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  • Has anybody used YouTube tutorials to learn to play an instrument?
  • derek_starship
    Free Member

    I really want to learn to play the keyboard but don’t want the hassle or expense of lessons.

    I know there are thousands of “learn how to be awesome at ….” videos on YouTube but are there any of worth on this particular subject?

    I don’t want to watch 1 hr 16 min of somebody talking shite and showing off their music tech’ layout.

    perchypanther
    Free Member

    The internet is full of videos that you can watch when you’re tinkering with your organ.

    Apparently.

    seosamh77
    Free Member

    Ask yourself what you want to ultimately be able to do on the keyboard, then tailor your learning to that.

    Learning the keyboard can mean many things. I’m guessing you aren’t really going to be knocking out a bach fugue on your 25 key synths.

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    derek_starship
    Free Member

    @PP – I didn’t do a risk assessment on my thread. So much potential here!

    Seos – I know what you mean. I’m not talking conservatoire standard and chords more complex than quantum mechanics.

    It’s hard to summarise. Maybe I’d just like to be able to lay down a tune of my own and knock out (@PP) a few pop songs, carols and stuff.

    pondo
    Full Member

    PSA for you, I believe Yousician has a Black Friday that runs through to today – it’s a smartphone app that can teach you to play a number of instruments, I’m using it to learn piano. There’s a free version, premium deal is 1 year subscription down from £120 a year to £60 – I took it up yesterday, I find it an engaging and enjoyable way to learn, and as it’s a smartphone app it can listen to you playing and tell you whether you got the right notes and timed it ok. I like. 🙂

    seosamh77
    Free Member

    on the keyboard you probably really wanting to be learning to read music. That’ll let you read basic melodies and the like and be able to play them and it may not seem it at first, but it’ll eventually teach you more things as you go. I’d put effort into that rather than learning Synthesia on the youtube channels, may seem easier to understand at first, but it’ll not really teach you anything about music, it’s just learning by rote.

    For writing a choon on your own, it’s really a case of listening to music you like and analysing it and understanding how that works and then coming up with your own take on that, that’s where music theory comes in, helps you understand what’s going on.

    How do you currently understand the keyboard? Do know anything about it? Beyond some keys are black some are white?

    Complex chords are pretty easy to understand when you know how they are made btw.

    Edukator
    Free Member

    I use Youtube for anything I’m learning on guitar. If there’s a vid of the artist playing live that’s my go to. If I can’t work it out by ear and seeing the hand positions on the fretboard then I go to covers by people sat in front of their webcam. My last resort is the tutorial vids people post.

    Some are very good, there’s a Portuguese guy who does Sweet Home that is spot on. Some are very approximative and make things much harder work than the original artist. I tortured my hands for half an hour on a Téléphone song before remembering that Bertignac’s hand rarely looks as if he’s playing anything other than a non-barred F shape.

    derek_starship
    Free Member

    Thanks all. Pondo that looks good although it’s back up to full price now. A tenner a month is cheap enough though.

    Seos – I don’t know much. I know where the keys C-C are positioned for an octave!

    pondo
    Full Member

    Dang, sorry you missed the deal – but give the free version a try, gives you ten minutes a day. 🙂

    Edukator
    Free Member

    I agree about Synthesia Seosamh77 but some people do make an effort to explain, a basic example but I’m pretty sure I could learn the song to my own satisfaction using it and learn something about music at the same time:

    seosamh77
    Free Member

    Seos – I don’t know much. I know where the keys C-C are positioned for an octave!

    Well, that’s a good start.

    To give you a quick understanding of how the keyboard works.

    Within that C to C There are 12 divisions.

    For explanations sake we’ll call them 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12.

    That’s what is called the chromatic scale, not really useful to you just now, but understand that those notes are all available within a key, and each shift from one to another is called a half step(or half tone), 2 steps is a whole step(or whole tone).

    Now each of those has a name, read this to understand that a bit more, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interval_(music) knowing the names does help explain what’s going on further down the line, but you don’t need to know that now, just know that there are half steps and whole steps

    Now from that Chromatic scale we can make up other scales that are more useful.

    The most popular are major and minor. (There are many many more and they each have their own formulas)

    Major scale formula is WWHWWWH
    remember (W = Whole tone, H = Half tone)

    which equates to

    1,3,4,6,8,10,11. (12 is where the forumla repeats, 12 is just 1 and octave up.)

    But that becomes your master set, the basic point we can reference everything else to. So we can now just call that :

    1,2,3,4,5,6,7 (this is all your white keys in the key of C) (Key just means the home noted btw)

    All formula can be related to this 1-7scale.

    So now the formula for minor becomes.

    1, 2, b3, 4, 5, b6, b7

    play around with these tarting from C, don’t try other keys yet.

    Here’s a whole list of forumlas for you to play with, as said, just start you 1 on C all the time, things get fairly confusing, as although the forumulas remain the same for all keys, physically playing them is different.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_musical_scales_and_modes look at the degrees column.

    ———-

    now to make chords from a scale.

    Lets look at major
    1,2,3,4,5,6,7

    You stack the scale notes in thirds to get chords (chords are written as roman numerals, upper case major, lower case – minor, but not always from some inexplicable reason so people write them in all caps)

    I = 1,3,5, = major chord, really we call this 1,3,5 just be aware of that, too much to go into yet
    ii = 2,4,6 = minor chord, really we call this 1,b3,5 just be aware of that, too much to go into yet
    iii = 3,5,7 = minor chord, really we call this 1,b3,5 just be aware of that, too much to go into yet
    IV = 4,6,1 = major chord, really we call this 1,3,5 just be aware of that, too much to go into yet
    V = 5,7,2 = major chord, really we call this 1,3,5 just be aware of that, too much to go into yet
    vi = 6,1,3 = minor chord, really we call this 1,b3,5 just be aware of that, too much to go into yet
    vii° = 7,2,4 = diminished chord, really we call this 1,b3,b5 just be aware of that, too much to go into yet

    now to make chords from a scale.

    Lets look at minor
    1,2,b3,4,5,b6,b7

    You stack the scale notes in thirds to get chords

    i = 1,b3,5, = minor chord, really we call this 1,b3,5 just be aware of that, too much to go into yet
    ii° = 2,4,b6 = diminished chord, really we call this 1,b3,b5 just be aware of that, too much to go into yet
    III = b3,5,b7 = major chord, really we call this 1,3,5 just be aware of that, too much to go into yet
    iv = 4,b6,1 = minor chord, really we call this 1,b3,5 just be aware of that, too much to go into yet
    v = 5,b7,2 = minor chord, really we call this 1,b3,5 just be aware of that, too much to go into yet
    VI = b6,1,b3 = major chord, really we call this 1,3,5 just be aware of that, too much to go into yet
    VII= b7,2,4 = major chord, really we call this 1,3,5 just be aware of that, too much to go into yet

    Anyhow, have fun, this will let you start doodling on your own within the keys of C! 😆

    There are certain ways chords work and the like, but that’s further reading, just footer around with these ideas.

    derek_starship
    Free Member

    Seos. Thank you very much for your input!

    seosamh77
    Free Member

    Major scale formula is WWHWWWH
    remember (W = Whole tone, H = Half tone)

    which equates to

    1,3,4,6,8,10,11. (12 is where the forumla repeats, 12 is just 1 and octave up.no worries, hope you get something from it, just doodle away on the scales and Chuck chords in there.

    Btw that is completely wrong the bit i’ve quoted, it should be.

    1,3,5,6,8,10,12, (13 equate to the 1 on the chromatic scale.) Count it up on the keyboard to double check it’s all the white keys.

    1 w 3 w 5 h 6 w 8 w 10 w 12 h (13)

    So that then transfer to the major scale as

    1,2,3,4,5,6,7.

    You might notice there’s a bit of duality in naming and usage of numbers in things too. This is why music theory is so complex to get your head round. But once you do it’s actually reasonably simple to grasp some basics that will take you far. If you’ve got a ear for a choon.

    seosamh77
    Free Member

    Ps muscle memory is a big part of playing an instrument too. Just doing things that many times till it’s second nature.

    And a billion other aspects too. But I think that’s enough to keep ye going for a bit! 😆

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