13
The keys of e-pianos today are weighted.
My son is professional pianist. He plays on different grand pianos and keyboards and he never complained about losing skills. I wouldn’t worry about yours especially as you say you play fun stuff.
Mind that also the keys of different pianos haven’t always the same weight and the distance of the hammers to the ...
13
You are overthinking this.
You are free to use whichever fingers you like when playing a piece but obviously some fingerings will work better than others.
What you need to do is to find a fingering that works for you and then try to always do that. Your "muscle memory" will simply work when you have practiced enough.
If you find a passage where there are ...
9
We try to find a good fingering - that might mean 'good for YOU' considering your hand size - and stick to it. Not because it's a 'rule', but because it's effecient! You don't want to be hunting for each note every time you play the piece! Let your hands learn where to go, then your playing can become fluent.
8
The forte symbol: f means "loud", but it doesn't mean just play that note loudly; successive notes after this symbol should also be played loudly, (until another dynamic symbol is encountered).
The marcato symbol: ^ means "marked" or accented. This symbol only effects the notes it is on, and successive notes should not be accented.
The sforzando symbol: ...
7
Practising scales is about warming up, learning which notes go with which, diatonically, and for playing in exams!
How you play them, as Heather suggests, can and should vary- a lot! Play them piano; forte;slowly;fast;staccato;legato;with crescendo/diminuendo;combinations of all the above!
It's a different situation for exams - they need to be played ...
7
a) release the previous note at the same time that I press the next
note
b) let go BEFORE I press the next note OR
c) let go AFTER i press the note (but not so much that it bleeds
together)?
This is a question of articulation:
a) called portato, non legato
b) staccato -> Staccato Signifies a note of shortened duration or detached (not ...
6
tl;dr
Yes it spoils the touch
I prefer electronic (still!) for other reasons most centrally alternate tunings
I believe it also has contributed to spoiling my ears
Yeah its a tough choice !
In more detail
I grew up on an old upright hard steinway and also a schiedmayer boudoir grand.
(And Bach and Beethoven were the only guys that mattered!)
I find the ...
6
You needn't calculate or estimate or do fancy math. Others have measured piano string decay rates, and they're messy:
Measurements have been made on a high‐quality spinet piano to determine the initial amplitude and decay characteristics of the principal harmonic components of notes covering the entire scale. Decay rates of individual components varied ...
5
Try all these with a basic piano sound to begin.
Play every single key and make sure it sounds. After that, use the pedal all the way to the right and make sure the sound sustains when you lift your finger from a key. Try holding the pedal down while you press 20-30 keys, one after the other, and see if any pitches "drop" from the sustained sound. They ...
4
There are several out there which feel remarkably similar to acoustic pianos. Which themselves will vary quite a lot in their touch. It's almost like asking if I play XYZ upright, will it spoil my technique for when I return to ABC grand.
I use several electronics, and Roland FP2 (now 12 yrs old) feels fine still, a little light, but that's my preference.
...
4
If it's "just a piano" & little else...
Assuming the seller plays, at least a bit - get them to play something & listen for any signs of amp distortion or speaker buzz at a good volume. This would be harder for a non-player to test as hitting huge bunches of random notes isn't going to be kind on the ears ;)
Check each & every note, bottom to ...
4
The first mistake here is that most notes on the piano do not consist of a single string. It would be impossible to tune the two or three strings to identical frequencies, and in fact they are intentionally tunes slightly differently, because if the tuning accuracy is too "tight" the instrument sounds "dead".
The second mistake is that because of the ...
4
Practicing scales is about notes and fingering. You can use whatever articulation you would like, and it is helpful to mix it up. Sometimes play separated, sometimes slurred. Maybe an alternation of two notes slurred, two notes staccato. The options are endless, and what you choose is based on what goals you have.
3
Not if you were trained to play from the arm and with gravity. The brain has amazing capabilities to adapt to different keyboard actions very quickly but, the proper movement has to be there in the first place.
People who often complain that some pianos are stiffer than others are most likely using the incorrect muscles to play. If you move improperly ...
3
I have a very good digital stage piano, a Kawai MP11SE. The action, full length keys, escapement, and graded weighting feel like an acoustic grand piano. In fact none of the acoustic uprights and only a few of the practice grands at my school feel as good. Moreover, none of them are ever in tune as well as my digital piano. It's not even close. The ...
3
The other answers covered much of the tests I would have made (I typically test by playing actual music), but I'd like to emphasize this test:
Check each and every note from bottom to top. Play them individually in order from bottom to top, successive notes being next to each other (so if there is a black note between two white ones, play the black one ...
3
Knee room isn't a problem. Stability may be. But I've been gigging (literally) the same X-stands for about 40 years, and they haven't let me down yet!
They're the type with a brace though. I don't trust the ones where ALL the strain is taken on the pivot point.
3
Yes. As a professional, there's no way one could study on anything but a real piano.
A professional pianist masters the instrument in a way that to perform a piece giving it all he/she has in mind, a real piano will be needed, or the desired sound just won't be achieved.
That being said, if there are specific circumstances in which a pianist can't gain ...
3
According to https://www.casio-intl.com/asia/en/emi/products/cdp230r/spec/ the unit has 48 notes maximum polyphony which I can only assume applies to both the keyboard buttons and the sound engine inside. So all the notes should sound. (Some very low end keyboards might only be able to play one or two or three notes at the same time. Yours can do much better ...
2
Accidentals such as naturals continue for the rest of the measure. Therefore, the chord in the first measure should have C natural, not C sharp.
Seeing the second measure in isolation, a B natural instead of Bb would be the obvious "vanilla" thing to do. So it is right that it sounds off to you for now.
2
Two cables from the keyboard's Aux L and Aux R outputs, combining to a single TRS 'stereo' mini-jack plug.
You may have a stereo mini-jack to 2 phono plugs cable lying around. This is the standard computer 'soundcard cable' that connects computer audio output to a domestic hi-fi system. Add a couple of phono > 1/4" jack plug adapters.
2
Piano accompaniment is a wide and deep subject, but I tried to cut corners and make it look like it’s doable in the following eight steps. I made a two-minute video that demonstrates these steps using the beginning of “Amazing Grace” as an example.
Starting point: you’re able to play songs so that you play basic root position chords with your left hand and ...
2
You can transfer music using that cable, but not in the way you want to. You can use this cable for live MIDI transfer (so the computer can do a live recording of what keys you press or the computer can send key-presses to the keyboard that get played back just like if you pressed the key at that time) or for transfer of recorded files (which are also note ...
2
Might be foam rot in the speaker. We're just in process of replacing 4 speakers in a Hammond keyboard because of that.
2
Stereo TRS is very different from balanced TRS. You should not use a TRS to TRS cable. It will lead to ugly phasing effects.
The TRS connector in the piano is really only meant to drive stereo headphones. However, it is common to use it as stereo line out. Connecting the left and right signal will force the built in headphone amp to produce a mono mix. It ...
2
In my experience, cross stands are always a touch unstable, because of the way they're constructed - the connections to the legs are in the center of the leg, and usually only only attached by one bolt (which has, as its only function in life, the desire to be unscrewed). I had one at church for holding a secondary keyboard, and I ended up screwing it to the ...
2
Think of it this way. You make a journey to somewhere. Ten times, a different way each time. Will you know the way there? Or ten times the same way. Will you then know the way there?
Humans often learn by repetition. (Yes, some learn the hard way, but that's their problem!). By repeating the same action, whatever it is becomes ingrained more quickly. So ...
2
Yes, it is fine, to a certain extent. I have been playing piano for over ten years and often I will switch between playing a chord 1-2-5 and 1-3-5, for no particular reason at all. However, like other answers have pointed out, you should still attempt to find the best fingering for yourself, one that is the most natural and comfortable. Occasionally, you ...
2
Good beginner question! In the first set of songs you'll learn, you'll probably be expected to use the first five notes of that G scale. So you'll put your hand in a position where all five notes are playable with a finger each - like middle finger will press B every time.
After that, it does appear to get tricky. And learning the G major scale is, in my ...
2
IMO both approaches have benefits.
Sampling can more closely represent the instrument as it was recorded, at a specific point of time, a realistic snapshot as it were.
Modelling can smore broadly represent the instrument as it is being played, (nuances, resonances etc), essentially more about the dynamic representations of the sound over time.
...
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