FREE Practical Piano Encyclopedia Release! Composing, Improvising, & Harmony!

[rodrix]

Hi there! 
Let me tell you a bit about me...

My name is Rod and I am pianist since more than 12 years.
Thanks to an excellent teacher I found, during the last three years I began to study harmony and composing, and my whole piano perspective changed, as I could not only play other people's songs, but I could also -for the first time- compose more complex songs and be able to improvise. For the first time I got to know what scales are used for (all teachers told me to memorize them, but never taught me how to use them) and learned how to harmonize them and the functionality of chords, and how they play a role in a composition.

I not only learned how to compose, but also my whole perspective changed when playing any other composer's work, as now didn't I only read the notes but also urged  to analyze their underlying harmony, looking to understand why music sounds well.   

My teacher had very practical lessons and told me to memorize many families of chords, scales, and the harmonization of the different scales and their chords. However, for me it was a really difficult task, and always looking for solutions, I decided to create illustrations of all possible chords, scales, and harmonies for all scales, to aid memorizing.

For the last few years this was kept for private use (only for myself), until many people I met kept me proposing to write a book with that content. Finally, I formed a team in the last few months and we have created an interactive piano ebook, with graphical illustrations about how to harmonize every scale, and chord, scales, and interval dictionaries with full-color illustrations of piano keyboards. In this way, The Piano Encyclopedia was born, with more than 400 pages of unique content and more than 300 full-color original keyboard illustrations, as well as chord, scale, and interval finders.

We've just launched a few days ago and we wanted you guys to tell us what you think.
Our products are not yet released, but we are planning on making many free releases
  and we want you to to decide which software to release first!.   

We've created a blog to receive your comments about features that you would like, and also a poll to let you decide about out free releases. The most voted option in the next weeks, will be the free release that we launch first.

We are very open to suggestions, and my goal is to understand more and cover needs from the piano community that are not satisfied yet, and let me and our team design it.

For example, I can't understand yet why so few teachers teach about the importance about scales and how they can be used for composing or even reharmonizing a simple song to make it sound much richer! The last classical piano teacher I had was excellent at showing me how to play classical pieces, correcting my fingering, and teaching me about how to play with the correct expression. However, she didn't know a bit about harmony  (always I asked her about why some parts of the song were composed in that manner she always told me to talk with her husband which was the music theory expert!). It's not that I am blaming her, she is one of the best piano teachers around here, and she teaches at college as the head of the piano department; however, it seems that there is a dichotomy between being an intermediate/advanced classical piano teacher and knowing harmony.

This teacher I recently found, studied classical music for seven years at the national conservatory, and then began to play and study jazz, performing in jazz groups. He knows the best of both worlds: classical music performing, and harmony from the modern point of view. He teaches me about 9th, 11th, and 13th chords, but he also teaches me how a 9th chord in a Chopin Waltz can be appreciated as a note accident or a passing note, and how the two theories relate. Why aren't there more teaching approaches like these?! An approach that takes the best of both worlds?

That is what drove me to create the Harmony Guide (which can be found in The Piano Encyclopedia) to show how all scales are harmonized, and how this approach can apply both to classical music, jazz, blues, popular songs, or whatever.

I hope to receive you guys' feedback about our project, and I hope it results interesting to you.

I invite you to visit our blog www.pianoencyclopedia.com/blog and vote in our poll to decide about our first free release!

Thanks everyone for reading up to here, I know it has been a very long post, but there were things I had to speak out! 

Cheers and have a great day! 
Rod

[babyblue]

I have always wanted to know some things about the theories,thank you for providing us such an excellent product. Can't wait to see the release~

[waza]

yes this sounds very good can't wait to see the release. I like the idea of it all.

warren

[rodrix]

Thanks guys for the warm welcome!   

We love hearing that you guys like the idea of our project and so we'll keep investing our energy to provide you with the best practical piano encyclopedia! 

Remember that we are open to suggestions, wanted features, and listening to your needs. You can enter any comments in our blog, or if you want them to be private or need any other information, you can also email us at our contact page!

Don't forget to vote in our poll, as we want YOU to decide what is going to be our first free release at www.pianoencyclopedia.com/blog! 

I hope you all have a great day and I'll keep you updated of any news through this thread and our blog!
Cheers!
Rod

[laurent1234]

Great news Rod,
Your post in the "improvising with both hands " thread was very helpfull, and I can not wait to have your book. Everything you said about understand music from inside resonate with my frustration. I really hope to better understand harmony so as to look at classical pieces witht a new angle.

good luck in your endeavor
laurent

[rodrix]

Great news Rod,
Your post in the "improvising with both hands " thread was very helpfull, and I can not wait to have your book. Everything you said about understand music from inside resonate with my frustration. I really hope to better understand harmony so as to look at classical pieces with a new angle.

good luck in your endeavor
laurent

Hi again! 
Thanks so much for your warm feedback, you enlightened my day, and my team's as we are working really hard! 

I understand what you say about your frustration, I felt exactly the same way a couple of years ago, so I understand what you mean. For me, understanding harmony opened me new paths, and made me enjoy piano playing in a new way.

Just an insight:
At that time -a couple of years ago- I used to study only playing classical music, and although I was really good at interpreting, it took me a lot of time to read and prepare each piece. I had been practicing so hard for like 3 months until I could play Bach's English Suite No. 2, I practiced so hard that I could play it with my eyes closed and at fast speed with no mistakes. Then I went to summer vacations away from home... and that was going to be two months without a piano. I was so worried about all my effort being lost for not being able to play piano for almost two months...  and I even dreamed about playing that piece in head, unconsciously -I guess- in urge not to forget it...

...You couldn't imagine how it was coming back to my house after the two months, sitting in the piano... and realizing that I had lost almost all my technique. And that I wasn't as near as good as I was before, - my technique...was lost! I could play the piece... but it wasn't the same...

Then I decided that didn't want just to interpret pieces -I was so obsessed at that time with the correct and perfect interpretation, each note's sound. I decided that I also wanted to learn HOW pieces were made and thought that in that way I could understand them better, and that would probably enhance my interpretation too.

So I began to study harmony and composition, and everything was reborn. Not only I learned things that I didn't loose with time (they stay in your head, and you can create things in your head, even away from a piano!), but my whole perspective changed, and I was opened with new possibilities.

I can now sit on the piano and improvise -almost like composing a piece on the fly-  modulating to any tonality I picture at that moment, and I can compose songs myself -even different styles- (I love classical, so most of my compositions are in chopin-waltz or beethoven style,  and some few in modern Jazz style).

Once you start learning about harmony, your perspective changes, and each time you read something from a score that sounds good, you'll want to analyze it and understand why, so that you can use it in your compositions. Then you discover progressions and cliches from the different epoques that make that special sound in the different periods (like for example Napolitan 6, and other sixth chords).
And once you start discovering the progressions you like and getting used, it will happen that you will even listen to a popular song where there isn't even a piano  playing and you would say -"Hey, that was a V-I chord progression"


Since you really are into classical piece as I am, you could try an exercise I did myself (learn to harmonize all the scales  and learn chord progressions first )
You could even do this:

Get a Chopin waltz you like and analyze the chords formed:
you will recognize that all the phrases are made up of chord progressions, for example I-IV-V-I, etc.

Then, knowing the chord progressions -and having practiced all chords and scales beforehand- you will be able to play the Chopin waltz in any key you like even without  reading the piece. So you wouldn't remember the Chopin waltz as a score, but as a chord progression formula that you could use on any key!

You could even transpose the phrases to different keys  (like a 4th up, and then a 5th, for example) or transform the major phrases into minor (or viceversa, using the scales and their harmonies), and even make variations of the piece. 

All that is also done in Chopin pieces (and most pieces generally). If you analyze a Chopin waltz for example: you'll recognize transpositions of the initial phrase in another tonalities, and switching from minor to major and major to minor. (Usually that is done using the relative major/minor scales and the parallel minor/major scale). You'll even be able to predict sometimes what comes next when you are reading. (For example, almost all of the times you hear a V7 chord then the I chord will come next. Sometimes it may not, but after learning the most common progressions you'll know which ones are most probable for each circumstance)

So once you get to understand music, not only you'll be able to compose and improvise, but your whole understanding and perspective of interpreting and playing other composer's pieces will change... and it's so rewarding! 

Given the warm feedback I am receiving I've decided I might just give all you guys some news about the updates- even before we upload it to our official news blog!

We've working really hard these weeks:

-We have surpassed the 300 color illustrations mentioned in our homepage, and today The Piano Encyclopedia has more than 1000 full-color illustrations of every chord, scale, interval, and scale-harmonization!

-We have added sound to all the keyboard illustrations, so that with the click of a mouse you'll be able to listen to any chord, scale, interval, and even chord-progressions, without even being at a piano! We have up to this day, more than 600 sound recordings!

-We're planning including harmony charts and chord progression charts, and short and easy -but complete- harmony lessons  to make your piano composing and improvising experience much easier achieving real results in less time.

I hope you enjoyed the latest updates -they are really *premium*, exclusive for you guys, as are not even yet on our homepage! 

Please remember that you can drop us suggestions in our Contact Us section of our homepage, and that you can also subscribe to our newsletter to be informed about the latest updates, releases, and special free offers just for members. 


Cheers!   
Have a great day all,
Rod

The Piano Encyclopedia-  The Piano Encyclopedia is  the first practical encyclopedia for keyboard playing,  composing, and improvising  in  the world.

[laurent1234]

Hi Rodrix,

thank you for your long answer. I see you guys are working hard. I am curious to see the final product, at the same time I am a little bit worried about the size of the book...1000 pages:)
One thing that I like in your explanations is you are trying to take an example to make things less conceptual. I think that it is the right direction. Very much like Harvard case-study approach is superior technology, I think that you could try it. Based on a case study, it is possible to understand music theory and the learning experience will be "deeper". I think that Berhard explained how he uses a simple chopin  etude to teach his student a lot about music theory. So many examples are not necessary, but a couple of rich examples that are exploited to the fullest is, i think, superior.

Last , I think it is most important for people who have understood music structure and harmonization not to explain it...but rather they should describe the threshold they met, and how they solved them. I think you do that well, and I hope this is also done in your encyclopedia...

As  a parallel i will talk about submission grappling, a sport i like. It is not working when I tell them people that they should work footwork with jumprope, acid lactic resistance with hindus squats, flexibility with yoga...they will not listen, and it is most understandable. What I can do is say stuff like: "in 2003 I had a bad herniated disk, after that i had to put extra effort into stretching and chore stability...and this is what yoga is all about, so really let's not reinvent the wheel. You can do the way you like, but I have found 3 yoga positions that are really good". I could do the same with jumprope. I  also always take the same example ( my case, my injury history, my struggle) because trying to provide neutral information makes the learning more difficult because it is impersonal. They can identify to my problems and learn from my mistakes . I give them a well informed synthesis of the best stuff, but I keep it personal, and I keep chronology...in fact I think the best way is to maintain a story line.

So in short: I cant wait for your book. Please keep it personal, keep a chronology, a kind of story line that will guide the reader through the whole encyclopedia and that will emulate the journey that piano learning is. So keep describing  your journey like you do in the thread.

I hope I was not too long and painful. I am just worried that valuable info and format could be lost if you guys were trying to make a neutral scientific-like encyclopedia.

kind regards
laurent

[rodrix]

Hi Laurent!
Sorry for taking so much time to answer, it has been a harsh month in the personal aspect and also a month of very hard work and many meetings!

We've so many news, updates, and new features we have finished developing!!!
But first of all, I want to thank you for your feedback. Even if couldn't answer you before, your feedback was extremely valuable, and it was something I took to my team meetings to discuss with!

I think your ideas about including case studies, and the fact of making the encyclopedia a 'journey through piano learning', are excellent ideas! So we'll be implementing on that path! Thanks so much for your valuable feedback  . Feel free to propose any other ideas as we love the feedback from the community, we really want a product for you guys .

In respect to your concerns about it becoming a "neutral scientific-like encyclopedia", you shouldn't won't as we will not let that happen for several reasons:
     1. We're developing the first practical piano encyclopedia in the world, so we want to make this as easy, less time-consuming, efficient, and fun as it can be!
And by the way, I personally think that there are too many neutral scientific-encyclopedias already, that are hard enough to read, so we aren't planning in making another one even more boring
We're even incorporating community technologies so that you can even ask real-time online questions  to any other pianist that is using The Piano Encyclopedia or visitor to our site, so that everyone gets to discuss topics and understand them better. In this way, not only will the community learn more rapidly, but also we'll be currently updating the content of our encyclopedia.
Our goal is to create the new Piano Learning Revolution, creating a new experience for learning piano, not just new content.

2. Even though I'm leading the project, the content of the lessons will be at least 90% written by myself, so I'll make sure to keep the style as personal as possible and trying to depict a story line with some personal stories . If you have any more ideas, everything is deeply appreciated

Regarding the current size of the encyclopedia you shouldn't worry!
We're now currently developing a visual tree that holds all the steps necessary for learning composing and improvising in no time!
It's similar to the list I wrote you up in the other post, with the difference that is much more complete and detailed, and holds all the steps necessary from learning the simple intervals to creating complex chord substitutions and reharmonization for composing and improvising.

In each node of the tree, you'll get very cool looking  transparent fading tooltip with the Lesson's description, as well as the objective of the lesson so that you know where you're heading, and why it's is important to learn that. In this way you'll get a very structured learning guide, and you'll be able to work at your own pace. Clicking on any lesson, you'll reach the parts where I explain the theory and then I direct you to several several pages where you can see, listen, and experience, everything you've just learned! (We're thinking also on the possibility of include also some additional material explained in videos too to complement the text and multimedia...)

Another pianist commented that during his piano career he had the problem that when he learned with a teacher he never knew where he was heading to. Therefore, I think that with this tree you'll know exactly where are you heading so that lessons will be more fun and more motivating. Plus now, that you have sounds, you'll be able to try everything with your mouse... you can now even harmonize a scale on the computer and play a melody. The Piano Encyclopedia will color you the melody notes you should play for each chord, and I assure you that with this visual aid, you'll master chords, scales, intervals, and scale harmonizations,  in no time!

You might be wondering why there are so many pages!? Well, we don't want this to be ONLY the unique guide to learning composition and improvisation the easy way, we want it to be more!!!
Taking advantage of the digital possibilities, we decided to expand the contents of the lessons to provide a unique resource that will help pianists in every way. This way we've combined a chord dictionary, a scale dictionary, an interval dictionary, and a scale harmonization dictionary, all in one!
Being all in digital format, you'll be able to find anything in any way you want it:
you'll be able to search chords/scales/intervals by Name, by tonality, by category (7th, 9th, 11th chords, etc), or even by music style (classical, jazz, blues, etc)!

You'll be able to compare all these visually, and even listen to their different sounds, or analyze their musical structure.

To make The Piano Encyclopedia the most complete and easy reference world-wide we're planning on providing an integrated form that will let any user request the addition of any new scale or chord not present in the current version, so we'll be updating very often!

So that's the main reason why The Piano Encyclopedia is growing so large! ;o)
However, everything is smoothly integrated, so you'll not even notice, and lessons structure will guide you to easily learning composing and improvising in less time than any other method, giving you the chance of comparing all the endless possibilities of what you learned, exploring the interactive pages with just a click.

The main structure of The Piano Encyclopedia is now:
1. Intervals Dictionary
2. Chords Dictionary
3. Scales Dictionary
4. Harmony Guide
5. Easy Lessons for learning composing and improvising from beginner to advanced, that integrate all the concepts of The Piano Encyclopedia.

All the parts are related, and explained in a systemic approach showing how chord, scales, and intervals deeply related to each other.


I invite everyone to check out our new recent features at our blog:
www.pianoencyclopedia.com/blog

I hope everyone likes the new features and ideas we're developing!


Our team has been working very hard this month, so we'll really appreciate all your feedback and suggestions. We really want to make The Piano Encyclopedia a dream come true for every pianist, but in order to do that, we need you to tell us your  feedback too!


Soon, we'll be releasing Limited number of Invitations for our Beta Release!
So make sure to subscribe to our mailing list to be one of the first to try out The Piano Encyclopedia!

Thanks so much everyone for reading up to here,
and again,  thanks so much Laurent for your valuable feedback,
Cheers!
Rod


  The Piano Encyclopedia -  the first practical piano encyclopedia for keyboard playing, composing, and improvising in the world.

[rodrix]

Hi everyone!

I want to share with all you that we have just launched our first video on YouTube! 

Feel free to leave us comments or feedback, here or on our blog; this forum has been the first place where this project started, and all your words are really valuable to me and to our team.

I spent too many years not knowing many crucial simple things that would have saved me years of practice, and we want to transmit this knowledge and teach piano from a systemic approach, from basic piano learning to advanced topics such as composing and improvising.

My goal is to make The Piano Encyclopedia an enjoyable experience that will make you discover, in a very short time, how chords, intervals, and scales are related; and how to combine them in order to create your own compositions, improvisations, or even rediscover the pieces that you are playing, by really understanding music.

So if you like the features we're developing or would like some new features we didn't describe yet, Speak out!
We want to make piano learning different, for all levels of expertise.

We really want the whole piano community involved in the creation of this revolutionary learning experience!

All the first people that sign-up to our mailing list (www.pianoencyclopedia.com) will be given the possibility of becoming one of the first to try out The Piano Encyclopedia.

We'll be releasing a LIMITED number of invitations!

Thanks everyone for all the support!
Cheers!
Rod

P.S: Make sure to check the blog to read about the new features we've developed 


The Piano Encyclopedia - The first practical encyclopedia for keyboard playing, composing, and improvising in the world.