anyone self taught? i have a good ear for music but can’t read manuscripts and can play guitar. I just want to bash chords with left hand and scales with right. how hard can it be? should I buy a proper old piano or a pretend electric one?

to be honest Dave, it depends what you want, you don’t get the ‘feel’ by playing an electic piano, but the sound these days is beautiful.. you’ve also not got the arse ache of tuning / retuning each time it gets moved. My music teacher back in the day bought himself one and if you had your eyes closed you couldn’t tell the difference, getting a good one I imagine you would probably have to pay more for a ‘real’ than electric?

how difficult ? well I guess it depends how quickly you learn and how good your co-ordination is, I never struggled with chords, but playing melodies with both hands in the more technical pieces took some head scratching!, it’s a skill I guess, after a few years of learning and practice I got to sight read both staves.. doubt I’d manage that nowadays though 🙂

I thought this was going to be about rock climbing. 😐

I reckon you’d struggle at your age – I played lots as a kid and I can’t make the stretches now if I sit down and try to play. Try something easier, like the bagpipes.

to give you some inspiration 😉 [video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfsgXJQ0ebU[/video] remember to look whistfully into the audience every now and them. personally i would get a synth and learn some vangellis.but good luck either way.

If you can play the guitar i reckon you’d find it easy enough, something i keep meaning to learn. I’ve pottered about with the keyboard a bit, but never put in any serious effort like with the guitar… It’s easy enough to play with one hand, the problem comes with the coordination, the action on having to reverse your left hand completely messes the guitar coordination you have, i don’t think it’d take too long to learn the coordination though and once you do i think it’ll be shooty in, as your fingers will already have the suppleness and independent movement from the guitar playing. Well they should do, i don’t know how well you play the guitar, is it just strumming and chords you do or do you do more complex stuff with your left and right hands? i suppose that will make a difference..

As for reading music, it’s easy enough once you understand the basics it just needs the time put into it, and sheet music is designed for the piano, so a lot less stuff to consider for instance from reading music for the guitar, though the 2 clefs does puggle me as i’m used to just the one, no idea with they aren’t the same, ie. both middle notes are’t B, weird.

Bought my wife a Yamaha P150 stage piano – it has a properly graded and weighted keyboard, suppossed to be one of the closest to a piano. Heavier on the bass notes, etc.

Plus she can put headphones on to pratice and it sounds fantastic through some hal-decent open back phones, like the cheap Sennheiser PX100s

no idea with they aren’t the same, ie. both middle notes are’t B, weird.

It’s a continuation of the sequence of notes and makes perfect sense. “Middle C” is on the line between the Treble and Bass clefs and then the sequence continues.

gonefishin – ahhh, i get it now, cheers! 🙂

Anoracks Corner: Middle C is on the invisible line between the two clefs; the Cs one and two octave above and below that point are mirror images.
I played as a kid to a not very high standard (I never practiced!), but have in the last 5 years sat down and spent an hour a day playing a very hard piece of Chopin and can now play it at speed and by heart(with the odd mistake).
Goes to show that like most things in life, persistance is a more useful commodity that talent!

Ballade No.1? 😯

two octave above and below that point are mirror images

That’s not technically correct. The various clefs each identify the location of a particular note on the stave.

Btw i should say a bit more on the reading music bit, as while I can read music up to a point it’s the actual mechanics that are easy enough to understand, it really does need constant effort put into it i reckon. As i find if i spend a bit of time on it, it gets far easier(as with everything). But i don’t do that, my problem is, i’ll read some and get into it for a while, learn a few pieces then, not go back to it for months(even years) at a time, this has most definitely curtailed my sight reading abilities, but i’m happy enough to be able to read enough music that i can muddle through and figure out a piece, my sight reading beyond a certain not very high level remains quite poor, but you don’t need to sight read to commit something to memory. defo worth it though, i play loads of stuff i wouldn’t otherwise know if not for having some kind of reading ability.

The C notes are mirror images. C, 2 octaves below middle C is about the bottom note for a deep bass voice, while its mirror image in the treble clef is about the limit for a high soprano.
Not the Bb Ballade; the Fantasie Impromptu…actually not that mental once you get the hang of playing 16 notes in the right hand at the same time as 12 in the left (at a speed of 16 notes taking about a second and a half!) 🙁

to op. dont mess about with an acoustic piano. if it is cheap it will be horrible to play, and if it is worth having it will cost a fortune, and have you ever tried moving one!!? they also take some looking after. you can get any amount of decent electric pianos from the likes of digital village http://www.dv247.com or gak http://www.gak.co.uk/ for a couple or three hundred quid. try and get a weighted action, and built in speakers mean you don’t need a separate amp. then to move your playing along get some lessons.

Also even small upright pianos are rather loud, which can be rather painful for everyone else, especially when you’re just starting out!

There are some cheap stand alone piano modelers on line sound pretty good

Factor in a decent sound card and midi/usb keyboard and it’ll be good enough until you need/want to upgrade