The Mozart Effect refers to research that suggests that listening to Mozart’s music may cause short-term improvement of spatio-temporal reasoning. This suggests that listening to Mozart before performing a task will help you perform that task better.
Continue reading →Adults often come to the point in their lives when they want to explore new hobbies. One of the most common hobbies adults pursue is learning to play the piano. It may be the first time they play or a return to a childhood pleasure. Whether you’re an adult sitting down to learn the instrument for the first time or you want to brush up on your skills, keep in mind some basic rules of piano practice.
Continue reading →Some musicians are true naturals. This certainly is true of Floyd Cramer, who learned to play the piano by ear at the age of five. Once he refined his raw talent, Floyd Cramer was on his way to being a musician others would seek when recording. Today, Floyd Cramer’s legacy is the wealth of music recordings that display his elegant style of piano playing.
Continue reading →The first thing you need to do is ensure that you do in fact wish to modulate rather than transpose your music. Many people mix up these two terms because they appear to be similar, whereas in practical terms they are very different. If you wish to modulate from one key into another, you are moving the music along and playing the music in the keys in which it was composed (or arranged). Transposing on the other hand is taking the existing music and changing it into a new key.
Continue reading →There are many different musical forms, such as the concerto, the symphony, and so on.
Continue reading →A piano is an instrument, a piece of equipment that makes sounds when you press the keys. Anyone can take piano lessons, and with some practice and a patient piano tutor, can manage to make the piano play a tune. But there’s more to playing a piano that being able to bang on the keys in the right sequence as dictated by the piece of music.
Continue reading →Chord symbols are often a part of sheet music and usually appear above each line (music staff), above each individual measure. There can be as many as five or six chord symbols for the same measure. For the most part, they are there as a guide for “playing along” with the music in the sense of accompanying the written music whether sung, played on piano, or both. These chords symbols are essentially designed for a guitarist, but can be played by other instruments such as a ukulele, banjo, mandolin, etc. Sometimes the chord symbols include the finger positions for a guitarist (to play the proper chord).
Continue reading →Using just 5 notes of any major scale, the pentatonic scale is the basis for much of music from the far east. Watch this short video to see how you can use it in a “pentatonic turn.”
Continue reading →
