Help for advanced intermediate

[tyus]

Hello guys

I've been playing from notes my whole life and I find it easy to learn to play a song quickly and memorize it. What I'd like to learn now is to play without notes - i.e. listening to a song, then sitting down and finding the notes quickly and making it sound good. I'd also like to just be able to sit down and play something that comes to me, i.e. "hearing" something in my head I'd like to play, then being able to play it. Also, I'd like to play some great classical numbers, any recommendations?

To sum up:
1) Playing a well-known song without notes that sound good
2) Play what comes to me
3) Examples of great classical numbers

Thanks

[landru]

Well I'm an intermediate playing some advanced pieces and I've tried to do some of what you ask about - so here goes:

1) Playing a song: To do this you need a few things. First of all, you need to be able to identify intervals so that you can do the melody on the piano. I can't do this (and haven't tried though), but I hear it does get easier with time.

The second thing you need to have is a good sense of the western harmonic tradition. I.e. Harmonizing the melody on I-IV-V (or in the C scale, C major, F major and G or G7). This will get you a lot of the way on a lot of songs. The great American Song Book (i.e. popular standards from the 20's through the 50's) really extended the harmonic language of songs - and helped jazz really get going. My advice is to get a "Real Book" and see how the songs are harmonically structured and play along with them.

2) Play what comes to you: This can be an extension of number 1. The ability to do this can be greatly enhanced by learning harmonic ways of doing things - you can have your left hand do some simple chord voicings and then let your right hand do it's own thing around scales, blue notes and resolutions of leading tones.

3) Examples of great classical numbers. Well, we got years of history in the piano street forum discussion on appropriate repertoire. Also, the sheet music part of piano street has graded repertoire so that you can see what you can start with.

Hope this helps in getting you started!

[ahvat]

this seems to happen to me when I am practicing my repertoire.