Q. I need help learning how to move my hands across all of the keys on a piano (well....keyboard). Right now I can use both hands as long as its the same note, I know the chords (none that begin with a sharp or flat, however), and I *think* the positioning is regular. Thumb on C, pinkie on G...yeah. I'm gonna look for some old music that I have sitting around when I played a tenor sax to learn how to read sheet music, up until now its all been by ear.
Also, if I should start now, some help with using my left hand for different notes would be nice. I can play a mean Mary Had a Little Lamb with both hands at the same time, but the way Im doing it is "thumb=pinkie, index=ring" which....is not good I think.
A. You've got a good start. Thumb on C & pinkie on G is good. Try adding your middle finger on E.
Now play each chord chromatically, raising each finger a half step together. Eg. C-E-G, C#-F-G#, D-F#-A... Start out really slow and increase the tempo as you feel more comfortable.
As for the the chords with sharps and flats: They have the same spacing as the non-chromatic chords.
C - (4 half steps) - E - (3 half steps) - G
A half step is the distance between two consecutive notes, ex. C => C# is a half step.
So if you are on C and going to C#, all you have to do is bring each finger up a half step. The same is true going down. Look out for B-flat and B, because they feel different in your hand then any others, but the same rules still apply. Once your hand feel comfortable with this then try jumping from one chord to another. Ex. C chord, F chord, G chord. You can make up your own.
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Another thing you can do is change the root of the chord. Ex. Play a C chord, only start with E, then play G, then C. This is called an inversion. There is a particularly good progression that you can use that is common in many songs.
Play a regular C chord.
Bring your middle finger up a half step to F and your pinkie up a full step to A. (This is an inverted F chord)
Play a regular C chord again.
Bring your thumb down a half step to B, take away your middle finger and play F with your ring finger (This is an G7 chord - don't worry about the 7 for now).
Play a regular C chord again.
Congratulations! You just played a chord progression!
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As for Mary and her lamb. Put your thumb on C and (not pushing the key) keep it there. Now, let's number your fingers so this will be simple (This numbering is used regularly in piano, so keep this in mind as you explore your piano skills further).
In right hand:
Thumb = 1
Pointer = 2
Middle = 3
Ring = 4
Pinkie = 5
(In the left hand the same numbers are used for the same fingers, but because your thumb is on the right of your hand instead of the left, your 12345 becomes 54321 (make sense?). )
So: Using what you just learned, with your right hand place 1 on C, 2 on D, 3 on E, 4 on F, and 5 on G.
Now play the following:
3 2 1 2 3 3 3
Mary had a little lamb
2 2 2 - 3 5 5
little lamb - little lamb
3 2 1 2 3 3 3 3 2 2 3 2 1
Mary had a little lamb whose fleece was white as snow.
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All of these examples can be used with any chord. My examples are in the key of C because that's the easiest to read. Try to take a few minutes every day to practice these exercises. It's even better if you can do 10 minutes seperately several times a day. Eventually you may want to get a piano teacher (or a friend who plays piano) to help you further, but this should give you a good start. Good luck!
HELP: Violin Sheet Music to Chords?
Q. Hello. Can someone help me to translate a violin sheet music to chords (like: Em G A Bb).
Any of this songs will do.I also have provided the link for the sheet music to be converted.
Tattooed on my Mind - d'sound
Runaway - The Corrs
http://www.thecorrsclub.com/references/sheetmusic/p/violin/Runaway.pdf
Tuyo Nang Damdamin - Silent Sanctuary
First Love - Utada Hikaru
http://www.violinsheets.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Utada%20Hikaru-First%20Love-ViolinSheets.pdf
or any popular songs. I hope someone can help me with this
A. I'll do one of them: consulting the original version of "Runaway" by The Corrs shows that the chord underlying the fiddle solo is really just F the whole time, with the 3rd occasionally raised (what a guitarist would call "F sus").
You can't always guess the chords given only sheet music of the melody. You can make up chords to fit that melody, but they may or may not be those used by the original. (And making up chords, or "harmonizing" a melody is not a quick thing to learn! You'd need more than the ability to read music; you'd also need a basic understanding of music theory. On the other hand, writing down the chords used in a recording is pretty easy for a musician with a good ear, including non-classical guitarists and pianists. Just play it for one. (I presume the reason you want chords is in order to play with a chordal instrument like a guitar or piano. If the other musician isn't good enough to figure the chords out from the recording, just have a more advanced musician write them down.)
Questions about the piano pedals.?
Q. Can someone explain what the 3 pedals do? I know the right sustains, but which one makes it more quiet? Some people say its the far left and some say its the middle? Please help. My main goal is to play quieter.
Thank you
A. The soft pedal or "una corda" pedal is placed leftmost in the row of pedals. Soft pedals on some pianos are designed to lock in place, sustaining the effect without the musician applying constant pressure to the pedal. On a grand piano, this pedal shifts the whole action including the keyboard slightly to the right, so that hammers that normally strike all three of the strings for a note strike only two of them. This softens the note and modifies its tone quality. For notation of the soft pedal in printed music, see List of musical terminology.
The soft pedal was invented by Cristofori and appeared on the very earliest pianos. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the soft pedal was more effective than today, since pianos were manufactured with only two strings per note, and just one string per note would therefore be struck. This is the origin of the name "una corda", Italian for "one string". In modern pianos, there are three strings per note (except for lower notes, which have two, and the very lowest, which have only one). The strings are spaced too closely to permit a true "una corda" effect â if shifted far enough to strike just one string on one note, the hammers would hit the string of the next note.
On many upright pianos, the soft pedal instead operates a mechanism that moves the hammers' resting position closer to the strings. Since the hammers have less distance to travel this reduces the speed at which they hit the strings, and hence the volume is reduced, but this does not change tone quality in the way the "una corda" pedal does on a grand piano. When this pedal is depressed on the vertical piano, it changes the action creating what is called "lost motion": that is, the jack is now further from the hammer butt, and now has to travel further to engage the hammer. This lost motion changes the touch and feel of the playing action, and as a result many pianists never use the soft pedal on a vertical piano. Some of the best old vertical pianos in the early 20th century used what is called a "lost motion compensator", a mechanism that would remove the lost motion when the soft pedal was depressed. Since the grand piano soft pedal simply shifts the action sideways, it does not change the touch and feel of the action, another advantage grand pianos have over vertical pianos.
Digital pianos often use this leftmost pedal to alter the sound to that of another instrument such as the organ, guitar, or harmonica. Pitch bends, Leslie speaker on and off, vibrato modulation, etc.
[edit] Sostenuto pedal
The sostenuto pedal or "middle pedal" keeps raised any damper that was already raised at the moment the pedal is depressed. This makes it possible to sustain some notes (by depressing the sostenuto pedal before notes to be sustained are released) while the player's hands are free to play other notes. This can be useful for musical passages with pedal points and other otherwise tricky or impossible situations. The sostenuto pedal was the last of the three pedals to be added to the standard piano, and to this day many pianos are not equipped with a sostenuto pedal. Almost all modern grand pianos have a sostenuto pedal, while many upright pianos do not.
A number of 20th-century works specifically call for the use of the sostenuto pedal, for example Olivier Messiaen's Catalogue d'oiseaux. This pedal is often unused in modern music.
[edit] Bass sustain pedal
On many vertical pianos, the middle pedal is merely a bass sustain pedal: that is, when it is depressed, the dampers lift off the strings only in the bass section. This pedal would be used only when a pianist needs to sustain a single bass note or chord over many measures, while playing the melody in the treble section. Given its limited use musically, few pianists even bother to use this pedal. Some grand pianos use this bass sustain type pedal rather than using a true sostenuto pedal, often an indication the grand piano was cheaply made (although some of the better old grand pianos also had this pedal).
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