*little note to self*

When the left hand plays a broken chord/arpeggio, play the last note extra softly, and if they are more than 3 notes of a chord played in succession, play the last few notes with that extra soft touch. Can't come up with a solid concept or theory behind this yet, just have to go by feel.

Yiruma's Destiny of Love Album!

If you don't already have a copy, but loved Love Hurts, the song I've been talking about in my recent posts, I'd recommend you get the album the song was from -- Destiny of Love. You can grab a copy by clicking on the link below.^^ I got the album recently and I really liked a few of the songs in there, especially Mika's Song, The Last Song and of course, Love Hurts:) Wonder if all his albums  are this good...there were piano pieces, orchestrated tracks and his singing! Never knew Yiruma sang!!! And he does it really well too!

Sigh, I must have sounded like a moron in that last line, lol...there's so much in music I don't know...how exciting:D

Anyways, that's all for this post. Have a think about the album, yeah? That Mika's Song is still stuck in my head...argh...

BTW, love the orchestrated version of Mika's Song...can cry listening to it.T_T

Yiruma's Love Hurts Videos!^^

Here's the piano tutorial I'm using to learn Love Hurts, along with the original performed by Yriuma himself...as I've promised, LOL:D





*Please purchase the CD or find somewhere to buy this track online, if that's all that you want. I've only posted this video here to give you a rough listen. Honestly, if I were able to find a way to get and upload the official sample piece here, I would. *sighs* If you like the song, GO GET IT! SUPPORT YIRUMA! LOL=D No but seriously...don't rip him off^^

Think I've been listening to the original way too much. Kept trying to play it the way it was recorded, the spots where it was soft, the accented notes and all...with no success, of course. Even so, I just can't seem to allow myself to play the song any other way...it'd just seem like I'm not doing the song justice, argh...

My ability, or lack of ability is really getting in the way...lol.

Also, I've seen quite a few videos of pianist playing this song at home. Most of them sound really mechanical and some seem to go too fast. There are only one or two I've seen that expressed the emotions in the song well. Man, I wish I xould do that in my video for this song.

The sad thing is, so many viewers praised those mechanical performances of the song. I mean, it's great they are able to master it well enough to play it through without mistakes, but it all just didn't seem "awesome-worthy":(

Having said that, I'm pretty sure mine won't be either. *sighs*

Minor Epiphany

Okay well, I was practising what I knew of the song the first time today, after listening to a few of Yiruma's songs (didn't know he sang, lol) , experimenting with dynamics along the way, when I realised how Yiruma has been making his playing sound so smooth.

Backing up a little, I've been wondering how other pianists were able to play songs that sounded so smooth, even over single notes that sounded so plain and obtrusive when I played them. It only hit me later, that they always played the single notes softer than the rest of the piece, making it work "behind the scene", rather than having it stick out like a sore thumb, which meant the fact that the single notes were well, single and not exactly rich-sounding because they were meant to be a part of a richer set of notes, rather than a stand-alone, asking attention!^^

Told you it was a minor epiphany, LOL:D Wanted to tell a friend about it and just went on with life but couldn't find a musically inclined one at the moment, so thought I'd just mention it here;)

Hardest Song So Far...

Still trying to learn Yiruma's Love Hurts...

It has been days and I'm still not done with the tutorial. Usually by now I'd have memorised the song and be trying to play it with minimal mistakes...but Love Hurts is taking me ages. At the beginning, I was learning/memorising 10 seconds of song per day! LOL...but things sped up a bit, till yesterday, where it slowed down drastically. Had hit hard parts in the song...

Well I know it sounds like I'm complaining but I'm really not:D It's such a nice song and unlike the others songs, I'm still not sick of it yet, despite having played and butchered it over 100 times. It's amazing how Yiruma was able to make such a beautiful song out of such simple chords...*sighs* By the way, if you have heard the song and think it's fairly simple, well...unless you have big hands or long fingers, you're gonna have to do a fair bit of stretching, not to mention jumping around the piano. Even so, it's a refreshing piece to master after having learnt mostly block chords in songs recently. If you're a beginner and want a challenge, well...knock yourself out with this:D

It's just a fascinating piece to learn and to listen:) I'll post the tutorial and the full song here soon.

Oh one other thing, in case you're wondering, Love Hurts only lasts for about 2 mins and 14 sec. Not long at all...

New Stuff

Well, finally managed to gt my hands on the Rocket Piano package I ordered, geez...and no thanks to their support team, they haven't replied to either of my emails. Ah well, managed to find my way around things and got the stuff they promised.

On first glance, the stuff seemed great. I'll be exploring more of it in the next few days, so look out for my review on the Rocket Piano course!:) I'll probably start with the beginners' book first.

Have also been looking for more songs to learn. The past few attempts were of songs I wasn't exactly crazy over, so didn't find myself pushing it, argh...BUT, heard a song yesterday and fell for it seconds into the intro:D

It was Yiruma's Love Hurts.

Yeah yeah, I'm behind on things and that ain't exactly a new song, I think, but the pain expressed in just the first few seconds made such a impact on me that I just had to learn to play it!^^ Anyways, I'm actually taking a break from practising the song at the moment - yep, found a place to learn it less than an hour ago and have been going at it.

Should probably be getting back now...later;)

Well then...

Purchased the Rocket Piano package the other day, but entered the wrong email, so had to send them an email asking for an adjustment to the order. Moronic old me...it has been days and I'm still waiting for a response from them...sighs.

Meanwhile, have been learning My Memory from Winter Sonata on and off since the day I placed the Rocket Piano order. Managed to get the intro down, now am onto the first verse, which is oddly hard...Have never spent this much time on the first part of a song before, LOL.

Also, I've been really bored recently, so I've decided to pu into words, all the musical theory I've learnt so far, onto a page on this blog. Not sure how it'll go, but we shall see...

Singing has been going okay - haven't started a blog for that yet...not that eager to do that anymore, seeing as how sick I get listening to recordings of my singing...*shudders*

Short Break...

Been doing lotsa little bits of piano stuff here and there, though nothing really substantial. Think I've had enough fun just learning songs, lol...I'm gonna start on my technical skill training, whatever that is.

Think I'll go back for piano classes too.

Am gonna teaching 3 beginners piano real soon, so am excited about that. Not too sure if I'm qualified enough or not though:( Well, at least they are beginners, so there should be some stuff I know that they don't, LOL..as sad as that sounds...

I've other commitments coming up as well, which means I can no longer be as crazy over the piano as before. Ah well...maybe after I get those other stuff done.

Have started doing little vocal and breathing exercises as well, and had just joined a free singing lesson program as well, so I'm really excited about that that:D

Anyways, see you all around!

Updates

Still working on Departure from Rurouni Kenshin...

The song is really simple, but since it's such a quiet song, the dynamics is really hard to get right, or anything close to it. I really don't want it to come out like a MIDI file. On top of that, due to mypoor technique, my whole body tenses up when I'm trying to play the left hand softly, yet audibly -- it's exhausting and really not good for long hours of practice.

Hmmm, what else...

Oh, I finally received the two piano books I ordered online!:D One teaches piano essentials and the other is a fake book from the E-Z Play Today series with lotsa Disney favourites in there. With its simplicity and huge notations, it's perfect for a poor-sighted newbie like me:) I'll go into detail about their contents another time though...haven't really read much of them yet.

I went for a earn-training workshop earlier this week as well. It was great, exceot that each student had a sing "lalala" quite a fair bi tto get ourselves used to hearing pitches and intervals in our voices.

I generally hate my voice 'cause of how it sounds, and I hate my singing voice more -- which I guess can't be helped seeing how little I use it each day. My vocals cords and all are ridiculously weak, lol...

It was nervous-wrecking in class 'cause I belong to the Bass vocal type, and the teacher was using the middle C major scale to train us...LOL. I couldn't reach so many of the notes...nearly died...though I managed to survive it somehow:D Think my face was red pretty much the entire workshop, lol...

Side note: I have almost never sang at karaoke before, so you know how scary this is for me...*shudders*

Even so, I sorta liked being able to use the musical side of my voice in a friendly and educational environment for a change. I know I mentioned how frightened I get when I have to sing, and how much I hate my voice, but somehow...I've always wanted, and wonder how it'd be like to not be restricted vocally. It must be so nice for singers to be able to express emotions without cracking their voices all the time. I know all that takes lots of training, but still...These thought make me want to take up vocal lessons -- and the only thing stopping me is fear and well, money...

Anyways, the teacher said singers tend to pick up piano playing much quicker, just made me want to learn to sing even more.

For that, I managed to find a great site that offers lots of singing advice and information for free. It's kinda like Piano Play It, but for singing:) This sparked another idea in me...

What if I followed the tips and exercises offered in that site religiously, while keeping a blog on all the progress and obstacles I faced? It'd be like this blog, but for my attempt at singing instead! It seemed like a fun idea, and being able to observe the improvement in my voice may be cool! Hmmmm...

Only thing is that I'd have to post recordings of my voice on the blog...

I've tried recording and replaying my attempts at some of the vocal exercises I did back to myself -- and let me tell you, it was excruciating to listen......oh man!

But I guess if these exercises were to work, I'd be able to prove how it had by comparing the before and after recordings:D And hopefully that would help those similar to myself, who would like to learn to sing but are reluctant to, some insight to what they can expect from training:)

That'd be cool too...

I'll see what I can do with this idea and keep its advancements posted here!

Video No. 2! Fukai Mori on Piano

Sorry about the poorer sound quality of this one. Sucked all the battery out of the better cam trying to get a decent/usable recording -- turns out it took a lot more tries than I had liked, lol.

Actually, I became so stressed over not being able to play properly for the camera that I kept making mistakes I wouldn't have made if I were playing for myself. Got pissed off and didn't touch the piano for a few hours, which was a fairly long amount of time for me:)

Note to self: Play the piano because you love it, and improvement will show itself willingly. Practising because you're desperate to get better will just lead you to make more mistakes and get worse at a piece...sighs.

Anyways, I'm still not completely happy with my performance in this video, but I can't seem to get it right on video -- and believe me, I've tried...a LOT. But ah well, hopefully I'd be able to play this song much better in a few months' time, when I'd hopefully be better on the piano in general.

Have also been reading up on piano technique, which just made me realise (even more so than before) how lousy my overall technique is...and the more I watched that video, the more problems I pick up.

Another note to self: Record your playing while at the peak of your confidence and enthusiasm in mastering a song, which should be around the time you start being able to play the whole song with just a few mistakes, but you're still liking the feeling of playing the song (because you're past that point, you'll be waaay too critical of yourself and nothing gets done). Make your second draft recording after you've critiqued yourself enough and have tried your best to improve your skills on the piece. The second one should do it.

Next song, Departure from Rurouni Kenshin, and the one after that, a remake of the same song, since I know I have the knowledge to improvise and make the version in the tutorial have a little more depth;)

My First Video!

Finally managed to get a recording of myself playing the chord progression without making too many obvious mistakes, so here it is...



After having made a video of my own, I can now appreciate the amount of care it takes to put one together, even a simple one like mine:)

Anyways, I'm playing a chord progression I learnt in a basic piano workshop about a month ago. It's supposedly one that Jay Chou uses in his song(s). Since it was a workshop for beginners, the improvisational patterns used were really simple -- in other words, a little boring I'd think, lol...So I changed it a little, added in a few chord inversions and did a substitution -- nothing complicated, but not too plain for it to be too boring a video to watch, lol...

Hope you like it!;)

Progress Report:)

Been practising Fukai Mori (the piano tutorial my previous post) the past 2 days...things are going well -- I'm almost done memorising the whole thing. Wasn't too hard...tiring, yes...patience-testing, definitely (only when I had to strain to see which keys were highlighted in the video...pausing, playing and all that stuff @_@)...but the song itself was pretty easy, so all is good:D

Found myself a video cam as well, which meant I've been practising the chord progression I was doing before, again. Just thought that since that was the first thing I was practising on the new DP (digital piano), I'd do a recording of that first. Besides, it's way simpler than Fukai Mori, so doing it after I've learnt that song might make the chord progression lamer than it already is, since I'm still not that good at improvising...

I've actually did some recording of myself playing -- and my hands/fingers looked so stiff during the song, which reminded me of the hand/fingering technique I learnt from Piano Play It, which is a bummer since it meant I'd have to change the way I'm playing the piano....and I'm used to the wrong way already! Ah damn...with this extra work, I'm not sure how long more I'd have to wait before the first recording would be okay to upload, unless i don't incorporate the right method of playing in my first few videos....

*Rambling rambling...*

Anyways, will let you know soon enough.

Wrists are hurting from playing by the way...needa learn the correct techniques fast...

Practising Into The Early Hours...

It's about 15 minutes to 2 in the morning now and I've been practising Fukai Mori -- second ending song of InuYasha. Came across the piano tutorial for the TV version of this song and thought I'd give it a try. Here's the video...



Frankly, learning from this video is really taxing on the eyes, geez...but I like this song and am looking forward to being able to play the melody, so I don't mind:) Good thing it isn't too hard a song -- I was actually trying to learn Fuwa Fuwa Time from K-on! before, and let me tell you -- it ain't for beginners*shakes head vigorously*

It's a great song of a great anime...which reminds me -- I'm still stuck in the middle of InuYasha:(

Oh dear...

Oh, I've been doing the finger drills for the C major scale as well. It may be the easiest scale to practise with, but the parallel finger exercise (left and right hand playing up and down the C major scale in the same direction) is still ridiculously tough. I'm okay with one octave now, but I'm stuck at doing two -- so instead of going up and down a single octave, I'm trying to go up two octaves before coming back down.

With just one octave, for some reason it felt like my fingers could do the walking on their own without me consciously trying to comprehend what they're doing (lol, they move too quickly...I was playing without actually knowing what I was doing, but they managed to get things done nevertheless...LOL, it's like having hands with minds of their own, somewhat). It's different when it comes to anything more than an octave though -- guess my hands' brains aren't smart enough:D

Anyways, I should get to bed. Good night, whoever is reading this...

Photos...Finally!

Here are some photos of my new Yamaha Clavinova CLP-340R...finally! Couldn't get my camera to work but managed to borrow one from my sis:)

Let me know if you'd like to see the range of functions as well. Would be happy to upload a photo or a recording of it:)

Piano Play It

Here is where I learnt the bulk of my piano thory from:

Piano Play It (http://www.piano-play-it.com)

I highly recommend this site for any beginner looking for introductory information on piano playing. It'll probably be really helpful for any beginner to intermediate pianists. I can't begin to tell you how good the site is -- and it's free!

Sorry if it sounds like I'm selling the site. I'm just so grateful to have found Piano Play It 'cause I've wanted some solid piano theory understanding so much for so long, and it's surprisingly difficult to find anything comprehensive enough for the novice, paid or unpaid. Perhaps I've just been looking in the wrong places:D

Either way, here are some features about the site that I found very helpful, and if you  believe these pointers meet your desires, go pay the site a visit, yeah?

1. They offer lessons that get progressively more advanced. Each lesson covers a topic, and most of these lessons have a video of the teacher of the site, explaining and demonstrating everything as simply as possible.
2. These lessons fall into categories/courses. They have a course for beginners, one for accompaniment, one for piano theory and one for chord theory. You'll feel care for as you go through each lesson because if there's a possibility a .PDF file of a piano score, or an audio demo is needed to aid the learning process, chances are that they'll be provided.
3. Video lessons are well-paced, easy to understand and interesting to follow:) The teacher is cool.
4. After some lessons, there will be a video lesson teaching you to play a song, usually a classic like the Beatles' Let It Be or Mariah Carrey's Hero. These are called piano tutorials there, and there are quite a few of them.
5. FAQ section/forum where students can ask their questions, voice their opinions on the site, or offer advice to fellow students
6. Articles with advice on issues such as buying pianos/digital pianos, differences between a keyboard and a piano, stuff like that.
7. Section for piano techniques and exercises
8. Piano history section
9. All lessons are free. If you feel in any way suspicious as to why anyone would offer so much for free, well...you don't have to be. The owners of the site earn their income in other ways that don't require you to pay them directly for their content (e.g. they get paid through advertisements their place on their site, or through affiliate marketing, where they get paid a portion of the money you pay to the seller of the product you purchased via Piano Play It's recommendation -- those would usually be extras that you could get if you'd like additional info, which would probably not belong to Piano Play It ). In short, don't worry and just enjoy learning music from the site;)

Right then, so those are some things I've found useful on the site. If any of those sound cool to you, here is the link => http://www.piano-play-it.com/

A side note: I don't actually get anything in return for endorsing the site. I really do love the site and am grateful to the creators of the site enough to want to help them spread the word, not to mention how much I know anyone visiting the site would benefit musically.

I have hyper-linked the URLs to Piano Play It's site, though if you don't believe what I said about this being an honest non-profit recommendation, copy and paste the URL into your addressbar and press "Enter", instead of clicking the links I've provided:)

They have a channel on YouTube as well, if you'd like to check that out. I've embeded one of their videos below. If you could click on it and be taken to the YouTube page the video actually resides on, you'll be able to get to its channel by clicking on the name of the user who uploaded the video, which should be just below the video's title.



That's all for this post. Stay well and musical!:D

My New/First (Digital) Piano Arrived (3 days ago)!!!

After months of procrastination, weeks of research and agonising fence-sitting, and days of anticipation, my first ever digital piano was delivered to my doorstep->room:D The Yamaha Clavinova CLP-340R may not be an acoustic piano, but it's the closest one I've ever owned. My previous two were keyboards...about 15 years apart, LOL.

(I'll post a picture of the Clavie once I find my camera...)

It has been three days since its delivery -- and I think I've logged in at least 15 hours of playing (not that I'm very good at it).:D I've been playing around with the 12 different voices, recording functions, etc.. Have also been practising a chord progression I learnt from the most recent pop piano workshop I attended. It's just a simplified version of a progression of one (probably more) of Jay Chou's songs.

I still have problem areas to polish, but if I ever manage to get it close to decent, I upload a video of it here:)

Meanwhile...I'm lovin' ma new DP!;)

Before the Clavie

Age: 22
Sex: Male
Location: Singapore
Musical background: 4 months of weekly piano lessons for complete beginners + 2 months of weekly basic pop piano improvisation lessons + 3 2-hour pop piano workshops + hundreds of hours of practice on a keyboard (and digital piano, but mostly on a keyboard at home) + intensive piano-theory learning online

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Diary of a Semi-Blind Beginner Pianist

Yes, I'm sight-impaired -- and yes I'm a beginner pianist:)
.
Learning to "create" music has been an awesome journey thus far -- and though it hasn't been exactly easy, the sound of the piano beingtuned into a recognisable song has made practice seem almost effortless. The additional depth in the sound when played with a digital or acoustic piano has made listening to my playing almost narcissistic-ally pleasurable, LOL...

I liked the feel and sound so much that I placed an order for a Yamaha Clavinova CLP-340, even after having started my temporary break from piano lessons. Besides, I needed something with weighted keys and a sustain pedal to practise on, now that I'm no longer eligible to practise in school for free -- and the keyboard I received as a birthday present from friends though great, was a soft-touch one without a pedal.

Hopefully with the arrival of the Clavie, I'd be able to practise the basics lots more. I'm also mustering up the courage to create a YouTube channel so I'd be able to upload videos of my playing as I (hoprfully) improve along with time. I'll post the videos here to if that notion ever materialises:D