Hi guys,I've started playing the piano (well, the keyboard) around 3 weeks ago, when I found my sister's old piano which she used to play with for fun at a very young age. Since I always liked the song Turkish March by Mozart, I decided this would be the first song I would like to learn.So far, I'm practicing my right hand, and I've posted a video where hopefully you can see my progress.I would VERY much appreciate any feedback you guys could give me based on this video. Please keep in mind I do not attend classes so I might have a hard time understanding some of the piano terminology, but with google's help I'll definitely make it Thanks in advance for all your feedback, but I will surely thank you personally as well
Wait? Go out and find pianos; I'm sure you can find one somewhere. Churches and schools are often good places. I've only been almost kicked out of one. Be sure to ask before playing of course. Playing while the choir is attempting to practice on the same stage tends to attract the wrong kind of attention.
If you produced that after your very 1st 3 weeks of playing the piano you are certainly a prodigy better than Mozart. Taking aside the fact you only play the right hand parts and you still do not know the notes, you don't really capture Mozart. Sadly you seem to have fallen into the trap of showing off with "showmanship" rather than understand the music. Currently the trend is to play right notes as fast as possible and all other detail can "go hang" & if we don't know the right notes we'll play the wrong ones just as fast . Music also requires dynamics, phrasing, DIRECTION. Each composer offers some je-ne-sais-croit magic qualities. Mozart is no exception. Listen to as many recordings by Gould, Brendel and Barenboim you can lay your hands on and you will start to form an "appreciation" of Mozart.It will do your current repertoire a power of good.
i was actually really impressed by the video, i thought you would be shite (no offence) but you actually play really well in it, even if it is just one hand
I'm not sure if this first part of me being a prodigy is an irony or something else but yes I did play for 3 weeks (although I've always been a prettyfast keyboard [as in computer keyboard] typist, so maybe this gave me some finger dexterity). But whether it was irony or not, I appreciate what your trying to say in your entire post. I got myself a teacher and I'm having a sample 50 minute lesson with him tomorrow, I hope to get some guidance. But believe me, this all has nothing to do with showmanship as you called it.Well, thanks, I guess.
Showmanship is often a pursuit where the player sacrifices the detail on the score in order to show off. If that was the very first time you have played the piano, you note reading ability is outstanding. Most 3rd week pianists struggle to read more than 3 notes in a row in one hand. You ignore most of Mozart's phrasing/expression markings in your performance. However, even with the dexterity errors, you play the variation 70% to speed and for that you are certainly about grade 4 standard. To reach grade 4 many take 3 years. I’m impressed and hopefully your teacher will guide you on the right path.
Hi Slow_concert_pianistOk, I think I understand where the misunderstanding might have occured. I don't have any idea how to read piano notes nor phrasing. I played this piece part by ear (around 35%) and the rest by watching youtube videos with people playing this piece and paying attention to which keys exactly the pianists are hitting on the piano (of course I had to search for videos where there is a very good camera positioning, showing the keyboard upclose and from above).I also realize that there is a lot missing in there (I notice it even though I can't read notes at all), but please keep in mind this is a terrible keyboard with terrible sound, so it doesn't really allow me to get the 'feel' of the song out there. I had the honor of playing on a real piano on my first lesson last saturday and it immediately struck me that I must buy my own piano - playing the keyboard is basically 'laughable' (no offense to any keyboard players intended!) in comparison.QUESTION Btw what do you mean by Grade 4? I've done a quick search here on the forums but I can't seem to find an explenation to it, only people making reference to the Grading system. Where does the grading system come from?But I can understand what you guys mean by saying "showmanship". I realized it completely when I played the piano a few days ago, it made me understand how much depth there actually can be to music. I've been missing out, but I'll make up with my new piano I hope!P.s. (and please, I don't mean to be "showing off" here, just trying to get a grip on where I actually stand, of course I can't do that without your comments and I can't get your comments without introducing the whole situation). I can play this song much faster, but didn't for two reasons:1) I thought it sounded very crummy on this keyboard and basically didn't really feel that playing this much faster made it feel right. Am I wrong? should it be played at a faster pace?2) at first I recorded this faster, but the quality of the recording was horrible (this is recorded with a cellphone, so not the top quality microphone out there), notes blended too much with each other making it sound incomprehensible. So I re-recorded it slower.
I am talking about the English Associated Board grading system. You will have something similar in Poland. But I was unaware that you were playing “by ear”, so that places a whole new paradigm on your categorisation. I shall make a recording for you and it will make yours sound wonderful.The only thing that connects the “player” with Mozart is his carefully notated score. This is the evidence of his genius or, as it were, our musical bible. I am often critical of emerging performers who try and play Horowitz in place of Rachmaninov, and so on. A great performer only offers an interpretation (no matter how “good”) and certainly any composer who died before 1900 is only present in the documented music score. That is the case for Mozart. We do not have any recordings of Mozart playing, so his score is sacrosanct. In some cases, as with Schubert and his “wanderer fantasy”, Balakirev and his Islamay an “oriental fantasy” the composer has been unwilling or unable to perform his own work, so composer performance is not necessarily a reliable standard anyway.My fear is you will never appreciate the detail of Mozart unless you learn to read music. But this will offer a nasty catch for you. In reading music the brain must first be able to rationalise the written notes and dynamic, expression, phrasing markings. In that way music is a language of its own. The problem with the piano [in particular] is that information is passed on to 2 hands which must to be able to operate independently. Initially just being able to pass the commands to 2 fingers in one hand is problematic as being able to visualise any note position within a stave is a task that requires persistent enhanced training. Playing three notes in a run, most will find easy. Reading them is a big task for any beginner.
Again, many thanks for your help and insightful comments.With your post in mind, I will start practicing reading sheet music immediately. I've already started reading some music theory and I'm literally facinated by it. Actually, a few days ago my girlfriend who was sleeping at my place told me that, in the middle of the night and while I was sleeping, suddenly I started talking about music theory, explaining the meaning of half notes / quarter notes to her, saying things like "it's so wonderful to finally start understanding some of what you see when you look at sheet music". Apparently I went on like that for almost an entire HOUR in the night. Funny thing is I don't remember doing that _AT ALL_. Funny, or scary?... I'll gladly take up the task of learning to read music. If it really is similar to learning a new language, then I'm sure it will be very exciting and absorbing.Thanks again for your comment(s)!
It sounds as though you have an extraordinary natural talenet. Keep us posted on your progess
Wait a minute!!!First I looked at your video and I started laughing.I laughed because I thought you were joking.Playing like that after three weeks?Maybe you are not joking.If not, you are exceptionally gifted for playing the piano.Actually, I did almost exactly the same as you. I bought a real piano and I learned Rondo alla Turca by ear, both hands. It took me less than a week, but that didn't make me a Mozart, as someone suggested above. I taught myself how to read and learned the whole sonata. Then the Concerto in A major K414. Then the etc etc... Then I found a good teacher (sooner or later this is going to be very important!) A few years later I was in a Conservatoire in a piano-performance class, where I stayed for 4 years. This started almost twenty years ago, and I've now worked almost a decade as a teacher and a performer.Some advise:Near the beginning, when you do the c-major scale up in thirds followed by single-note scale going down from A to D and B, you should add a G below with the thumb. I'm sure you can hear it in all recordings, but it's meant for the right hand to play. Same thing when the passage continues in a-minor, adding an E with the thumb.When the A-major scale-passages in octaves occur again near the end, they should be played broken. So, finger 1 first, then finger 5 etc. You can try using finger 4 on the black keys, if it makes it easier.You hold the last chord too long. It makes a better "dramatic" effect if you make it as short, or just a very little bit longer, than the chord before it. The tempo is fine. Absolutely not faster!! Mozart wrote "Allegretto", which is like moderately fast.Add the left hand. The piano is a two-hand instrument, and you must get a good feeling for that!Find a good teacher! Find a real piano!Learn how to read! There is information there which you can never guess by watching others or by just listening!
The G: This is one of those answers we have to find in the score. Is it melody? Is it middle voice? Is it bassline? How did Mozart write it? He wrote it like this:As you can see, he placed it in the right hand. Also, the top note (D) is a quarter note, while the G follows the B as an eighth note. This means that B and G are not part of the "melody", but is a separate voice just underneath it. The D is the "melody". So, when playing those, you should hold the D with your 4th finger while finger 2 plays B followed by finger 1 playing G. You should not hold the B while sounding the G.The difference it makes is one of those nice musical subtleties, as well as a psychological difference: we "feel" the G in the right hand as part of the music going on in those voices, and do not "feel" that it's part of the bass.Ps 2: Don't worry!! As a beginner you are bound to ask "strange" questions in the eyes of many 'old' players. You cannot possibly know what you still haven't learned, so just keep on asking as many things as possible and ignore the bad answers and use the good ones!:)Me: www.myspace.com/daniloperusinaI've posted a few recordings here, for example: https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=17867.msg191073#msg191073That is the first movement of the "Tempest" sonata by Beethoven.
Thanks for the beer!:)In my case, I played the guitar before that, blues and rock, aural music, so I was already good at picking out notes by ear. Some people, like yourself, just don't find it very difficult to use their hands to play on an instrument like the piano. Some do. I don't think there's any mystical forces involved!:) Here's another example, difficult to realize until you see the score. It's the Moonlight Sonata. Many beginners make the mistake of not understanding that the top line is "singing" melody, although very slow. It's typical to think instead that it's just a key on the piano you have to press down. As soon as they have pressed it down they release it. But you cannot "sing" a long note on the piano if you don't keep holding your finger on it. It would be like a singer just making a short sound and then thinking that "the reverb will take care of the rest" (like it's easy to think that the pedal will on a piano). It's wrong musically, physically and pshycologically to release the notes any sooner than Beethoven asks you to, in this piece. Here it is, when the melody begins:Thanks for the kind words about my playing!:)
Topic: "My" first piece - Turkish March by Mozart 