Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Piano Player's Toolbox of Cool Techniques

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Sunday, June 29, 2008

All kinds of piano tips, tricks, ideas, and helps...

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Come on over to http://www.playpianocatalog.com/

Intervals: The Distance Between Any Two Notes

__Intervals

Intervals are deceptively easy little things. To define them, they sound extremely rudimentary: intervals are simply the distance between two notes or pitches. Play a note on your piano. Now play another one. The distance between those two notes is the interval. Upon closer inspection, however, we see that intervals are far more complex than that. There exist several different types of intervals, all of which can be altered in a number of ways, and understanding the nature of these changes is at the very core of a solid music theory education.

Intervals are defined or named by two characteristics: the interval's number and the interval's quality. The interval's number describes the number of staff positions that sit within the intervals: a second, a third, etc. For example, the interval number for a C and an F would be a fourth because there are four notes between those two (including the C and the F themselves). Likewise, a C and an E would be a third, a C and a D would be a second, and so on.

The interval's quality is a bit more complicated. Interval quality describes the specific type of the intervals in addition to the number; intervals can be perfect, major, minor, augmented, or diminished. But not every interval can be of every quality. While all intervals can be augmented or diminished (by adding or subtracting a half step, respectively), only unisons, fourths, fifths and octaves can be perfect; a perfect fourth is five half steps, a perfect fifth is seven, and a perfect unison is zero (since a unison represents the same two notes). Similarly, only second, third, sixth, and seventh intervals can be major or minor; like augmenting or diminishing, this is achieved by adding or subtracting a half step from the intervals.

But be careful. Since major and minor intervals are created by altering the intervals by a half step, augmenting and diminishing works a little differently here. Instead of simply adding or subtracting a half step, augmented intervals (in this case) are a half step more than the interval's major, and diminished intervals are a half step less than the interval's minor. Let's consider third intervals, for example. Major third intervals are four half steps and minor third intervals are three; in a fourth interval, that half step down that creates the minor would create the diminished. But for these intervals we have to go a half step below that, making a diminished third two half steps (which actually creates major second intervals, but that's a story for another time).
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Sunday, June 22, 2008

Did you know our National Anthem was composed by a prisoner of war?

It's true.

Francis Scott Key was a prisoner aboard a British warship when he penned the immortal words of The Star-Spangled Banner. He had gone aboard a British ship to obtain the release of another American, but was detained overnight by the British. At the dawning of the day he was so thrilled to see the Stars & Stripes still flying over Fort McHenry that he wote a poem on the back of an envelope to commemorate the memorable occasion. The poem was later set to the music of a tune probably written by a British composer.

For the full story, please go to Our National Anthem.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Learn to play Chord Piano with ChordPiano.com

http://www.chordpiano.com learning to play piano doesn't have to take years -- with chords you can actually be playing simple songs in just a few days.

Learn to play Chord Piano with ChordPiano.com

Include short, descriptive, keyword-loaded copy that begins with your domain and includes a call to action or offer that a user will read and want to visit your web site. You may wish to include your phone number. 200 characters or less is the ideal length that ensures your submission will reach the maximum number of sites. Longer text is ok but may cause failed submissions for some sites.

Learn to play Chord Piano with ChordPiano.com

http://www.ChordPiano.com Learning to play piano doesn't have to take years -- with chords you can actually be playing simple songs in just a few days.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Piano Lessons For Adults Who Need To Understand What They Are Playing

Millions of people play the piano, but few understand chords and chord progressions. It's a shame, because it's not rocket science or brain surgery, plus its a lot of fun to really understand what you are playing on the piano.

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