Q. I'm 25 years old. I've learned piano for a couple of years. I wasn't started it when I was a kid. I tried to play some stretching exercise before. Such as, Hanon No. 19 and 20. But it seems doesn't have any improvements. I really would like to know how can I improve the problems of stretching. Thank you! I really appreciated.
A. Increasing your octave technique will take dedication and patience, especially if you didn't start when you were a kid. I would continue with the Hanon excercises, but make sure that you aren't playing past when it starts hurting, because that's when injury happens!
I would begin by always relaxing any tension in your neck, shoulders, forearms, and wrists before you sit down to practice. (Remember, increasing agility and flexibility WILL take months and months of practice - even music majors who practice constantly are always working on overcoming technique difficulties) I would try slowly relaxing your neck, rolling your shoulders, and just loosely shaking your arms from your shoulders - let gravity release any tension in your arms. If you are trying to warm up or stretch any muscles with tension, you'll just hurt yourself.
Once you are loose, I would work with blocked chords first - try inversions of the major and minor triads (C-E-G, E-G-C, G-C-E) and eventually add the upper root (for example, play blocked C-E-G-C, E-G-C-E, G-C-E-G) so that you are playing an octave, but it's easier on your hands because you are supporting the stretch with your middle fingers. Do everything slowly - there is no need for speed, as that just builds tension and accomplishes nothing.
Another thing that might help is to "drop" into the notes. Hold your wrist above the piano and drop into a blocked 5th - rather than push the keys. If you can naturally drop into that 5th without too much stretching or tension, then try a 6th, 7th, and finally an 8th. Do everything in increments - never push past pain! Talk to your teacher about it too, since he/she can watch your hand position while you play and give you some specific critiques/corrections.
Hope this helps!
Is there an easy method to switch chords from guitar to piano?
Q. So I've been playing the guitar for a few years and, I can play quite a few songs. I play them just by chords mostly but picking here and there. But anyway I was wondering if there is a way to transfer those chords over to piano. The chord name remains the same correct? But what about if I have a capo on the guitar on the 3rd or 5th fret, then how do the chords transfer?
Thank you
A. The EASY ANSWER would be to get a piano chord chart book, look up the guitar chords you want to play on the piano in the index, and play away. But did you ever hear the adage: "Feed a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat forever"? Well, read on....here's the honest to goodness truthful answer to your question:
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Do you know how chords are constructed? Knowing this is the key. It doesn't matter where the capo is on the guitar: if you are playing a Cm7 chord, the notes in that chord are going to be the same no matter WHERE you play the chord on the guitar. It doesn't matter if you play an open chord, a barre chord, an inverted chord, etc. A Cm7 is always going to include the following notes:
C-E-G-Bb no matter where you play it.
Chords are built from scales. Scales are made of intervals.
It would be easy for you to play the chords you play on the guitar on the piano if you understood music theory a bit, especially intervals and scales.
You should also learn what intervals of which scales create what chords (sound confusing? This is a year of theory, minimum.).
Here are the intervals that create basic chords:
Major: 1-3-5
minor: 1-b3-5
dominant 7th: 1-3-5-b7
MAJOR 7th: 1-3-5-7
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All you need to know is what intervals / specific notes make up each chord; where those notes are located on an instrument and the proper way to hold the chord, and you're set. It doesn~t matter what instrument you are playing-- a Cm7 is a Cm7 is a Cm7.
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Thatms music theory. It's all formulas and patterns. It seems impossible to comprehend in the beginning, but once you catch on and grasp where chords come from, a whole new musical world will open up for you.
I taught myself piano because I understood the theory behind chord construction....even before I taught myself to read and write music. You can do it to! :)
What exactly is a chord(instrument, piano) and how do I learn them all?
Q. I don't know if this is right or not but is a chord just a bunch of keys pushed together at the same time? And how do I learn them all, practice is one thing but I looked it up and there is like a hundred of them. Do I have to memorize every one of those along with the names?
A. There are as many chords as there are combinations of notes - so pretty much an infinite number. Fortunately the chords we use every day follow rules.
There are two basic types of chords, major and minor. All major chords have the same intervals (more on that in a minute) as do all minor chords. You only need to learn the intervals to begin with; once you start playing the chords you'll simply remember what each one sounds like, and what notes you need to play.
Intervals are the distance between one note and another. On a piano the distance from one note to the next note-but-one is a tone. The distance from one note to the very next note is a semitone (this is true for all instruments, but it's easy to see on the piano). To form a major chord we take a note (say C) then we go up 2 tones. So take C and miss one note and we have D - one tone. Then from D we miss a note and take the next - E. Therefore the first two notes of a major triad of C are C and E. Next we go up a tone and a semitone. A tone from E is F#, a semitone from F# is G. Therefore the major triad of C has the notes C E and G.
This is the way to find out the notes in ALL major triads.
To find out minor triads we firstly go up a tone and a half, and then 2 tones. So if we're in C we go up a tone and a half (one tone = D + 1/2 = Eb) and then up 2 tones from there (1 tone = F 2 tones = G). Therefore the notes of a C minor triad are C Eb and G.
The thing about triads is it doesn't matter what order we put the notes in. A C major chord only has to have the notes C E and G in it; the order isn't important. So we could have E G C, G C E etc.
As far as learning the chords goes I would suggest working out the notes in each major and minor triad (you could also look it up, but working it out will help you understand WHY it works) and then playing them all, so start with a triad of C, then Db, then D etc.
There are a LOT more chords, but they also follow rules - and there are only a few (about 100 or so) chords which are really used often, and most of them are simply the same but with one note different. I have been playing the piano for 15 years and playing jazz piano for about 7 and I still don't know ALL the chords off the top of my head!
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Title : How to play an octave well in the piano?
Description : Q. I'm 25 years old. I've learned piano for a couple of years. I wasn't started it when I was a kid. I tried to play some stre...