illmuzik - *Piano lessons* - week1 (20-jan-07 to 27-jan-07)

afriquedeluxe

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 221
Wasup people.

This is something that might be interesting for everyone here at illmuzik to partake in.

There are many producers that want to improve this part of their producing. I always hear people saying, "oh i wish i could play...etc". This is your chance to get working. Whether you sample or compose, either way, i think if you can play and have an understanding of music, not just the "EAR!" part (which is equally as important), you have an upperhand.

Now, I am no piano master or even a teacher for that matter. What I am, is a novice like some of you. I mean I can do some progressions here and there but there is certainly alot of room for improvement.

So how is this going to work. Well i found this website http://www.free-online-piano-lessons.com/index.html

On this site there are 9 chapters. It is beginner material but that is not to say it will be easy. I will be doing one chapter per week, along with anyone here who wishes to take part in it with me, hence why i started the thread. This way, if anyone has a problem with anything, we can discuss it. {Note: There will be a new thread each week, and the old one might be closed}

So one chapter per week starting today! Along with this, I will chip in some drills of my own. If a number of you take part, we can come up with extensions to lessons, because i read through some of them and at the end, some chapters don't detail what exactly to do in pratice.

I have placed a poll to get an indicator of who will be taking part. If it is just one person along with me, that will be enough, i mean i can't discuss things on my own lol.
But the more the better!

Before you vote/commit, please know that this will take 9 weeks!!!! to finish and that it will be very intense! 9 weeks is a very short time, trust me. So that means nothing less than 30minutes per day practice. I would recommend 1 hour or whatever it takes to get those chapters down, but 30minutes minimum. You probably spend that 30minutes watching t.v anyway so there aint much being asked of anyone.
But really, if you serious about this, you will find yourself spending more time on it than planned.

About some pratice techniques. I try to accomplish a certain goal per session. I don't just say, oh i will pratice 2 hours today, the time seems to run slow that way. Have a specific task to accomplish, if it takes 10minutes to finish that task, great! If it takes 3 hours, you will not notice that time fly. However it is a good idea to have a general cap, so be sensible with that.

Lets begin!!!

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WEEK 1 - How to build major and minor piano scales
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Tasks

1. Please click on the link above (underlined) for reading material, and go through the
chapter and try to understand everything said! If you don't, feel free to ask any
questions in the thread.

2. Memorize how to a construct major scale: (Try formula with C or maybe G
for fun)
{whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step}
{ WWHWWWH }

3. Memorize how to construct a natural minor scale: (Try formula with A )
{whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step}
{ WHWWHWW }

4. Memorize how to construct a melodic minor scale: ( Try formula with D )
{ Just lower the 3rd tone of a major scale by a half step when going up the scale,
and when you are going down the scale, play the natural minor scale }

5. Learn to construct a harmonic minor scale: ( Try formula with A )
{ Lower 3rd and 6th tones of a major scale to form harmonic minor scale of that
key /// General formula is Whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, half step,
whole step plus a half step, half step }

reference material

Extra: Pratice to play the C and G major scales everyday for this week. Be sure to use correct fingerings! Pratice with right hand first, then when fluent, pratice with the left hand. When fluent with that, pratice with two hands together, playing in same directions and different directions. I should stress again, try to do this everyday.

Thats all for this week.


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END Ps. Mods try setup a poll for me, I couldnt get one up. Thanks.
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I skim read through the material on the website but will do further reading tomorrow. Let me know how you guys are getting on with it, if you take part and if you are confused on anything.

I already how to play all the 12 major scales, so if you need help on finding out the fingering for any of those keys, I can post up a video or something.
 

afriquedeluxe

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 221
I'm down.. Lets go, let me break out the 49 key

lol 49 keys. Anything will do man, even 10 keys. Remember if you got any questions feel free to ask. If no one knows the answer we can all just google for it and come to a conclusion, hell we got some piano masters here even so we can holla at them.
 

Sanova

Guess Who's Back
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 9
Great, I've seen this before but didn't wanna do it alone.

good work, I'm down.

I've had some training before, and can read notes from playing saxaphone for years but This is gonna be ill.
 

J Rilla

Tha Fresh Prince of L.A.
ill o.g.
Great, I've seen this before but didn't wanna do it alone.

good work, I'm down.

I've had some training before, and can read notes from playing saxaphone for years but This is gonna be ill.

Ditto on the reading music...mines from playin the bass...its always alot more enjoyable when you learn with a group instead of by urself...i'm defnitly down
 

afriquedeluxe

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 221
good looks on this post i started doing this in november but stopped. starting up again will help me along with my music theory class im in now as well

welcome aboard.

By the way, hows the rest of you guys getting along. I hope you been praticing. A fun thing to do while you get to grips with these scales, is listen to any song and try to figure out what key they are in, this should help your ear but also will help you get used to what the scales sound like. Most songs should be easy (major, natural minors, melodic minors, harmonic minors). If you come across something you can't work out just leave it for now, theres are other scales like pentatonics and some other more obscure ones but you wont find many of those in popular songs.
 

JKIEYZ

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
I'm In. I've been trying to teach myself keys so I know this going to help out alot with the materials I alreay have. Thanks alot

JKIEYZ
 

bigdmakintrax

BeatKreatoR
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 123
Give me a day or so to find them Afrique, also the videos too I got some for guitar they go far if you watch and emulate, the main thing I look for is so I can see what they are doing on the keys some of them the shots aren't good to see what is going on....oh and another thing, I mentioned this a long time ago... band in the box is PERFECT...you hook it up to your board, load the program on the computer, you can find midi files of NEW music and have it show you how to play it and also tons of other useful things, they have music of all genres and you can print the music, see it played, slow it down etc.
 

afriquedeluxe

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 221
Give me a day or so to find them Afrique, also the videos too I got some for guitar they go far if you watch and emulate, the main thing I look for is so I can see what they are doing on the keys some of them the shots aren't good to see what is going on....oh and another thing, I mentioned this a long time ago... band in the box is PERFECT...you hook it up to your board, load the program on the computer, you can find midi files of NEW music and have it show you how to play it and also tons of other useful things, they have music of all genres and you can print the music, see it played, slow it down etc.

wow, thats dope man, ill check it out. thanks.
 

O-H-TEN

aka Tha' NVZABLE DRAGON
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 3
If you are looking for the root key; I would say C. The first chord threw me off for some reason. I think it's a Cmaj6. I believe that the second chord was a Cmaj1 and the third was a Cmaj3.
(I think) lol. I don't know if I wrote the chords out correctly but you know what I mean. I'm probably all off but I thought I would give it a try just to learn.
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