[SpecialK]

Started practicing Bill's Youtube Lesson 1 - mostly hitting the same key, such as C, in 4 places on the keyboard, and going through all the notes, using different fingers, etc, and eventually just doing 5-key scales trying to be even and consistent.

I have a set of stickers which goes on each key, indicating the name of the key and the position on the staff. I have printed off a couple samples of sheet music I am interested in learning at some point - the opening of Funeral For a Friend, and the opening of Watcher of the Skies. By using the stickers, I have been able to write the note names on the sheet music, and plonk out about 6 of them. The stickers might be a handy cheat, but I may take them off when I get to the "learning to read music" stage...

The sheet music for Watcher of The Skies indicates it is for mellotron in the opening, then includes organ after that. I have the keyboard on "strings" which sounds pretty good. A couple instances have notation indicating an E flat and a C flat - though there is no C flat key.

And I need longer fingers for the G-C#-E#-G type of combo.

It's a handful or two.

[torashi]

C flat is just B, but the name depends on the context.

[SpecialK]

C flat is just B, but the name depends on the context.

Thanks for that. It's Genesis and it has a lot of black keys :-)

[torashi]

Wait 'till you get to double sharp and double flat.

[Rondec]

If you have a tablet, you might try Scribd. They have a free trial month and have a lot of sheet music, some of which is targeted for beginners.

[SpecialK]

If you have a tablet, you might try Scribd. They have a free trial month and have a lot of sheet music, some of which is targeted for beginners.

I do not have a tablet.

I removed the stickers for each note as they were too much of a distraction. I'm just beginning "Lesson 2" which is "starting to read music" with what looks like random scales mostly, but I have discovered parts of Mary Had a Little Lamb, and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star embedded in it :-)

Noodling around with Watcher of the Skies has helped, I think. Almost have the first 20 bass notes down...sort of. Right hand, not so much though I can form a few of those chords :-) I could use longer and thinner fingers.

.

[SpecialK]

Just a little update…

I have been tootling around with the piano – both trying to follow the Youtube tutorials, and having some fun trying the easier parts of a few songs.

Lesson 1 was basically identifying keys on the keyboard, and playing them with various fingers.
Lesson 2 is identifying notes on the treble clef, and playing specific notes with specific fingers, and working on dexterity for scales. I’m getting OK with that, but Part 2 is two notes at a time – and this is where I’m bogged down.

I have been looking at sheet music (I settled on Musicnotes.com) and I am able to print the first page as a sample. Of course, songs are several pages, so it is like reading the first 3 sentences of a book.

They have “easy” versions which are just notes, but no chords. So, I have the first page of about 10 songs, but I also bought the “full” version of Adagio for Strings (was in the movie Platoon), and Funeral For a Friend because if I can eventually play any song, this is it.

I was also messing around with the opening left-hand chords of Watcher of the Skies (it’s just thumb and pinkie), and although I can get the position (mostly) of a few righthand chords I can only transition between a few of them.

Now these Elton John songs are mostly “adaptations” and are not note-for-note transcriptions. Some of it is not even recognizable. They are likely in the wrong key, etc. I am working though Funeral For a Friend and making “corrections” so it sounds more like the real thing, even if about an octave too high. It gets a bit messy with wite-out, especially if I goof it.

So, I looked for some free sheet music notation software and briefly tried Muse, which I did not like because it was too particular about note duration and kept inserting rests which made everything hard to read and cluttered everything up. Edit seemed difficult.

Tonight, I tried Crescendo, which is exactly what I wanted. Easy to place (and move) notes, and very clean depending how complex you want to be (I just want a string of notes for now). I entered all the recognizable parts of FFAF, so I can get rid of the wite-out :-) And it plays from the starting point of your choosing, so I can listen to make sure it sounds right.

I think all the messing around with the sheet music has helped with identifying the staff position of notes, but I need to practice more technique and get coordinated. I don’t know how long it will take. I hope I am better at it than at typing…