OT: just had to try this one more time

[Active8]

On 10 Apr 2005 22:36:00 GMT, Roger Johansson wrote:

Reg Edwards wrote:

Roger, a very nice musical story from a music lover.

That was the short version, here is a longer version in two messages,
quoted from googlegroups, wrote them years ago:
...
snip good advice

I like the part about not being afraid to play the wrong notes. I'll
try that as soon as I get my figer speed reasonably up to par on the
basic forms. It wouldn't be the first time I learned from my
mistakes. Good philosophy. Sooner or later, whether in business or
whatever, you get to the point where you've made all the mistakes
and the only thing left to do is the right thing - unless you really
want to f up
--
Best Regards,
Mike

 

[Rich Grise]

On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 22:30:03 +0000, Active8 wrote:

On 10 Apr 2005 22:36:00 GMT, Roger Johansson wrote:

Reg Edwards wrote:

Roger, a very nice musical story from a music lover.

That was the short version, here is a longer version in two messages,
quoted from googlegroups, wrote them years ago: ...
snip good advice

I like the part about not being afraid to play the wrong notes. I'll try
that as soon as I get my figer speed reasonably up to par on the basic
forms. It wouldn't be the first time I learned from my mistakes. Good
philosophy. Sooner or later, whether in business or whatever, you get to
the point where you've made all the mistakes and the only thing left to do
is the right thing - unless you really want to f up

According to this guy, most people who have tried to take "piano lessons"
give up because reading music is such a nightmare.
http://www.scotthouston.com/index.html

It's really, really easy to play the piano - it might be the simplest
instrument there is! You just press the right key at the right time, in
the right order, and it makes music!

Cheers!
Rich

 

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that Rich Grise <richgrise@example.net>
wrote (in <pan.2005.04.13.17.03.46.714378@example.net&gt about 'just had
to try this one more time', on Wed, 13 Apr 2005:

According to this guy, most people who have tried to take "piano
lessons" give up because reading music is such a nightmare.
http://www.scotthouston.com/index.html

It seems to be for some people. But I can read the notes while not being
able to play. My aunt could play anything she had heard without ever
having a lesson. I also had a colleague who learned in the same way as
Roger J.

It's really, really easy to play the piano - it might be the simplest
instrument there is! You just press the right key

or up to eleven at once (there is a fun virtuoso piano piece that
requires that!)

at the right time, in the right order, and it makes music!

Yeah, right. When I try, the next note that sounds right mysteriously
disappears from the keyboard. The reason is that the *previous* note was
wrong, but not discordant - a third instead of a fifth, for example.
--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
There are two sides to every question, except
'What is a Moebius strip?'
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

 

[Roger Johansson]

Rich Grise wrote:

According to this guy, most people who have tried to take "piano
lessons" give up because reading music is such a nightmare.
http://www.scotthouston.com/index.html

The big problem is that musicians and teachers are so afraid of playing
false tones. It is like they were going to have to jump off a bridge if
they ever played a false tone in public.

It's really, really easy to play the piano - it might be the simplest
instrument there is! You just press the right key at the right time,
in the right order, and it makes music!

I learned my musical philosophy from Mexico.
I watched the mexican tv channel Galavision for two years when they
could afford transmitting over Europe, because I love latin american
traditional music. Not the westernized, mechanical salsa, but the love
songs, the ballads, the tangos, etc..

I saw how the mexicans love their music and their native musicians in a
sincere and deeply emotional way. And they don't care if somebody plays
a false tone here and there, which often happens even in pretty famous
ensembles.

That made me realize that music is not about playing it right but to
let the emotions take over, instead of the strictly logical and
always correct western way to think.

Music is about having fun and making sounds you like.

A few rock guitarists like Jimi Hendrix also showed how to play with
sounds and not worry if there a few false tones here and there.

When I was 17 I was going to take a job on board a ship. I hitchhiked
down trough Sweden the day before Sweden was to change over to driving
on the right side of the road. In september 1967.

I managed to reach Goteborg only 15 minutes before all traffic in
Sweden was stopped, to be allowed again the next morning, on the
other side of the road. People worked hard during that night to remove
black plastic which covered the new traffic signs, covering up the old
ones, changing road markings and other stuff. At four in the morning
the few cars which were on the roads carefully drove over to the other
side, and were later allowed to start driving on the right side.

Goteborg was full of young girls who helped traffic and pedestrians
to follow the new traffic rules, for weeks after the change.
There was a young girl on every pedestrian crossing, blocking the
cars to let pedestrians pass the road, and blocking the pedestrians
from crossing the road when the cars were to pass.

I had to wait a few weeks to get a ship to work on, so I walked around
in the city a lot, and worked at a restaurant for a few weeks.

One day I saw a poster that said Jimi Hendrix would perform at the
enjoyment park Liseberg that night.
I knew that such "folkparks" were open every day, and the entrance was
free, except in the evening if there was a performance. If you walked
in during the day and stayed around until late you got in for free.

So I spent a day at Liseberg, and I was the first to come to the stage,
so I could choose a place to stand, 2 meters from Jimi when he
performed late at night.


--
Roger J.

 

[Rich Grise]

On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 18:56:41 +0100, John Woodgate wrote:

I read in sci.electronics.design that Rich Grise <richgrise@example.net

It's really, really easy to play the piano - it might be the simplest
instrument there is! You just press the right key

or up to eleven at once (there is a fun virtuoso piano piece that requires
that!)

That's how you find Middle C - put your left index finger on the leftmost
key, and your right index finger on the rightmost key (both white keys,
of course), bend over, and plunk your nose down on the key in the middle.
Unless your arms are different lengths, that's Middle C.

at the right time, in the right order, and it makes music!

Yeah, right. When I try, the next note that sounds right mysteriously
disappears from the keyboard. The reason is that the *previous* note was
wrong, but not discordant - a third instead of a fifth, for example.

Well, far be it from me to endorse anything, But you might check out PBS
next pledge drive - his show is one of the cool ones that never show up
_except_ in pledge drives, more's the pity.

So what you probably need to do is sit and plink away until it sounds
the way you want it to sound, just like typing or riding a bicycle. Let
your fingers do the playing!

If you want a really fun "training" piece, check out "The Spinning Song".
I also learned "Fur Elise" when I was quite young (like, 30. ;-) ) And
that one that I can never remember the name of, but they always sing
"Ave Maria" on top of. (come to think of it, that might be "Fur Elise".
Nope - but now I have to go search for that other one.)

Found it! "Prelude in C" - this is to a zipped pdf:
http://www.free-scores.com/PUBLIC/preludebach.zip

Just quit trying to calculate the Fourier Transform of the notes you're
playing, and play the damn things! ;-) ;-) ;-)

Feel the shape of your hand when you go from one note to the other - it's
in the feeling, after all!

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Roger Johansson]

Rich Grise wrote:

Found it! "Prelude in C" - this is to a zipped pdf:
http://www.free-scores.com/PUBLIC/preludebach.zip

A much more useful format is the midi format. You can find thousands of
versions of that song and all other well known songs in midi format on
the web. The midi file is a recording of the musicians movements at the
keyboard, and it uses the sound card synthesizer in the computer to
transform the midi file to sounds.

The midi file can be played in a sequenser, and you can choose to see
the music as sheet music or a piano roll display while you listen to it.

In some sequensers you get an automatic chord analysis, like in Cubase
there is a small field in the edit window which tells you the current
chord in realtime while the midi file plays.

You can also look at the music as sheet music with chord analysis
written in. A marker is moving over the sheet to show where you are in
real time.

A variant of midi files are kar files (karaoke midi files), midi files
with lyrics which are displayed as the music is played.

It is a lot easier to learn music today with such tools than when I was
young and I had to buy expensive printed sheet music and chord books.
Today anybody can buy a cheap midi keyboard and connect it to the
computer and start playing and learning music.

In one sequenser I know of you can let the computer disable the tones
on the keyboard which would sound false, so you can bang away on the
keyboard as much as you like without producing a single mistaken tone.
Anybody could walk up on a stage with that kind of setup and
successfully fake being a real musician.


--
Roger J.

 

[Rich Grise]

On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 23:24:25 +0000, Roger Johansson wrote:

Rich Grise wrote:

Found it! "Prelude in C" - this is to a zipped pdf:
http://www.free-scores.com/PUBLIC/preludebach.zip

A much more useful format is the midi format. You can find thousands of
versions of that song and all other well known songs in midi format on the
web. The midi file is a recording of the musicians movements at the
keyboard, and it uses the sound card synthesizer in the computer to
transform the midi file to sounds.

Thanks for this, but the point was that poking keys on a physical
keyboard isn't as hard as it looks at first glance.

Cheers!
Rich