Q.
A. CHOOSING A PIANO TEACHER
WHAT TO LOOK FOR
The most important concepts you want to learn from a piano teacher:
HOW TO PRACTICE. One of the questions teachers are constantly asked during interviews with new students is âHow much should I practice?â Itâs not how much you practice, but how well you practice that really counts. A student playing a piece of music over and over again making the same mistakes is hardly getting more than increased circulation in their fingers. The student who works over small sections, perfecting the sound of each phrase while studying their own physical motions, is improving their playing of a particular piece as well as improving their overall musicianship. Practicing is work, but if organized properly, it is enjoyable and soulfully rewarding.
PROFICIENT SIGHT READING (the strange term used to describe playing from printed music) is one of the most important skills a musician develops. First, it allows one to perform unknown music with a decent degree of fluency â normally, such a performance can be brought off proficiently if the music requires less than the technical level the pianist has attained. Second, it makes the work of learning a new piece immensely easier.
DEVELOP A WORKING KNOWLEDGE OF THEORY. Integrating theoretical concepts relevant to the music being studied is essential to musicianship. Scales and chords, which are the foundation of music theory, must not be taught as isolated exercises. Balanced teaching includes introducing each element of theory as it becomes needed to help a studentâs understanding of how music is put together.
Many âclassically trainedâ musicians are notorious for lacking an understanding of theory due to training not received. For the most part, they are typists who can only play from the printed page in front of them, maybe with feeling, but without any knowledge of why the notes sound like music. Ironically, many classical only piano teachers degrade rock and roll musicians, but pale by comparison when it comes to playing their instrument from a knowledge of theory rather than from reading sequences of notes.
MEMORIZING a piece of music and making it part of you is the goal almost every musician has towards a composition they love. The good teacher follows a comprehensive procedure for solid memorization: building a base of theory through scale recognition and chord progressions; teaching the steps and methods of memorizing; and allowing the student to experience how their ability to play by ear is developing as they bring the physical and intellectual elements together.
CONCEPTS THAT GO BEYOND WHAT IS ON THE PRINTED PAGE â there are many qualities about musical sounds that are too subtle to be communicated properly in symbols, or properties of music that composers or editors leave off the score. One example is the layering of simultaneous musical lines, so that the melody is louder than the low (quieter) and middle (quietest) voices. The growth of a musician is facilitated by teaching them that there is more to creating music than playing the right notes. Getting to the spiritual core of a music composition, whether it be classical,
jazz or popular, requires developing a range of physical and intellectual skills. One of the greatest joys of teaching is experiencing that first time a student changes from a player of notes into a musician. The hours of struggling finally pay off for them. They suddenly find, while playing a piece they have practiced diligently, that they hear the inside of the music.
Neil Miller, author of The Piano Lessons Book
Enter in Amazon.com search: Neil Miller Piano Lessons Book
Ear-training exercises for piano, guitar, and bass?
Q. I play other instruments too by the way :p I often have a riff or melody in my head that I can't figure out how to play on the instrument. I have some trouble with chord progressions too. Can anybody help me develop my ears so when I hear a melody, I can figure it out? Thanks in advance
A. I've published a reasonably comprehensive list of ear training software and links at:
http://www.instinctify.com/tour/eartrainingsoftware.php
Hope it's useful.
If anyone notices an omission, I'd be only to happy to add it.
AndyT
How to transcribe lyrics to the piano?
Q. I know how to play the piano and have lately wrote some lyrics. But, I need help. How do you transpose lyrics into a piano song. I have picked E Major as my key.
My chord progression is: E - G# - B - A
Could anyone help me, I'm stuck?
A. While there are no rules, there are premises, fundamental ideas on how it works best, which have been written about and are helpful.
Do yourself a very big favor, and purchase a Harvard dictionary of music and music terms, available in a low cost paperback edition. You are clearly working on your own, and if you looked up transpose, for example, you would find it does not at all apply to SETTING text to music.
Also look up Prosody, which is the subject best for you to learn something of if you are to set words to music.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosody
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosody_(linguistics)
Since you are doing this so on your own, finding out what prosody is, as a general concept, will already be a great help in how to think about the problem in front of you.
I am certain there are either articles or books, or a chapter of a book, dedicated to Prosody as it relates to the craft of setting words to music. I leave it to you to research that.
For a good beginning, go through some exercise in setting text to a simple melodic line, without adding chords or any other kind of accompaniment. Setting both words and line in a manner closer to personal daily speech, with pauses (rests) and not trying to fit it into a metric verse format, while avoiding convential pop song formats, will give you that much better an understanding of how to effectively but it into the more conventional metric forms as used in popular song.
I suggest some nursery rhymes or short poems for children. If there is a tune associated with the nursery rhyme, as is often the case, take the text, forget the old tune, and write a new one for it. Setting prose, unrhymed and not metric text, is also a great and informative exercise. Again, concentrate only on words and musical line, without accompaniment.
The direct experiences will give you a much better idea how it works, the exercises should be short, which allows your beginning and ending it quickly so you can go to another for further practice.
Since your project is likely to come out less well and / or take much longer unless you have some prior experience, that series of short exercises is a good preliminary work prior your directly attempting a moderate length pop song, the practice giving you a much better chance for 'success' when you start to work on your song.
At least Prosody will give you some very worthwhile 'generalities,' and help you in understanding how to think about the problem (In one regard, making art is solving problems you have set up for yourself.)
With little or no background or experience, other generalities from the most well-intended contributor will offer you very little in the way of concrete guidance.
Best regards.
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Title : I want to learn how to play piano. What composers should I learn?
Description : Q. A. CHOOSING A PIANO TEACHER WHAT TO LOOK FOR The most important concepts you want to learn from a piano teacher: HOW TO PRACTICE. One o...