Hey, it's my tenth post! I've decided to stop labeling my posts as '7th Post, 8th Post, etc.' because the title will go over the things that I'll be talking about. Instead of the title being incredibly vague and you going to another blog in exasperation, the title will clearly tell you what I'm going over in the post and THEN you will go to another blog because you're too busy to be bothered with it. With that being said, let's move on to what I'm going over today.
As you can see above, this is a sheet of music. However, you cannot see any key signatures. Why? I don't know; ask the person who made the music. Now, I'm not deliberately trying to berate (ooh, big words) the person who made this sheet, I'm just trying to point out what she did wrong... and what she did wrong was not include any key signatures. Now, it may not seem like a big deal, but it makes things a lot more convenient. Look at the notes. Pretty much all of them have either a sharp or a flat next to them. Wouldn't it make it easier, for both the player of the song and the writer of the song, to just include a key signature? The only thing that you have to do is to put a few naturals here and there that need to be placed, and that's it! If I'm confusing you with words such as "key signatures" and "naturals", then click here if you want to know what they mean. Or just scroll down if you're too lazy to be bothered with clicking. Although, despite saying the stuff before, writing music is a very hard and boring thing to do, so I have to commend the person that made this. At least she tried, right?
Okay, so yes I sort of lied when I said in the last post that the next post would be a video. The NEXT post will be a video, I promise maybe.
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Oh man! I've almost posted ten posts! The number ten is a two digit number, if you didn't know. Today, as I said in my last post, I'll be taking about pianissimo and staccato and a few other things as well.
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| This is... this is like a key signature but with sharps. The sharps replace every note in that bar with the sharp in place. For example, if there's a sharp on G, then there every G in that bar would be a G sharp. I hope I'm explaining this right. |
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| This is a key signature with flats. Like the key signature with sharps, the key signature with flats replaces every note in that bar with the sharp in place. For example, if there's a flat on F, then every F in that bar would be a F flat. |
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| This is a natural. It negates key signatures with sharps/flats. That means that the natural does not apply to the key signatures with sharps/flats. For example, let's say that a G sharp is in a key signature. That means that every G that is written on a bar is a G sharp. However, if there's a natural beside a certain G, then that G is just a G, not a G sharp. |
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| This is a piano. No, not the piano that you'd think. A piano is a symbol that tells you, "Hey, make it a bit quieter, okay?" This is useful because sometimes you need to ensure a certain mood when you're playing the piano. If you're playing a real sad song, you want to be quiet. If you're banging on the keys and being all loud, then people wouldn't really get the impression that it's a sad song. If you play it all quiet-like, then most people would get the impression that it's a sad song. There's quieter versions of piano, too. There's pianissimo, which is very soft, and pianississimo, which is like barely touching the keys at all. Pianissimo is shown with two p's, and pianississimo is shown with three p's, but you'll rarely see pianississimo. |
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| This is a forte. If you're wondering why it's so blurry, then I'm sorry; I don't know. It just seems to be the way it's rolling right now. A forte is the opposite of a piano; it tells you, "HEY MAKE IT LOUD ALRIGHT?!" This is useful if you're trying to be dramatic, or when you're playing a section that has a lot of action in it. It's similar to piano in the way that when shown with multiple "f's", it will be louder. There's fortissimo, which is like really loud, and there's fortississimo, which is pretty much trying to break your piano keys... You won't see fortississimo very often, though. |
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| This is a crescendo. These guys tell you to gradually become louder and louder. I guess it creates suspense in a piece. The crescendo looks like a mountain sideways. |
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| This is a decrescendo. These guys tell you to gradually become quieter and quieter. It does not create suspense in a piece. Well, maybe. I wouldn't know. I don't write piano songs. The decrescendo also looks like a mountain sideways, but instead of to the left it's to the right. |
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| This is a staccato. This makes the note shorter than usual and peppy. I would use this note in a happy sounding song. Very jumpy and nice. Also I really like the name. Staccato, staccato, staccato. A staccato looks like a dot. I will be very disappointed in you if you don't know what a dot is. |
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| This is a fermata. This pauses the note. You can pause the note as long as you want. I would say that this usually indicates the end of a song. A fermata looks like an eye-ball.
Okay well that's what I learned for today. The next time I'll be posting a video, I think. I guess it depends on how motivated I am.
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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.
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.
