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Re: Piano lessons advice (O.T.)



My totally un-educated advice is to Stick With C for reading! At least
initially. Reading a score is simple in the key of C because then each
note is played at the pitch it is written as. Other keys use b or
cross marks to imply that a note written as a certain pitch has to be
transposed when played.

Chords are the same on piano as on any instrument. You already play
guitar so you should know that for example a C major chord contain the
three notes C, G, E. etc, etc...

A cool thing with piano is to learn using the sustain pedal. Do some
jamming with arpeggio chord stuff and learn to use your foot to press
and release as an automatic process for un-muting and muting the piano
strings. This is super cool - really like a new dimension for jamming!
I try to imitate it for my Chapman Stick by using a sustain pedal that
controls "audio freeze" in a reverb effect - but that's not quite the
same as the piano pedal that really works the string's physical mute
pads.

There's a nice mobile phone app (iOS and Android) called iReal Book
that contains a collection of hundreds of chord charts of jazz
standards, jazz classics, latin, brazilian, pop classics and more. Not
offering dedicated piano scores though, just chord charts.
http://irealbook.net/

There are some tricks on how to move hands ergonomically on the piano
and a piano teacher can tell you about that in just one lesson. I
think that's a good starting point, rather than "by mistake" teaching
your hands to move in a manner that doesn't work for you if you get to
play fast and demanding pieces in the future.

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.boysen.se
www.perboysen.com
www.looproom.com internet music hub



On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 12:48 PM, Louie Angulo
<louie.angulo@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Hi gang,
> I just got a digital piano this x-mas and i m looking for a good way to
> learn to read the notes,chords etc. to start playing easy pieces.
> Ive considered taking a few lessons but i rather not start there blind 
>and
> try to learn the basics on my own.
> Is there a good method or program outhere you can recomend where you can
> also visually see the notes being played on the keyboard that also 
>include
> nice pieces to start off with?
> thanx for your tips!
> cheers
> Luis
>