Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Other people do Piano Marvel?

Not to me.

I have to say that it would be more confusing if they weren’t.

Most of the scale exercises end up with the scale, chord, arpeggio combos and since the minor cadences are based on the harmonic minor it makes sense.

You may need to put in some extra work but it’s all worthwhile.

I would not advise associating a note with a finger number or thinking of being in a ‘c position’ . The reason not to do this is that actual music can have any note in the scale played with any finger, dependent on the music. Learn by intervals, not finger numbers.

Thanks. I'm curious what level of expertise does someone need to be able to read a full piece of music entirely through intervals. As in, is that a skill even an intermediate player possesses?

I'm a beginner and while at slow pace I can sight read/play 2nd and 3rd intervals, when the song is being played at normal pace (even in level 2A), my eyes/mind just are unable to quickly calculate the exact gap between the notes (i.e. which interval is it) and then unable to quickly send the signal to my fingers to skip accordingly. On the other hand the finger technique works well (i.e. when I recognize a D and trigger my forefinger). However, as you pointed out, that technique has its limitations and I'll have to figure out the interval method.

Interestingly on 2B, what's been working best for me is memory. That is, I play a piece/exercise enough times that my fingers memorize the pattern. However, this is terrible from a sight-reading standpoint since I'm not actually translating the sheet music very well in my mind.

Jm77
Are you learning the topography of the staves through pM? Ie ghe lines and spaces on each staff and what notes they are? Maybe others that have been using PM a long time can help out; particularly, did you use some other method book such as Faber’s with it?

I started piano from scratch 2 months ago with Alfred's book, an app called Notes Trainer and a software called Skoove. That's where I learned the basics of the staff/notes/intervals. Then 2 weeks back I set aside all that and switched completely to Piano Marvel (thanks to this forum, and in particular treefrog), and now all I've been doing is Piano Marvel day in and day out.

Maybe it's just me but at this point I know I will never be great at sight-reading. That being said, sight-reading is the ability to play a completely new piece of music that you have never been exposed to before. In reality, when does that happen? Will you just be somewhere and someone hand you a piece of music and say "here, play this...and do it well"?

Reading music is a skill that we all need, but as we are learning and preparing, memorization, it seems, is just as valuable. More likely the scenario is going to be that you show up somewhere and are asked or offer to play and you then play your well prepared repertoire pieces... without sheet music in front of you.

I do still use the SASR, but my scores are not impressive.

Thanks GidgetKeys. That actually helps a lot. For someone (like me) not aspiring to be a piano teacher memorization may perhaps be more valuable than sight reading. Of course I need to have the basics of music reading mastered first. I find it funny how two months back when I embarked on my piano journey I started with an attempt to learn Fur Elise from a youtube video (without any knowledge of reading music). After 3 painful weeks better sense prevailed and I said good bye to Fur Elise and got down to the basics of learning the staff/notes. Oh well...it's a journey!

Focus on learning to READ music. If you play through music new to you, that is sightreading. If you don’t stop, that is prima vista sightreading.

If you are new, just learn yo read! The more new music you read, the easier it will get. Why is sightreading important? Even if you just play for your cat, it will help you learn music quicker as your reading skills will improve by reading s lot of music,

That makes sense. Finding new music in Piano Marvel at my level is difficult though. Technically the library has several Level 1 pieces, but they are either (i) the same songs found in the Method/Technique sections of 1A-2A, or (ii) incorrectly categorized as Level 1 (far higher levels). I guess I will search for other online sources.

Learning to read is very important. But you do have to have a little patience, that does not happen overnight. Try every day !!! to read and play a "new" piece on your level (or a little above it) ... from Piano Marvel or just sheet music. Keep a slow pace and try to read ahead. You will experience that this helps you enormously. Hereby an address with many reading exercises in PDF
https://michaelkravchuk.com/free-sheet-music/piano/sight-reading-practice/

Thanks Sarah! This looks like a great resource.

You can use pianosyllabus.com and search by grade, but there are too many items to just search by grade alone so try composer and grade.

This web site https://m.youtube.com/user/UIPianoPed
Is great for exploring new music. look for grade 1a, 1b and 1c. The pieces are played by university professors, so it is true quality

If you haven’t discovered it, imslp.com has an enormous library of free music to download.

Thanks dog person. Dumb question, but the first two websites (piano syllabus and UIPianoPed) don't seem to have any sheet music in there. I'm assuming your point is to explore those to links to find out what are the names of the songs at easier levels and then go search for those songs at other places?

My biggest break through for learning notes on staff and piano was using the most basic concepts I learned from a couple books. All you do is look at very simple scores don't use any rhythms or assessment modes, etc. and say the note name out loud and then play it with index finger. No one ever had me do this and I started doing it last couple months and I'm now by far more comfortable with the staff than I have ever been. The the end goal is to just know all the notes and not need a land mark notes to go "ok that C so then D, E, F, it's F!" I agree with @Sarah65 no matter what it does take time. It took me way longer than I would have imagined but keep at it and you'll see the progress.

That's an interesting approach. But if you just use your index finger how do you figure out how to move from say C to F (i.e. intervals) without looking at the keyboard directly?

Sorry I meant this as a way to get familiar with the grand staff and notes on the piano. It wasn’t meant for intervals. Also you don’t have to do it long even just a few minutes a day. It was more of a response for methods to support reading in general.

Any idea how the levels in Piano Marvel compare to RCM levels? For example will someone at a 6E level (max. on Piano Marvel) be the same as Level 10 RCM?

MY quick answer would be absolutely no. I finished 3 levels of PM before moving onto Faber Adult All-in-one Book 1 with a teacher, and then onto RCM Preparatory A, Preparatory B, then Level 1, and now I’m on Level 2. Admittedly though, the Faber All-in-one was a bit of an overlap with the first 3 levels in PM in my experience.

I don’t believe the two methods are comparable because PM lacks the teaching and feedback of dynamics and expression. Those things have already been introduced in Faber Book 1, even pedalling. Please don’t take this as a knock on PM. The two methods are just different with different goals and different results.

If what you want is to get to RCM 10, you should probably find a teacher and head that way, rather than spend too much time with PM.

Thanks. Setting aside the dynamics and expressions, in terms of the complexity of the pieces that you can play is a 6E closer to a RCM Level 6 (than a Level 10)?

I did not get to Level 6 in PM, so I would be “guessing” if I answered you. So I’m going to say, I don’t know. However, dynamics and expression are very important...but probably not what you are concerned about at this point.

Since you have access to PM, if you want, you can give me the names of some of the Level 6 pieces and I can look them up for you in the RCM syllabus and see if they’re included. Or you can look it up yourself. Here is the link to the syllabus:

https://rcmusic-kentico-cdn.s3.amaz...labi/s41_pianosyllabus_2016_online_f.pdf

However, a word of caution though. Just because a piece is listed at RCM level 6, and someone can play it, that doesn’t mean that it is being played at an RCM level 6 level. That’s where the dynamics and expression comes in. And at level 6, there are definitely expectations of that. Confusing, eh? You know how many beginners can play Fur Elise a couple of months after beginning the piano? Fur Elise is actually RCM level 7. Does that mean that that beginner pianist is playing at RCM level 7? Most likely not.