Q. I'm looking for songs to learn on piano to accompany myself singing. I already know a few ("Boston" by Augustana, "Speechless" by Lady GaGa, and a couple others), but I'd like to expand what I know.
Suggestions are welcome but please try to include a link to chords, a YouTube tutorial, sheet music, or something like that. Thank you!
A. If you want something for an audition piece then I recomend dream a little dream of me. It's a quality audition piece to have, especially as a back up because it's so flexible you can take in to consideration they said about you first piece and change it. (I know you didn't ask about auditions)
It is also really good that's it's flexible in talent as well you can sing it plainly or you can get creative and make it really bluesy and Jazzy and get some good vocal expression in there.
here's the sheet music
http://www.easy-share.com/1910357398/mamas_and_the_papas--dream_a_little_dream_of_me.pdf
here's the youtube tutorial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYkpueLIA4c
and here's the most popular version along with lyrics just incase you don't know the song, although I am sure you'll at least recognise it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_070zWcEuk
If you want something to perform or just to have fun with then I would say sweet child of mine, the guns and roses version, everyone knows the song and most people love it
sheet music here
http://www.abcmusic.net/download/free-sheet-music/237/guns-n-roses/sweet-child-o%27-mine.aspx
finally if you want a real challenge singing wise then I would say sweetest dream areo smith there's so many different versions on the paino from really simple to it's just the basic tune to the complicated full version but the singing side of it is hard to master but can be done by anyone with a good range
should I take piano lessons before learning guitar?
Q. I want to be musically inclined and learn how to play guitar. However, I've been told that it's best to take piano lessons first, because if you can play the piano you can play anything. I would be taking the lessons at my college. What is everyone's input on that?
A. You should play the instrument you like the most or you will become bored and quit like 90% of the people who try to learn an instrument. It's not easy and you're going to have to enjoy your progress and have a real desire to go on. You should also get the best quality instrument you can possibly afford. If it doesn't sound good or is a pain to play... you'll quit. This is the truest and most important thing to consider IMHO.
Learning to sight-read music can help you with any instrument and give you a good background. But guitar requires a completely different strength, dexterity and technique to be built up over time. Finding notes and chords on a guitar is completely different than finding them on a piano. Learning to convert written music to keys on a piano by habit can actually get in the way if you try to change instruments.
Also... If you end up with a teacher who will only teach at the speed you can learn to sight-read... find somebody else. Some famous guitar players can't even do it. It takes a long time and there are other things you could be learning and playing at the same time. Chords, scales, etc... This will keep you more interested and you'll be able to start playing actual songs much more quickly. You'll start to develop different playing techniques and hand dexterity sooner...
I would take what you heard with a grain of salt. Many people who really master an instrument start playing that instrument at an early age.
Picking parts out of music with your ears has nothing to do with playing piano. That's in your head. You learn how to do it as try to learn an instrument and try to pick out the parts for your instrument in songs... figure out how they're playing them... The more you listen to music that way... the better you get at it. When you learn more about how to play your instrument... what you hear in music makes even more sense to you and you can copy songs by ear rather easily. Some people practice and develop this skill and some people don't. But, it has nothing to do with what particular instrument you learn how to play. Any manual dexterity you build on the piano would do you little good on the guitar. That's like saying if you learn to juggle you can type. It's two totally different things... Quickly finding notes and chords on a guitar and playing them cleanly is something you're only going to develop by practicing and practicing GUITAR. I've seen very good piano players struggle through 3 chord folk songs with several second pauses between chord changes on my guitar... lol.
What is the hardest musical instrument to play and learn to play & understand how to play?
Q. I would say the piano is one of them.
A. Every instrument is difficult. Even the simplest of things like a frame drum or penny whistle can be difficult. But I think one of the most difficult to learn is the uilleann pipes. Liam O'Flynn, one of the great pipers, once said, "The old pipers used to say that it takes twenty-one years to make a piper: seven years of learning, seven years of practicing and seven years of playing." It's rather accurate.
This answer would vary from person to person, because it depends on what you would label "hard".
For example, learning to play guitar is very hard a person's fingers and will quite likely even make a person's fingers bleed. All beginning guitar players get blisters, and then they get calluses. Some guitar chords (especially barre chords) can cause a lot of pain to the wrist. Therefore, this instrument is sometimes considered "hard to play". By this definition, piano would seem really easy, because pianists simply press down keys painlessly. However, on the other hand, pianists have to learn a lot of complicated music theory, while most guitarists don't learn any of that. Piano is usually much, much more intellectually challenging. You have to be smart to play piano, but not so much to play guitar. Because of the knowledge necessary to play the piano, it is sometimes considered "hard to play". I have actually heard guitarists say, "I would never learn piano, because the music theory makes it too hard." And I have heard pianists say they would never learn guitar because it's too painful.
As you can see, it really does depend on the individual person to decide which instruments are hard. What's hard for one person might be easy for the next, and vise versa.
In reference to other instruments, the double reed family(bassoon, contrabassoon, oboe, english horn) consists of some very difficult instruments. These instruments use what is called a double reed and often these reeds are constructed by the actual player. These instruments are found to be hard because all of the preporation required before even being able to play the instrument. The art of reed making takes years of practice and is a very delicate and tedious process. On top of that the reeds are very sensitive to the enviornment, often completly changing temperment with the altitude, humidity, and temperature. Once getting past all of the troubles of the reed, the actual instruments pose various unique difficulties. On the bassoon the left tumb is in charge of pressing 9 different keys, some of these just being one at a time or sometimes in combinations up to four. The right thumb is in charge of another four keys. Unlike any other wind instrument, the bassoon has keys that are not actually intended to be held down the full duration of the note. These keys are only flicked at the very beginning of the note just as the tongue touches the reed. The coordination for this is quite hard to master. The contrabassoon has a lot of the same technique reguirement of the bassoon just on a larger scale. Large hands are usually required for this instrument. A fact that remains true to all of the double reeds is the difficulty of tuning. With incorrect scraping of a reed the intonation of the instrument can be completly thrown off. This also holds true to the instruments quality of sound which is also greatly affected by the reed. On top of this the embachure (placemant and pressure applied by the mouth) plays a very crucial role to both of these aspects. Only after mastering all of these key points can one begin to effectively learn one of these instruments. The double reed instruments truely require much patience and skill to master.
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Title : What are good songs to accompany myself with on piano?
Description : Q. I'm looking for songs to learn on piano to accompany myself singing. I already know a few ("Boston" by Augustana, "Sp...