ACCOMPANIMENT TIPS

Piano Accompaniment Tutorial (for the intermediate)

The purpose of a pianist when accompanying a singer is to provide support and a foundation to the soloist. Unlike playing in an orchestra where the piano is usually predominant, the piano is the background and is there to make the soloist sound as beautiful as possible. This may seem like a menial task, but in reality it is important and rewarding. In order to learn how to accompany, there are a few basic steps to master.

Do Not Play the Melody
The soloist is already singing the melody. Consequently, if you're playing the melody as well, you will compete with the singer, rather than accompany. Since the voice can sing only one note at a time, it's your job as the pianist to provide the harmonies. In this way youre decorating the melody rather than duplicating and perhaps bogging down what is being sung.

Provide the Harmonies
Most likely, your piano teacher will include basic theory into your lessons. While it may not be the most interesting part, it is essential. From theory you will learn about the basic piano chords in a key I, IV and V7  as well as simple chord inversions. This is your groundwork in creating a piano accompaniment. Chords will harmonize with the melody, giving fullness and depth to the song. Practice to become easily familiar with the chords, switching from one to another and inverting them. Train your ear to hear when you need to switch chords to best go with the melody. Practice by humming the song while just playing the chords. Experiment until you get the best sound. The majority of songs both start and end with the I chord and progress next to the IV chord. If neither of those sound good as you're playing, progress to a V7. At first, this trial and error experiment can get frustrating, but persistent practice and more training will get you easily accustomed, and putting the right chords together will be simple.

Your left hand will provide the bass, while your right hand will be predominately piano chords. The left hand bass can be one bass note, or it can be added to by creating octaves. Look at your chord. The bass note you play in your chord will work as your left hand bass note. You can also split the chord up into both hands, or play broken piano chords. A broken chord is just what it sounds like; each note is played separately (or broken up) instead of together. 

Pay Attention
Keeping an attentive ear is vital to accompanying well. Listen to the soloist's style, breaths and feeling. Each will dictate how you need to respond. Pause ever so slightly in appropriate places if the singer needs an extra breath. Increase or decrease dynamics when he does. Allow the singer to sing freely by being his follower, not his leader.

Be familiar with the song beforehand and be comfortable with the lyrics. Keep a copy of them in front of you to better follow the singer along. Always get together to practice before a performance, so you can interact well with each other. Each soloist has his own style of singing, so each time you accompany, the experience will be different. The basics, though, will always be the same.

PIANO PLAYING TIPS

Piano Accompaniment Tutorial (for the intermediate)
The purpose of a pianist when accompanying a singer is to provide support and a foundation to the soloist. Unlike playing in an orchestra where the piano is usually predominant, the piano is the background and is there to make the soloist sound as beautiful as possible. This may seem like a menial task, but in reality it is important and rewarding. In order to learn how to accompany, there are a few basic steps to master.

Do Not Play the Melody
The soloist is already singing the melody. Consequently, if you're playing the melody as well, you will compete with the singer, rather than accompany. Since the voice can sing only one note at a time, it's your job as the pianist to provide the harmonies. In this way youre decorating the melody rather than duplicating and perhaps bogging down what is being sung.

Provide the Harmonies
Most likely, your piano teacher will include basic theory into your lessons. While it may not be the most interesting part, it is essential. From theory you will learn about the basic piano chords in a key I, IV and V7  as well as simple chord inversions. This is your groundwork in creating a piano accompaniment. Chords will harmonize with the melody, giving fullness and depth to the song. Practice to become easily familiar with the chords, switching from one to another and inverting them. Train your ear to hear when you need to switch chords to best go with the melody. Practice by humming the song while just playing the chords. Experiment until you get the best sound. The majority of songs both start and end with the I chord and progress next to the IV chord. If neither of those sound good as you're playing, progress to a V7. At first, this trial and error experiment can get frustrating, but persistent practice and more training will get you easily accustomed, and putting the right chords together will be simple.

Your left hand will provide the bass, while your right hand will be predominately piano chords. The left hand bass can be one bass note, or it can be added to by creating octaves. Look at your chord. The bass note you play in your chord will work as your left hand bass note. You can also split the chord up into both hands, or play broken piano chords. A broken chord is just what it sounds like; each note is played separately (or broken up) instead of together. 

Pay Attention
Keeping an attentive ear is vital to accompanying well. Listen to the soloist's style, breaths and feeling. Each will dictate how you need to respond. Pause ever so slightly in appropriate places if the singer needs an extra breath. Increase or decrease dynamics when he does. Allow the singer to sing freely by being his follower, not his leader.

Be familiar with the song beforehand and be comfortable with the lyrics. Keep a copy of them in front of you to better follow the singer along. Always get together to practice before a performance, so you can interact well with each other. Each soloist has his own style of singing, so each time you accompany, the experience will be different. The basics, though, will always be the same.

2 WAYS TO MOTIVATE YOURSELF WITH PIANO PLAYING

2 Ways to Motivate Yourself With Piano Playing

Are you too hard on yourself when it comes to piano playing until you almost give up? Do you lack motivation when pieces you worked on don’t seem to progress well?
Time after time, we find ourselves getting stuck on a certain activity. Piano playing seems to be no exception. I, too find myself struggling with piano practice when certain passages do not seem to progress at a level that’s comfortable. So, how do you motivate yourself when it comes to piano playing?

Here are a few suggestions to help you:
1.    Find a piano buddy – Do you know someone who likes piano playing or is currently taking lessons. You can meet with this person on a regular basis so you can play for each other. This person doesn’t have to be your age; it can be someone older or younger as long as you support each other.

2.    Give yourself an incentive – Have you thought about buying that special “handbag” or “electronic gadget”? If you can complete a certain musical piece, it may be time to give yourself an incentive as encouragement.

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WHY MUST I LEARN PIANO SCALES?

Why Am I Learning Piano Scales?

As a student, you probably be asking this question and still, haven't received a concrete answer to that question. The truth is, many piano teachers will teach scales and require weekly practice of scales without actually knowing why; we've all learned scales when we were merely kids learning to read music and it just seems to be the thing to do to teach our own students how to play them. But, there's a problem...students usually don't want to learn or work on something if they don't know how they can use it to their advantage, or what purpose it serves. If you are asking why you must practice scales, or if you are a student trying to figure out why you have to do this, read below!

Yes scales could be boring (but could be lots of fun); usually your mind has conceived it to be boring, and that why you will lack the zeal to practice them.

First of all, scales are the foundation of many styles of music. Think of Darey's "Not The Girl" and Vanessa Carlton's "A Thousand Miles". If you are playing "A Thousand Miles" in the key of 'B' and you've already mastered the 'B' major scale, you might find that it is very easy to navigate through the ups and downs of the melody, since you're already familiar with the tonality and the fingerings associated with the scale. Plus, the scale runs won't scare you anymore since you'll just think of it as going up or down a scale that you've practiced for weeks.

Another reason to practice scales is that they are a great way to warm-up before diving into real practice. If you have to play pieces that are quite fast or physically demanding, you might find that it can be hard to play them right when you sit at the piano. Working through scales to warm up your hands (just like stretching out before a work out!) will help your hands wake up a little and will help you get through those demanding pieces with ease.

Finally, scales are perfect to work on details. For example, if you want to expand your dynamic range, you can do so while practice scales! You can also use scales to practice staccatos, legatos, difficult rhythmic figures, velocity, etc. Those tiny details are hard to practice through pieces because you have to worry about the notes on top of all this. Because you already know which finger to put on which note when you are playing a scale, you'll be able to focus on other details that will enhance your playing in anything else you might play!

So, next time you are wondering why you are practicing this seemingly useless exercise called a scale (or next time one of your reluctant students inquire about them), you'll finally be able to get an answer to your question.

Mind you: these answer are not make-believe. It's either you take your scale practicing seriously or you skip them to your own piano playing peril.

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FOR THE INTERMEDIATE PIANIST...PIANO PRACTICE PRINCIPLES

Introduction

Please note that these are not The One and Only True and Correct Way to Practise the Piano. Rather, it is a collection of ideas and techniques that I have personally found useful in my little years of piano practice. Take what you like and leave the rest.

And if you have an idea for practicing the piano or a specific practice technique you do like better, please add it here.

Remember...Noting Else Makes Perfect Except Practice

PIANO PRACTICE PRINCIPLES:

1. Listen! Everything else in practicing depends on you listening to yourself.

2. Do it right from the very first. Always aim for perfection in notes, sound, and musical expression. YOU CAN DO IT! If you work to get it right from the very first, it's easy. Once you've practiced it a hundred times the wrong way, though, it's very difficult to play it perfect. Remember: doing it one time right is better than doing it a thousand times wrong.

Psychologists say: A stimulus enters long-term memory (that is, it is "learned") after it has been attentively observed 7 times. But if an "incorrect" stimulus is first learned, it then takes an average of 35 repetitions to learn the "corrected" stimulus. Learning it right the first time is five times easier than re-learning after learning it incorrectly.

3. Try to understand the music. Apply the things you have learned in your theory classes and everything you know about music to the songs you play. Look for the key, scales, chords, patterns, repeated sections, the form, phrases, accompaniment patterns, rhythmic patterns--everything you can find. If you understand the music, you will learn it faster, remember it better, and play it more musically. Keep a pencil by the piano and write these things in the music as you find them.

Psychologists who study learning say: Analyzing the meaning of something helps you remember it longer.

4. Write things down. It helps you remember things better if you write them down. When you see it a day, two days, and a week later, it refreshes your memory and helps make it a part of your permanent memory. If you write things down, this process will happen automatically. If you don't write them down, you probably won't think of them again, and you will forget them.

Things you should write down:

- Things your teacher says. We pay so much for piano lessons, yet the minute we walk out the piano teacher's door, we forget 90% of what the piano teacher has said. It's just like throwing away 90% of the money we pay for piano lessons. The piano teacher tries to write things down for you but just can't write down everything. You should go home, play through your pieces, and right there in the music or in a notebook write down everything you can remember about your lesson. This doesn’t have to be complete sentences—just notes and phrases that you understand and which will jog your memory. If you do this, you will be amazed at how much more you remember and how much less the piano teacher has to repeat the same thing.

- Things you figure out about the music. If you figure out a piece is in the key of D major, write down: "D major." If you find an F major chord, write it down. Figuring these things out once and then forgetting them does no good.

Psychologists who study long-term memory say: The key to making a particular stimulus a permanent part of your long-term memory is to review it repeatedly over a long period of time. Memories that are not reviewed in this way become gradually weaker with time. Writing things down allows you to review them over a period of time and so make them part of your long-term, permanent memory.

5. Be your own teacher. Don't wait for your teacher to tell you every thing to do; figure it out for yourself. Often you can figure out the problem and solve it just as well as the teacher can, so why wait?

In the end, you teach yourself how to play the piano even faster, with some help from others.

6. Look at practising as problem solving. Don't look at practising as putting in a certain amount of time at the piano, or as repeating your pieces a certain number of times. Look at practising as finding and solving problems in the songs that you play.

There are three steps in this process:

IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM. Know what that song should sound like, and recognise the difference between the way it should sound and the way it does sound.

FIGURE OUT WHAT CAUSES THE PROBLEM. Is the problem caused by weak technique? Bad fingering? An awkward stretch or jump in the music? An unclear mental picture of the music in your mind? Whatever it is, you have to figure out the cause of the problem before you can fix it.

FIX THE PROBLEM. This might mean using some of the practice methods outlined below, changing the fingering, analyzing the music so you understand it better, or (as a last resort!) just practicing the spot over and over until it is comfortable to play. Problems you can’t solve yourself, ask your teacher or fellow students for help.

Looking at what you are doing is often a great help in creating a greater awareness of your muscular sensations and feelings. The muscular sensations are often very subtle; your eyes can help you tune into what you are feeling. Observing yourself in a mirror or via videotape is often very helpful.

Students often pay attention to sound only. On the piano, it is very possible to get a perfectly correct and even a beautiful and musical sound, while at the same time misusing your body in quite a terrible way. You may be able to play like this for a year or even ten years—but eventually it will catch up with you.

(I will be talking about posture in soon).

IMPORTANCE OF REALLY PRACTICING THE MAJOR SCALE ON ALL 12 KEYS

The first thing we are learning, which is the basic, but very important part of music is to practice the major scale (this is the scale upon which most music/songs are written) on all 12 keys.

This is one of the best ways to train your fingers to move across the keyboard with ease.

It’s always best to use the proper fingering technique so that you don’t put too much stress on your hands. I use the spider technique where your hand hovers over the keys and your finger press the notes. (SEE IMAGE BELOW)

This way your hand is lined up over each note before you press down to play it.

Practice playing each of these scales in one octave and later, in two octaves using the proper fingering at the beginning of your practice time.

The purpose of this lesson is to train your fingers to move over the keyboard. No speed or technique is necessary when practicing, at least for starting. But as you go along and you think you are getting efficient with the scale running, you can speed up.

Don’t rush to get there in one practice session, the idea is to be as accurate as possible. This will help you when we begin to cover other piano runs later on during this course.

Remember, practice right hand first, then left hand. And if you are daring, do both hands at the same time and send me the video clip.

NOTE: Please pay adequate attention to this major scale exercise as you will need to know how to play scales when forming various major chords.

• Other importance of scale practise are as follows:
• Improves the independence of each of your fingers.
• Helps to acquire different dexterities that will allow you to switch fingers smoothy.
• Helps to know the geography of the piano (by playing on different scales and places on the piano).
• Fine-tunes your rhythmic sense and your ability to express different types of hand and body movements on the piano.

You got the picture?...Let's practice! 

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