Q. I'm in my thirties and I play guitar. I just got a 61 key electronic keyboard for the holidays. I need suggestions for good beginning piano books appropriate for my age. The book stores and Amazon have nothing. I guess that I need to go to a community college bookstore or something.
A. What kind of music do you like? There are two routes you can take: Classical or Contemporary.
Classical although more complex and sophisticated is in my opinion easier to learn ( at first) becase it is more detailed and self explanatory. Once you learn how to read, sheet music. You can pick up a work by chopin and little by little start playing (poor technique though, but audible).
Contemporary styles are very very difficult to teach yourself (I speak from experience). You have to decipher chord symbols, study rhythms, harmonize melodies, memorize chord progressions, hand inversions, all instantaneously if you want it too sound good.
Honestly, a teacher is your best bet. Believe me you'll knock yrs off your quest.
But if your like me, who wants to be self taught: Let me recommend:
Piano for dummies (good introductory stuff)
Contemporary music theory (lv 1,2)
" " " " ear training
Pop piano book
all by mark harrison (awesome books!)
Jamie aebersold books (there are alot, but its play along, his methods have been proven, and you can start IMPROVISING the standards and classic jazz tunes.
For classical music:
I don't know any good books honestly, ther are so many methods out there. Personally once I learned how to read music (youd be surprise how quickly you can pick it up) all you have to do is get the sheet music for whatever it is you want to play (bach, beethoven, mozart, chopin, whatever)
let them be your teachers, everything is in the sheet music.
Anyway good luck!
BTW, you got a good headstart, since you already play the guitar. You have a good grasp of chords and progressions. This will aid you in piano. That 61 keyboard you got is good for the beginning but you should consider after awhile, if your still into it to at least getting a 76 keyboard one. That way you'll avoid frustrations when you see that there aren't enough keys to play a piece that you started (like moonlight sonata).
Can someone help me understand tritones on the piano?
Q. I know you use tritones or fill in chords in between the original chord progression but how do you know which tritone or fill in chord to use in that key or chord progression? And how do I play the right tritone for a passing chord or any chord for that matter?
A. if you're looking to add more passing chords between the original changes of a piece, there are lots of ways of going about it. adding a secondary dominant chord or a secondary II V are popular method.
let's say the original progression is a bar each of Cmaj7 Fmaj7 G7, for extra passing chords, one could add secondary dominant chords (Cmaj7 C7 Fmaj7 D7 G7) or secondary II V progressions (Cmaj7 Gmi7 C7 Fmaj7 Ami7 D7 G7) but the real dictating factor in what you can get away with is whether the melody works over the new chords though, one can add extensions/augmentations to chords to help the melody fit. A tritone substitution is another popular way to alter progressions. wherever there is a dominant chord a tritone substition can be made, assuming the melody can be accomodated. the most important two notes in a dominant chord (aka the V chord) are the 3rd and 7th (in G7, B and F) because they move by semitone (considered a strong resolution) to the 3rd and 1st of the Key Centre. if you use the dominant chord a tritone away, you maintain those strong semitone resolutions, except the bass movement is now also a semitone resolution. In C Major, the V chord (G7) can be substituted with Db7, because it also has F and B as it's 3rd and 7th and the Db resolving to C adds and extra bit of chromatic resolution which can be tasty in the right circumstances. The Berklee Press Makes some great books about this stuff, there is really an endless amount of ways to reharmonize in, it's an exciting topic to delve into and to hear well executed.
How do I develop a piano composition?
Q. I can come up w/ a short melody or chord changes, but I have trouble developing it into a whole song.
A. I'm not much of a composer, but I'm beginning to dabble, and I've come to learn a few things, so I'll try to answer this one...
Composing is actually not that difficult if you plan it out properly. At least, that's how it works for me. Before I actually write a melody, I will plan out what form I want it to have -- like strophic, freeform, etc. (my terminology may be sceewompus, but I'm sick so pleh). I usually draw a big line and split it up into sections, naming the first section "A." This is usually the main melody. Then you can have a B section, a C section, and then finally resolve back to A. Or something like that, I don't know what you'd call that using form and analysis terminology, I haven't really gotten that far yet. Anyway, after mapping out the "timeline" you could probably decide where you want your "climax" to be, let's say it's in the C section.
Alright, so you've got a basic melody, but what about the other B and C sections? I usually figure out what chord progressions I want to use in the other sections, and build a melody off of that (that's what I usually do, as I'm a little more interested in cool chord progressions that actual melody lines). Key changes are always fun to do and there are a million ways to do a key change and switch up the sections, like moving into the relative minor and then back to major, using subdominants to move the melody into the dominant, etc. etc.. But anyway, there's usually a small few-measure introduction to different sections, or at least an intro at the beginning.
Yeah so... I'm no virtuoso, and I'm sure Mozart never had to do this, but I'm a huge music theory geek, so if you already knew all this stuff, feel free to disregard my music student geek-out.
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Title : Any suggestions for good beginning piano books?
Description : Q. I'm in my thirties and I play guitar. I just got a 61 key electronic keyboard for the holidays. I need suggestions for good beginnin...