Archive for January 2015
Hi again. I learned about some more stuff so I thought I'd share my progress. Well, it's not like I just learned about it. It's more like, "I actually knew about this stuff a month ago but I was too lazy to make a post about it until now" kind of thing. So the thing I learned about today is a rest. Rests are symbols that tell you to wait a bit when you're playing a song. These things are important because, if we didn't have them, the song itself would look and sound rushed. Y'know, sometimes you just gotta be patient with things and sooner or later it will be worth it. It's sort of like life in a way. A wise man told me that once. Then he ran away because he was being arrested or something, I can't remember. Anyways, there's also different types of rests, so I'll tell you about them right now.
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| Okay so this is a whole rest. Just like the whole note, a whole rest lasts for four beats. If you don't know what a beat is then like I don't even care. Look at my past posts. Now, I know what you're thinking. "Yo, but that looks exactly like that rest below!" Okay, cool. I know. Just wait for a little bit, okay? |
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| This is a half rest. Like the name implies, the half rest is half of a whole note, which is two beats. Now I know the half note and the whole note look alike, but I know how to distinguish them. The half rest sort of looks like a hat, and the whole rest is like a hole or something. Like.. half and hat! They sound similar and hats are upright. Whole and hole... because the whole note looks... like a hole or something... I didn't make this analogy, my music teacher in 3rd grade did. Blame her. |
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| This is a quarter rest. It's a quarter of a whole note, so it is one beat long. That means that you have to wait one beat. It sort of looks like Harry Potter's lightning bolt scar. Blimey, 'Arry! sorry |
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| This is an eighth rest. An eighth note is an eighth of a whole note. Wow, this is sounding pretty redundant. Well anyways it's pretty quick, so you only have to hesitate for a bit. I don't know what this is supposed to look like. Maybe a tree? Or a sapling? |
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| Finally, a sixteenth rest. It's like really short. Again, there are shorter rests out there but I'll just be ending it at the sixteenth rest because I'm pretty sure you already get the idea. This looks like a crazy flute or something. |
Okay so those are rests, and I only said 'like' sixteen times! Okay, now seventeen times. Next time I'll be talking about pianissimo and staccato and a bunch of Italian-sounding words. Dang, now I'm getting hungry. I want some Olive Garden.
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Hi again! I have nothing of worth to say so you can just go now.
...still there?
Okay. I sort of want to explain my process of learning a piano song before a bit more thoroughly. First off, let's look at the sheet music I used.
Okay, cool. As you can probably see this is a pretty short piece. It's not even two pages long, and yet it still took me four days to play it! I don't know if I should be surprised or ashamed at myself.
Well, let's start off by looking at the bass clef. The bass clef is the bottom part of the three bar things. I'm trying to be as descriptive as possible without confusing you so work with me here. If you can actually understand me, then great! You can see that the notes are easier to do and not as hard as the treble clef, the upper part of the three bar things. Really it's just a note, and then a note in a higher octave (or just the higher sounding same note), repeat that four times, then switch to a different note and do that. That's pretty easy. That's why I practiced that for a bit first. Of course it gets a little harder after that, but after the hard part it's really just A, E x4 and G sharp, E x4. That's so easy, dude.
Okay now let's look at the treble clef. I'd say it's harder to do than the bass clef, since there's more notes that you have to memorize and play. It really took me a long time to read all of the notes. It was basically me uttering "B.. E..? BE... BE! G sharp.. C! G sharp C!" and so on and so forth. I must have looked like the first primitive cave man trying to speak for the first time.
Now we're at the point where I learned both treble clef and bass clef. Now comes I think the hardest part; synchronization. I'm sure that's not what they call it but I think I'd rather stick with that term, since it sounds a lot cooler than what I'm actually doing. I start playing both treble and bass clef at the same time, but I'd do it super duper slowly. It's a hard thing to do, at least for me; paying attention to both my left hand and right hand. Though really there's not as much work for me to do for my left hand since, again, it's just alternating notes here and there and maybe a few strays. I did it super slowly, and then gradually become faster and faster. I took breaks every now and then and just played some random mumbo jumbo on the piano. I actually never knew how to play Chopsticks until now. I think a friend taught me once but I forgot completely, so I had to look it up and learn how to do Chopsticks again. Yes, I learned a song while learning a song. By procrastinating.
The hardest part of the song for me was the middle bar. Since you actually had to do stuff with your left hand. I could do both individually just fine, but doing it together was the tough part. If you listen to me playing the song, you can tell that around the middle I slowed down a little bit. That's because I just couldn't do it fast enough. Maybe if I was lucky, sure, but I was trying to not make any mistakes. Of course, that sort of failed since I did actually make at least one.
Wow! That was a lot of work for... a piece that isn't even one full page long! That was my process for learning this song, and probably going to be my process for every other song that I learn as well. The only advice I can give is to keep practicing. I think that's all you could want if you want to be good at piano. The more practice you have, the more experience you have. The more experience you have, you level up! No, wait. The more experience you have, the better you will be at piano.
Q: How long did it take you to learn this song?
A: I started around Jan 9th, which is around four days ago.
Q: Wow, it seriously took four days?
A: Yup! I'm pretty proud of it.
Q: No, I mean like, four days? That's a pretty long time. Loser. LOL.
A: Hey, it's my first song, okay? I taught myself too, by the way. I'm sure I'll improve as I learn more songs.
Q: What was your learning process?
A: Well, first I learned all of the notes on the treble clef since there was a lot more work to be done there. I played that individually until I got the hang of it. Then I did the same with the bass clef afterwards, since there's not a whole ton of work involved. I played both individually until I felt comfortable, and then slowly transitioned myself into playing both at once. It took a long time, and I messed up a lot too, but finally I found myself playing the song pretty well!
Q: How many takes did you have to have in order to record the video?
A: Many. There were a lot of distractions and I also messed up a lot. Like, a lot. I mean, the video itself isn't even that good, so you'd have to imagine how much worse it could have been. It definitely could have been better, I'd think.
Q: I agree.
A: This isn't a question.
Q: How come you're wearing the same shirt as your last video? Do you ever change clothes? Also you messed up a little bit at 0:31.
A: For your information, this is my favorite shirt. Also, you're being very observant of me... It's almost like I'm typing the questions!
Q: H-hahaha... yeah, weird, huh... *ahem* Well, uh, anyway, what song are you going to learn next?
A: I have a pretty clear idea on what it is, but I don't think I'll tell you. I'm certain that I'll learn and play it within this month, though.
EDIT: No way am I going to finish this song in a month, never mind. It's definitely going to take some time.
Here's the sheet music I used for the song and I hope to see you sometime soon.
Hi again. I went out of my way to learn about some more things, such as time signatures and different types of notes, so I thought I'd go ahead and share my progress.
First off are the time signatures. They look like this:
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| I wish I had something clever to say but I don't |
For instance, a 4 on the bottom would mean that a beat is a quarter note long. If it was a 2 on the bottom, it would mean that a beat is a half note long. The time signature 4/4 is commonly referred to as common time, since... well, it's pretty common. It's also shown as C, since there's a 'c' in common. Another time signature that is commonly used is 3/4 time. I mean, there are a lot more but the time signatures that I'm going to be using mostly contain 4/4 time and 3/4 time.. but wait, I mentioned quarter notes and half notes before. What are quarter notes and half notes?
This is a quarter note. A quarter note is a quarter of a whole note. It's like pretty short. If it was a dog it would be a chihuahua.
This is a whole note. It's pretty long. If it was a dog it would be a reasonably big dog.
This is an eighth note. It's shorter than the quarter note, which was already pretty short. I'm gonna stop with the comparison to dogs since I don't know a lot of dog breeds, so just trust me when I say that this is a pretty short note.
And now we have a sixteenth note. This is shorter than both the quarter note AND the eight note! Wow! Now there are shorter notes out there but these are the notes that you'll see the most.
This is a half note. As the name implies, it is a half of a whole note. If you're wondering why the half note is all the way done here, it's because my blog won't allow me to put it beneath the quarter note and let me put text next to it at the same time, which is really dumb. Now there's a gap where it used to be, too, and I can't fix that. Blogs are such a pain, aren't they?
That's pretty much it for now. I've been learning a song, and for the most part I've got it down. I'm pretty sure my next post will be me playing that song.