommended by my harmony tutor in first year of university.

See here on Amazon.

>circle of fifths

There's not that much more to know about it. There's some theoretical arguments (is a IV less definitive than a V because it's furthest away?) but I wouldn't necessarily recommend much about all of this.

> understanding key signatures (like where you see double flats and stuff like that).

Double flats and sharps should never be in a key signature. They just switch. 7b is the same a 5#, so why would you use 8b instead of 4#?

I don't have interactive resources for you alas.

That's good. Getting the left hand/right hand independence is my crutch right now... It reminds me of this video I have that I've been working from here and there.... Did you use this?

https://www.amazon.com/Accelerate-Keyboard-Playing-Featuring-Limina/dp/B00076YPQC

Read Robert Greene's book Mastery. Fluency comes from mastery, and mastery is a synthesis of hours of practice and training. At the start it is always hard, especially after a 15 year break. But it is not an impossible skill and you do not need talent for this. Commit to a strict learning schedule. If you are interested in blues/jazz, then you are going to have to chords,scales, voicings, progressions, intervals etc... in all 12 keys. There are many resources out there to help. I would check out the Walk The Bass website on Jazz piano for an overview. I would also use an app like this to practice chords,scales and intervals : Piano Trainer.

Synthesia is awful and inefficient for learning piano. If you REALLY want to learn piano, try Piano Tiles 2.

According to the Google Play app store (not including all the iPhone users), over 900 million players use it, and there are 7.6 million reviews with an average of 4.5/5 stars. It's definitely the right way to learn piano.

Try out these Dr John songbooks. I bought a few of the books in this series he did in college and I loved them. Plus it comes with a CD with the Dr. talking through it and he's hilarious.

Every serious classical pianist should read this at some point. Fascinating read, and chock full of contextual information, really helpful to inform interpretation.

The secret is to search Google for "site:airbnb.com switzerland piano." Airbnb won't let you search by keyword, but you can through Google.

Here are the search results and a sample place in Switzerland with a piano.

Actually, it was a thought provoking way you worded it. Got me thinking about the differences between finger memory and audiation. Once I met Leonid Hambro. He gave what he called a command performance where members of the audience picked ticket stubs out of a hat and whoever's ticket was picked got to choose his next piece. Leonid had over 100 (!) pieces (anything you could think of) memorized and ready to perform on request.

The sheet music is a transcription from Hisaishi's solo album "Encore", and the bars in question can be heard here.

Look for open mics in your area.

Independent living centers.

Check with local piano stores for events. Also look for churches who need pianists.

See if you can find a piano teacher willing to include you in a recital.

Organize your own recital for independent musicians, using meetup.com or something.

​

Don't worry about getting any sheet music because it's impossible to predict what any particular person will like. Your SO can find pretty much any public domain classical piano music she might like at imslp or popular contemporary music at scribd and print it out in a matter of minutes.

if you do torrents, there's this DVD set that I've found to be really good. takes you from zero experience to being able to play Moondance

https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/13865399/

edit: okay, since this comment is turning out to be controversial, here's a link for if you want to purchase it legitimately

https://www.learnandmaster.com/piano/

if you do the torrent and end up enjoying it, you should buy a legitimate copy

Find a decent used electric keyboard... Make sure it has pressure sensitive keys, and if you can look for weighted keys. I think 1200's a bit much for a beginner to drop on it, when you can have one for 200-300 used on ebay. Costco currently has this keyboard on sale http://www.costco.com/.product.100123025.html?cm_sp=RichRelevance-_-categorypageHorizontalTop-_-CategoryTopProducts&cm_vc=categorypageHorizontalTop|CategoryTopProducts for 450 bucks. I've played it, it feels pretty good, it sounds pretty good and the keys are weighted.

One thing I'll caution you against is looking for an actual piano. While I'd prefer an actual piano, and they can be found on craigslist on occasion, it can get expensive very quickly. It cost my sister 700 bucks to move her upright piano into her new house (and if you move them incorrectly, the cabinet can warp and then it'll never properly tune again), and tuning can be pricey as well.

Awesome piece and playing!

Here's a transcription of this composition. It's from another, longer performance which I can't find on YT though. https://www.scribd.com/doc/18447536/Hiromi-The-Tom-and-Jerry-Show#download

Maybe you could try this website? I don't think the search is successful with your current descritpion though. Rhytm is important too.

www.musipedia.org

It's definitely more complicated than pressing the power button on your Privia and playing, but not incredibly complicated if you want to seriously get into electronic music and digital audio.

A basic set up is this:

Keyboard > USB cable > Laptop > Kontakt Player

Kontakt Player is a stand-alone software sample player. It responds to the MIDI signals triggered by the keyboard (and the pedal), and outputs the sampled audio. You won't need any additional software like a DAW, but if you want to, you can plug Kontakt directly into the DAW for recording. Native Instruments sells very nice sampled instruments of Bosendorfer, Steinway, and Yamaha grand pianos, along with some unique things like "The Giant": the largest piano in the world, Klavins 370i.

If you want to run the audio output of Kontakt or whatever DAW you use back into the Privia's speakers, you'll need to run a (1/8" to 1/4") cable from the headphone output of the laptop into the mono audio/line input of the keyboard. This is not optimal, but it works.

If you want the best sound, you'll need a separate audio interface, and preferably a pair of studio monitor speakers.

The ideal set up is:

Keyboard > USB cable > Laptop > Kontakt/DAW > Audio Interface > Studio Monitors

http://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/samplers/kontakt-5-player/

I just made a quick copy of the sheet and added how you'd normally see the rests written down, which you can find here.

The sheet as you linked it seems to be that way to get the counting across, especially when you play between both hands. The notes and counting are correct, but omitting most rests only leads to confusion.

What they mean by the 1 on _?, I have no idea.

You don't need to buy notation software. All .mus files will open perfectly fine in the free version of Finale called Finale Notepad, and it has built in MIDI export.

I recommend LilyPond. I think it makes it pretty easy to type up music. If you don't add a duration to each note (like if you want to figure out the rhythm later), each note just gets the duration of the last note which had a specified duration (e.g. "e4 d c d e e e r" is the first line of "Mary had a little lamb," where the "4" makes them quarter notes). You can easily stick notes and rests in between other notes or remove notes and simply recompile to see the new music. If the durations of notes don't fit the measures properly, the output may look a little wonky, but it will still usually compile. It can produce midi files as well as sheet music.

I played the notes in sequence (about three seconds each), recorded with a basic Tascam recorder and built-in mics, then used the spectrum analysis feature of Sound Forge. Many other programs will do something similar: Sonic Visualiser is a good one.

Nice list, I'd like to add that musescore.org is all community uploaded so you never know what you're gonna get, sometimes you'll find strange scores that are generated automatically and people should not be discouraged that they can't play them.

IMSLP is my go to, it's got tons and tons and tons of free licensed classical music from many different periods.

MuseScore has an entry method that allows you to use a digital keyboard in place of your computer's keyboard. Here's a link to their docs which explain it: https://musescore.org/en/handbook/note-input#midi-keyboard

I use and constantly suggest MuseScore. It's fully-featured and open source. It has quirks, but the learning curve is really not all that steep and it's a powerful little tool.

People like to play the music of others if you ask nicely. When you have your leadsheet, post it and ask. If it truly is a jazz lead sheet with melody and chord symbols, I would be happy to play it and record it for you myself. Just send me a PM if you don't get any takers on your post.

Good luck!

Sure, use MuseScore and a plugin like Note Names.

> **I have absolutely no interest in learning to read sheet music, so please don't suggest it.

It's hard for us not to suggest it. r/piano is a place to learn about music and about the piano. When you impose limitations on yourself (aka not wanting to learn how to read music), we're always going to encourage you to put the effort in and learn it. Many of us in r/piano have taken the 3 to 12 months it takes to learn how to read music and realize how many doors it opens. We just want to encourage others to do the same!

Cheers!

Listener Pro Wireless in Ear Monitoring System, 1000ft Long Range 2.4GHz Stereo in-Ear Audio Monitor System for Stage Performance, Lecture, Speech,Guitar (1 Transmitter 1 Receiver) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08P56R11Q/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_fabc_R8HZGQPXSMZ0YCPM4ATW?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Seem close. Pro monitor manufacturers may also have options:

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/EWIEMG4-A--sennheiser-ew-iem-g4-wireless-in-ear-monitoring-system-a-band

• I would get a lesson book, I’d recommend piano lessons level 1 by James Bastien, it’s the closest thing you’ll get to taking lessons without having to buy lessons. WP7 - Theory Lessons - Level 1 - Bastien Piano Library https://www.amazon.com/dp/0849750067/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_AP5W1DVAFKDPYJPZZK3S
• Not super familiar with simply piano but if you feel like it would help then go for it.
• Honestly in my opinion the best way to get better at sight reading is to just do it. Get some songbooks with sheet music and practice learning and playing them every day. Eventually it will become easier and you’ll get better at it.
• That depends on how much time you put into practicing. Of course everyone’s different so it’s hard to say. For me I learned bohemian rhapsody in its entirety after about a year of taking lessons.

Yep!!!!

Technical Exercises for the Piano... https://www.amazon.com/dp/0739022121?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Unfortunately is it designed to be started at the intermediate level. And it is musical notation only (disclaimer)

How’d you learn Clair de Lune without sheet music? That’s hardly “intermediate” difficulty, especially if you’re learning by ear.

Eric Satie’s Gymnopedies are great easier classical songs, and this book is loaded with great classical music in a wide range of difficulties:

The Library of Piano Classics https://www.amazon.com/dp/0825611113/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_i_GXGD04RRCWZ9W7W818P4

Also, there’s no shame in getting any of the “easy sight reading for piano” books. There’s a lot of them out there, and having good reading skills is always a nice thing to develop.

Here you go!!! I have the same digital piano and this is what I use. It’s heavy and durable plus feels good on your feet. $25

M-Audio SP 2 - Universal Sustain Pedal with Piano Style Action For MIDI Keyboards, Digital Pianos & More https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00063678K/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_5MHTBKAYEQS2YAT1WVDP?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/5519681538

Does this count?

There are a bunch of books like this one on amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Library-Piano-Classics/dp/0825611113

If you want simpler arrangements:

https://www.amazon.com/Library-Easy-Piano-Favorites/dp/082561483X

I like the steinway library of piano series too.

There's a lot of used sheet music on ebay btw.

Nobuo Uematsu (final fantasy series) has a ton of beautiful music. This book has a lot of good ones: Selections from Final Fantasy https://www.amazon.com/dp/149502976X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_-JXmzbVCWB9MX

Koji Kondo did a lot of work for Nintendo. They are shorter, catchier songs. I know Alfred's has a Zelda or Mario book for sale. I've also seen a piano book for a Zelda symphony. All of these are on Amazon.

Don't know if this gives you much information, but these are my favorite video game composers.

I picked up a Yamaha P45 in the States for $450. Here's the Amazon exclusive model (they're identical) for $400 US: https://www.amazon.com/Yamaha-Weighted-Digital-Sustain-Amazon-Exclusive/dp/B01LY8OUQW

congrats on your purchase. I don't know if you bought just the keyboard or the stand included. The stand is supposed to come as a kit with the pedals on it. I suppose you can just buy a single sustain pedal, but they usually come with a 1/4" jack and casio stands take a 3 or 4 pin connector type thing. If you have the stand already you can buy and attach this unit https://www.amazon.com/Casio-SP33-Keyboard-Pedals-CGP-700/dp/B0094P4F4O/

if u don't have the stand at all, you want a Privia stand for your model, ideally, but to me the privias all look the same and I see on amazon the CS stands fit some older privias as well. You can probably go to your local music store and ask if the 720 is shaped or built differently from the 330 to prevent the fitting onto older stands

There is also the Yamaha P45. The P115 does sound a little better but the Yamaha P45 has the same action found in the P115 which is, IMO, the most important factor for a beginner. The Yamaha P71 sold by Amazon is identical to the Yamaha P45.

In addition to the cups, you can (and should) put down pressed wool discs for the cups to sit on. They provide more floor protection, but importantly, they reduce mechano-acoustic coupling of the piano into the hardwood floor. On hardwood and in a corner, your piano is positioned to create loud resonances especially in the lower registers that may not sound great. See: Amazon, Steve's Piano Service (about 2/3 down the page)

i bought the official sheet music on amazon. you're probably looking for it for free which i totally get but it's a decent book i highly recommend!

RD-64 has 64 keys and is weighted.

Bonus is that the sound isn't sampled, so it's not like a keyboard where you press the note, and a pre-recorded sound gets played. You can find it on Amazon too, and the reviews seem good.

I'm pretty sure iPhones can connect to a keyboard with an adapter so that you can use garageband (hence recording too I suppose). No idea with android.

EDIT: On iphones you use this

I've started recently on the piano too (I do have an A Level in Music though so I'm not totally in the dark about music) however unless it's particularly relevant to the piano (perhaps a more experienced pianist can chime in) the Circle of fifths seems a particularly useless thing to learn about for a beginner who just needs to play to start with precisely so they dont get disheartened like you have.

It may not help because I cut a lot of corners in my piano study because I literally only have any interest in playing a few jazz and blues pieces but I am using this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Never-Late-Play-Piano-Tutor/dp/0571520707

I diligently worked through the first 4 or 5 chapters before I couldn't face playing anymore minuets and classical pieces so skipped ahead to the, albeit, harder blues pieces but I don't mind putting the hours in on music I enjoy hearing because at the end of the day why else do we take up instruments if not to make music we enjoy hearing.

I appreciate I've not really offered any advice but perhaps if you're only learning the piano for fun then take a step back, maybe give the lessons a break for a bit and work out what you want to play and see if you can find a beginner book in that style to dip your foot in. Then it means you'll have a better understanding of what you want a teacher to teach you if you ever decide you can't get where you want without a teacher.

You might like 2014 my Android app, ChordCalc, which does this in real time as you play the notes and is free and open source under the GPL! It also always offers 12 recommendations for each chord, meaning no possible chord is really missed. I found it a little odd that playing C, E, G, Am7 wasn't recommended as a possibility... You can see how my algorithm makes these recommendations on its GitHub if you wanna fork it!

Functional ear training. Instead of learning to recognize an interval out of context, learn to recognize where individual notes fall relative to the key. You could start singing your favourite tunes in movable do solfege, or use a training app such as Functional Ear Trainer for Android.

To me it's so much easier that way, and I can actually see progress when training that. Never saw any progress with just drilling intervals despite singing and playing quite a lot.

And also it's more useful when playing by ear: Relying on intervals is hard because then you need to get everything correct or your entire piece gets shifted and you won't realize where you made the mistake and why it sounds so wrong. If you think of function instead, then once you figure out the key of a piece, you can start finding each part separately, so if you make an error (or some parts are hard and you want to skip them), you can just continue from the next phrase and get back on track.

On a more anecdotal note: Seriously. Interval training sucks. Functional ear training is the key to understanding what you hear.

I've been practising reading sheet music myself, i've used an app for that (it's available in english too). Basically it's a randomized quiz to quickly recognize notes and you get points based on how fast you recognize it and play the correct note. Gamefication works for me :) https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.melvil.noten

If there is no way for you to get a teacher you can use apps like Yousician as an alternative way. It teaches you to play by sheet music step by step with classical and/or pop music. It does need a subscription but you can test it for a week and its significantly cheaper than getting a teacher.

Watch out for your posture though and check on it regularly, as you don't have a teacher that can spot mistakes in your bench, body, arm or hand position. Here's a video on that. Posture is extremely important because ignoring it leads to bad, stiff playing, early fatigue and after a while possibly injury.

On sight reading: if you can play through a given passage/piece at a consistent tempo by reading the sheet, you're sight reading it. It doesn't really matter how slow you go, so long as the tempo is consistent. For a total beginner, this sort of sight reading is very difficult, and I wouldn't worry too much about it. What I'd do instead is focus on improving your note recognition and your sense of rhythm. To improve the former, get an app (like this) or some flashcards to drill your recognition of notes as they appear on both clefs. To improve your sense of rhythm, take the pieces that you've been trying to sight read, and just focus on tapping out the rhythm with your left and right hand. Make sure you count yourself in and stick to a steady tempo. After a few days of doing this, you should feel more confident going forward.

On music theory: knowledge of at least basic theory definitely helps. This website has some very useful introductory lessons. In particular, having a good understanding of intervals will help your sight reading a lot: it's faster to spot an interval between two notes than it is to consciously identify both notes and work out the distance between them.

It seems there is some interest in this tool I built so I republished them for iOS and Android.

It is currently available iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chord-cycler/id1065418744?ls=1&mt=8

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=media.michaelkay.chordcycler

This is a specialized practice tool, and I built it on my own time. The User Experience is optimized to get in and out of chord sets as fast as possible so functionality was the first priority. The programmer will probably take some time to figure out.

The presets allow you to select a key (F) and then select a set of chords by function (IMaj7, II-7, III-7, IVMaj7, V7, VI-7, VII-7b5 would give you FMaj7, G-7, A-7, BbMaj7, C7, D-7, E-7b5 as the set).

The "i" button will give you names and functions of each of the notes in the chord.

The chord spellings derive from the Berklee Method.

Thanks for the interest and feedback is welcome on this product.

I find it (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Yamaha-P155-P-155-Digital-Piano-KEY-ESSENTIALS-Bundle-/230717230005?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35b7d18bb5#ht_4280wt_952). I think it's a good one, the problem is, I live in France and they don't deliver here :( And here, the price is at 1000€, (1300$), hence I can't afford it.

Jamey Aebersold's play-a-long materials have started thousands of musicians on their way.

book 1

Also Coursera has a free course "Jazz Improvisation" hosted by the great Gary Burton. I've taken it and it was great.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/jazz-improvisation

I can recommend Beethoven: 13 of His Most Popular Pieces, Alfred Masterwork Edition.

https://www.amazon.es/Beethoven-Popular-Pieces-Masterwork-Editions/dp/0739003984/

Stays flat on the piano, easy to read and play from, with good fingerings.

It's a good series overall and a respectable publisher. If you want to build your sheet music collection, I am a big fan of this publisher's "Introduction to..." series - besides a progressive selection of pieces, they offer great notes and commentary. My top five favorites:

J. S. Bach: An Introduction to His Keyboard Music

Scarlatti: An Introduction to His Keyboard Works

Haydn: An Introduction to His Keyboard Works

Chopin: An Introduction to His Piano Works

Debussy: An Introduction to His Piano Music

One of my favorite songs to play (and listen to) is "I am the Doctor" from the score of Doctor Who, writtby Murray Gold. I'll find you the link, brb. Doing this from my phone so I hope it works: sheet music https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3KS3cL9b8WmODIyOTgzNzItYzMzNS00YWJjLTk3YzItMGY1ZTRlZmQzNzZl/edit?pli=1

Youtube link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt6Uh8y21ps