Hot answers tagged piano
17
A skilled sight-reader surely can (except if the piece is really difficult). And they can do more, for example they can read the music and play it in a different key, or they can read a string quartet (that is, four independent staves with three different clefs simultaneously) and play most of the important things in it, and so on.
Not every good pianist is ...
16
It's all about the size, and therefore the length of the strings and the size of the vibrating surface of the wooden soundboard.
Even a baby grand at ~5 feet is longer than a typical upright is tall. A concert grand at 7-10 feet is much, much longer.
I can't do any better than what Wikipedia says, so I'm going to quote wholesale:
All else being equal, ...
13
The root note is always the note that is the basis for the chord, regardless of its inversion. In root posiition the lowest note is the root (hence the name), but other notes are the lowest in other inversions of the chord.
For example, take a C Major chord. In every position, the root note is C. Whether it is voiced as C-E-G (root position), E-G-C ...
13
In addition to indicating the end of a distinct section of the piece, a change in key signature, time signature or major tempo change, the double bar is also used to mark the location of a Da Capo or Dal Segno (a notation system that marks the repeating of a certain section of music without requiring additional measures to be written/printed.)
It is also ...
13
This image shows the note on the stave corresponding to each guitar string:
The lowest string is E, then A, D, G, B and E.
It might also be useful to refer to a map of the fretboard -- there's nothing there you couldn't work out from knowing the tuning of each string, and that each fret raises the pitch by a semitone:
Now, lets take first chord in ...
12
This is an Turn, an ornament consisting of four notes. The double-sharp symbol indicates that the lower note to be performed is a g double-sharp rather than a natural g, so the sequnce to be performed is b, a sharp, g double-sharp, a sharp.
12
The fatter bass strings move a lot more air when they're hit with the hammers in the piano, so they produce more volume of sound.
The short thin strings at the top do not, so having more of them compensates. Also, they sound richer when more are played. Think of an orchestra - not many double basses, but quite a few violins.
With one thin string or ten, ...
10
This is an extremely broad topic, so I'm going to try to distill it down to just a handful of points:
There are (basically) two ways of generating sounds electronically: sampling and synthesis. Confusingly, we tend to call all of this sound generation "synthesis", as you are generally working with a "synthesizer".
You will want to read Wikipedia - ...
10
In my experience, it is usually easier to play a grand piano. A grand piano responds better in many ways, for example:
The dynamic scale is bigger. I find it much easier to get a good relaxed fortissimo from a grand.
The notes just ring longer. This makes cantabile playing easier and it's also easier to play slowly.
Combining the previous two, it's easier ...
9
Most classically trained pianists can gloss over arpeggios (and all their assorted variations) because their teachers made them do the repetitions you're describing beforehand. More generally, when you see pianists pick up complicated figures quickly, it's usually because they've seen them before, either in exercises or pieces they've already learned.
Along ...
9
I would play it like this (the image came out kind of big...):
You can play the lower A# quite short to avoid tension (if it suits your interpretation, of course). For me the most natural fingering is 4-5-4-3-4-5 in the upper voice, although 3-5-3-2-3 works, too, and might be easier if your hand is big and/or 4th finger weak.
There's a similar trill a ...
8
This, like every other piece in "John Thompson's Grade 3," is a pedagogical arrangement, meaning it differs significantly from the original music.
The original version of this piece (see page 20) is actually notated without gracenotes, but with a trill on the first A. This would be interpreted as what we now call two gracenotes ahead of the A, as seen here. ...
8
Not in my experience. I don't lift much anymore, but I did when I was younger, and it never got in the way of my playing, either on piano or on guitar. Make sure you stretch well, especially immediately after your workouts, and your muscles should stay limber and flexible.
As for improving your dexterity, the only sure way to do that is through regular, ...
8
This is a bad habit. Essentially, you need to reprogram your mind to stop tensing when what you really want is focus. The instinct to tense is extremely common, and, unfortunately, very difficult to override.
luser droog gave a fantastic explanation of how to build proper posture. You should take his advice, and constantly check to see if you're following ...
8
When you began to learn to read, you would do it one letter at a time, and one word at a time.
"Tuh Huh Eh -- The ...
Cuh Ah Tuh -- Cat ... The cat ..."
... and so on.
As you improved, you'd speed up. You'd begin to recognise whole words at a time, then whole phrases. Now you can look at a page of writing and read it aloud at normal speaking pace.
...
8
As others have mentioned, those strings do not have dampers (the felt things that mute a note when you release the key). The reasoning is several-fold.
First, the higher notes have much less sustain than lower notes. The dampers wouldn't really have much effect since those notes die out so quickly.
Second, undamped strings are free to vibrate ...
8
There are a number of great ways to practice any given pattern. Taking the rhythmic skeleton of your passage, you can apply 3 different Duple-based patterns, each with two 16ths and an 8th. Modifying the rhythm of each triplet thusly helps to develop 3 overlapping schema for each possible way to group 3 notes. Note, it's better to think of these, not as ...
8
They are assuming you are using finger 4 on the top D#.
The reason to switch from 2-1 is that if you ended up with 3rd finger on the G# and 4th finger on D# above, it is too far of a stretch. If you are playing the high D# with 5th finger it won't feel so uncomfortable, but then you can't connect the melody notes with finger legato. The finger switch ...
7
The melody (right hand) should be played in time. Don't shift it to try to match something temporally funky in the accompaniment (left hand).
The broken chords should be played so that the last note of the chord occurs in time with the melody. The lower notes should come just ahead of the beat. The reason for this is that the higher notes in the chord will ...
7
Well, it's like a slow tremolo so you definitely want to alternate fingers. Thumb - Middle - Thumb - Middle is a good general-purpose tremolo fingering. To do this easily, you should pull your thumb a little under the palm, almost touching the middle finger. The wrist should be straight but not rigid. You descend upon the keyboard, leading with the thumb. ...
7
This may be overkill, but I gained a great deal of insight into my own posture from The Thinking Body by Mabel E. Todd. The basic idea is that the body resists gravity in the same manner that a building does: by distributing the weight along lines of compression and suspension. For the most part the front of your body is suspended from the frame of the ...
7
As Indrek pointed out, this gives at least partial answers to your questions.
In short, the answer to who first put foot pedals on a piano is not known exactly, but the practice seems to originate in England. A piano of Americus Backers from 1772 might be the first one to use foot pedals instead of knee levers.
Then you have a different question in the ...
7
Beethoven always started his trills on the upper note (documented here), unlike modern practice. This would come out more fluent coming onto the G#. Although Nonpop's example could work, it's not normal to start and end on the same note. A better interpretation would be B A# B A# G# A#. As far as fingering, without context, it is hard to say what would work ...
7
I'm no expert.
From what I understand, the idea isn't to make your hand stronger. The idea is to play so relaxed that playing a long time feels like a breeze.
So don't work on tempo until you've got the relax thing down.
The relax thing will only get burned into place from slow exact careful practice and (many) good night's sleep(s). Practice is the ...
7
You probably do need to commit some pieces to memory, and here's why.
As a fluent reader of English, when you see the word "penguin", you don't process each individual letter in your head. You see the whole shape of the word, and immediately get a mental image of a black-and-white bird.
When you were a child, learning to read, you did process each ...
7
All pianos benefit from being in very stable environments, not too dry, not humid, and a static temperature. This will help to keep it in tune for longer. Realize though that playing the instrument will knock it out of tune and the more you play the faster it will happen. Also, if the pin block is shot, it will go out of tune fast no matter what you do, ...
6
Here's some food for thought...
It can help to learn new practice techniques. Are you practicing these pieces from beginning to end each time? Maybe mix it up. Here are some ideas:
Practice slowly. Really exaggerate this. Practicing is largely about muscle memory and the only way to get that is by taking your time.
Record yourself and then take a break ...
6
The arranger probably wants you to play the chords in the right hand.
Generally, composers/arrangers and typesetters are pretty good at reserving the treble clef for the right hand and the bass clef for the left. With no other markings, this is what you would assume is intended.
Now, if they had intended to have the left hand jump, they would have put some ...
6
Thumb on C, second finger on Db, fifth finger on C. You need a wide hand for that, and the ability to stretch almost an octave from the 2nd to 5th finger. Playing both notes with the thumb seems awkward because of the way the thumb has to bend for it. If you can't reach all 3 notes, try it leaving out one of the notes and see which two notes sound best.
...
6
Get a good teacher, it can really make a huge difference.
Practice difficult passages slowly (surprise!) and concentrate on relaxation. Often when I get tense, it's because I play faster than I think (like, my thoughts come after my hands). So, when you practice (slowly), try to think ahead, and when you speed up, try to keep it so that your thoughts are ...
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