Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum The best thing I've learned on Piano World....

Being extremely new here, I have learned that I am not alone in my pursuits....

The best tip I recently learned of is a post mentioning the Taubman technique. I watched a few videos because I wondered if my piano playing was aggravating on old impact injury to my right hand pinky (5). After a weekend of extend practice time, the pinky joint would remain inflamed and made typing on the computer keyboard or using the mouse at work a struggle. So much so that I had began to wear a finger splint at work.

I'm seeing much improvement now. I didn't need the finger splint this week. I'm taking a break from a 2 hour practice this morning and the resulting inflammation is about 50% less than what it might have been 2 weeks ago.

Many thanks to the sharing & thoughtful community here at Piano World! 😀

That my best chance of success is building a solid foundation without regard for how long it takes.

I have learned so much on Piano world including, technique suggestions, pieces I have now studied because I like them so much, but more than anything else the following post from "twocats," turned out absolutely amazing after my technician raised the pitch on my piano from A440 to A443. Not only do I love how it sounds, but it seems to hold it's tune better than before. My technician was here today and was amazed how close to pitch it stayed even though the seasonal change to summer.

Thank you again Twocats!

Steve

Bösendorfer 170

P.S. If you don't use an umlaut above the o, the correct spelling would be Boesendorfer.



twocats Offline OP
500 Post Club Member
T
Joined: Jan 2015
Posts: 621
Portland, OR
I had mentioned trying out a higher pitch in the thread about my piano. It's been 8 months now, and changing the tuning to A443 has made an enormous difference. Now every time I sit down I'm amazed at how sweet my piano sounds smile

I wanted to share in case other owners of European pianos want to try the higher tuning. You'll risk of decreasing the tuning stability if you want it set back later, but I told my tech that I'm staying at A443!

2001 Petrof 125 -> 2002 Petrof IV -> 1999 Bosendorfer 225 (meow!) 🐱

Lot's of fantastic info here but for this New-bie 'get a teacher' adds such a fabulous dimension.

As a guitarist for 60 years switching to piano at age 72 , I believe it is all of you who play piano that enjoy a greater sense of peace and humility than many of my guitar friends. No one on this forum seems to want to be worshipped or adored.Not so in the guitar world. There are a few that understand,but most guitar people are very competitive and do not get the 3 rings of musicians:
People who play an instrument, instrument players, and instrumentalists. There is a difference.
At my age I would be very happy to play a piano. On guitar, I am a guitar player. Unfortunately guitarists, pianists,the masters,etc.rarely become rich and famous. Kudos to those masters that have done it all. Soooo, the most I get from the forums is a “feel” that it’s ok to extract your joy from music and especially piano.

Patience, going very slow, piano teachers are often time grumpy, pedal use, and a lot of valuable info for shopping pianos. As a guitarist for 62 years I knew nothing about piano when I started playing, studying and practicing and PW really helped me w the definitions and expectations.
Nearly 74. Goal is to play one set of jazz standards for my 75th birthday.

I have learned that the stuff im proud to be playing so far is considered simplistic and repetitive.

T

ANY of us, if we compare ourselves to others, can look like we are playing repetitive and simple music😊 .. you can even find a five year old on YouTube doing the same, or better.

My advice; don’t compare. We will always get THERE at our own pace and time (wherever THERE is). Celebrate what you can do 🎹🎹🎹 which is make music with your own two hands. That is priceless, no matter the level

Well said and spot on!

You must be talking about stuff by Einaudi, Yiruma, Tiersen, Mansell, Krug, etc!

OK, I'm joking here. Some of our most loved members here are big fans of some of these artists. Play their works and be happy!

The best thing I've learned on Piano World.... the necessity of a teacher I had finally figured out myself, and I was also familiar with slow practise, but I had never heard of interleaved practise, and when I first heard it, it did not appeal to me. But experimenting with how much time I spend with each section, and finally finding out that three minutes per section is a guideline that works very well for me, is something that would never have happened without PW.

Yup!

I play some Yann Tiersen and Einaudi so far.

Of course i was also joking, I learned better things around here than the fact these might be considered simplistic and repetitive.

Im just doing it my way and just love to play. So far I haven't seen a teacher or even touched a book. I just learned about 7 pieces by synthesia and YouTube tutorials.

I did try an online piano cursus before but i didn't have the patience to be playing when the saints go marching on or christmas songs at the time, so that didn't help.

I have not come to a point where i got stuck, and everytime i try to learn something that's harder to play/more complex than the last thing i learned, i have been able to tackle by hard practice so far.

I also notice the way i play is really improving and im more motivated than ever. I have really found something that's on my mind the moment i wake up in playing piano. So now i feel it's time for me to quit watching synthesia and YouTube tutorials and I just started learning to read sheet music, and looking into learning scales etc, Ill probably look for a good book to study all these things.

While i am a fan of both Tiersen and Einaudi, and this music got me into playing piano, i am confident my repertoire will expand beyond these.

I might even get a teacher after all!

Well, let me introduce you to some more simplistic and repetitive music then!

Tiersen:



Yiruma:



Mansell:



Crane:



Richter:



Costlow:



Arnalds:



I know these well - my wife loves simplistic and repetitive too, so our Spotify account is always set on these every time I sign on!

My composer friend gave me a reference to this book, How Music Plays the Mind by Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis, on repetition in music:

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/on-repeat-9780199990825

It turns out that we expect repetition, indeed, we crave repetition in music and repetition is satisfying. People on this thread seem to be using the term “simplistic” in a pejorative sense but I don’t think that has to be the case. Simple, repetitive music can be deeply moving.

The author of the book points out that we don’t recall melodies as factual entities, we regenerate them in our brains, perhaps as a set of nested predictions, according to my friend. So, we all become performers.

This is an interesting TEDx talk on repetition in pop music:

https://youtu.be/_tjFwcmHy5M

Repetition is something we expect in music, this repetition is either realized or broken. When it is broken, we form new expectations about what will repeat, and the process continues.

And then there is this talk on an attempt to create “music” that has no repetition in order to create the perfect ping for sonar systems:

https://youtu.be/RENk9PK06AQ

Thanks for the link!

Well, there is pop music repetition, and then there is Techno repetition. The latter takes repetition to an entirely different level. My wife was hooked on techno for years. I can't count how many techno nightclubs she's dragged me to. Believe me, it is a complete relief to me she's moved on to Einaudi, Tiersen, Yiruma, Mansell, Crane, et al.

The thing that bothers me is not repetition, it is repetition at high volumes. Have we forgotten the meaning of dynamic range? I can handle transitory loudness, I cannot accept unending loudness. Does Techno ever go quiet? High volumes are a way to grab the listener’s attention but high volumes quickly fatigue the ear. Yes, I know all about the loudness war, which really should be called the dynamic range war.

Tyrone thanks for the links! I think (whatever it means), that lag fyrir ommu one is pretty nice.

Right now im working on this:


I like this version alot and i think it's is a step above the pieces i can already play in terms of difficulty, so that's a good thing too. Maybe your wife will like it too!

So if i understand this correctly.. your wife dragged you to techno nightclubs, and after that, she gave up and started listening different music.

Since i like to always be positive whenever possible, i will just say, well done!

I sometimes think subwoofers were first invented for Techno. In fact, can it be called "Techno" if you can't feel it in your gut? Sorry, my ears are not in my abdomen...


Yes! She says she "outgrew it" but I'd like to attribute it to my "moderating" influence I'm just glad I don't have to listen to music with my abdomen any more!