Hey Heyo ! =D

Hello there,

my name is Dustin, I'm 18 years old and from Germany.
I'm playing the guitar (electric and acoustic) for nearly three years now. Mostly self-teached, cause my only teacher wasn't the right for me and I felt like not coming forward with him and since I continued learning by myself.
The Piano always was one of my favourite instruments, besides guitar and saxophone, so I'm glad I have found Andrew's lessons (thank you so much for all the efforts you put in this, you're the greatest!) and be able to start learning my second instrument that I wanted play for such a long time. I found these lessons two days ago and well I kept learning, watching and playing around 4 - 5 hours the last two nights, haha.
Unfortunately I only have a veeery old midi keyboard (to be honest it's one of these old commodore keyboards) and it has quite small keys and even no key sensitivity. (emotion killer, no dynamics T_T) But it should be enough to learn the basics I hope.

Well, I think my wish to play piano and to make music began when playing my first RPG (I don't know how old I was.. maybe 10?) Chrono Trigger and heard the beautiful music composed by Yasunori Mitsuda, and uuuh I stopped counting on how often I completed the game back in these times just to hear all these beautiful tunes again. Since then I always was fascinated by this kind of music, and it expanded with rock, japanese rock and pop, metal, etc. With the age of 16 I began to learn the guitar. In my eyes music is one of the most beautiful and most touching things that exist in this world. I'm not that familiar with classical music, even if I really like it, but it's hard to get a right start into it, and I feel like I should take much time when listening to something classical.
But I really listen to a lot of music, but some of my favourite componists and bands are
Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobou Uematsu, Akira Yamaoka, X Japan, Yoshiki, The Back Horn, Phil Collins, Seo Taiji, Mucc, Acidman, U2, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jo Yeong-Wuk, Bach, and I could go on forever..

At the moment I'm playing in a band with a friend of mine, but we're still at the beginning and composing songs, there is a bunch of complete songs now and we're trying to record demos of them. Also we are searching for the right people for our band. We still need a drummer and a vocalist.

So, I think this was far more than everyone wanted to know or to read, but I get very passionate when talking about music, so... yeah ^^;
Respect if you read it till here, haha =D

I'm so glad I found this great community and all the help Andrew is giving us, thank you for doing this all in your free time.
The World needs more people like you !
So I'm trying to set up regular practicing hour(s) in the night for my piano, eeeeh.. keyboard. ^^
Man, I hope my english is ok, I've not used it for moooonths.

Greetings,
Dustin

Hi there Welcome to the Forum. Feel free to ask anything you want. The help wont be far away

Hey Dustin!! welcome!!! I hope you can feel accepted and find all the knowledge, as well as encouragment to keep going on in your piano journey!

You're english was actually good ^_^ So no worries about that!

I loved video game music as well, Uematsu is my own personal favorite, but I grew up playing videos games, and i think a good sound track on your video game, makes or breaks the game in many ways.

I'm glad to have you here! I look forward to reading future posts from you! I guess you can also use this forum as a way to keep your english up as well ^_^

I hope you get addicted to the forum like some of our other member have '

Take care! I'm glad to have you here! and WELCOME

Hi Dustin, the first thing which came into my mind when I was reading your intro... wooow you know English quite well... and at the end you were worried about it. You dont have to worry about it at all.
Otherwise some of us including Andrew enjoys to read a lot and get to know people so it was great to read your long story.
I exactly know how you feel about old keyboard... I know they might be vintage but having no touch sensitivity kills any quality music.
I guess I did not played enough computer games when I was younger because I am just discovering those tunes with the help of some forum members. So if you would ever like to play those tunes I am sure you can find plenty of sheet music on the internet for it For you the most touching things is the guitar I feel the same way about the piano ( Im sure plenty of us shares this feeling around here )
Probably I should practice more during the night too, it is easy to forget myself in front of the computer though... especially with this forum.
It is great that you already have a band, I hope you will find new members soon and you can work on your new songs.
So nice to have you here and feel free to ask and come and participate in our community as much as you can

Admin Andrew wrote:Hey Dustin!! welcome!!! I hope you can feel accepted and find all the knowledge, as well as encouragment to keep going on in your piano journey!

You're english was actually good ^_^ So no worries about that!

I loved video game music as well, Uematsu is my own personal favorite, but I grew up playing videos games, and i think a good sound track on your video game, makes or breaks the game in many ways.

I'm glad to have you here! I look forward to reading future posts from you! I guess you can also use this forum as a way to keep your english up as well ^_^

I hope you get addicted to the forum like some of our other member have '
Take care! I'm glad to have you here! and WELCOME

I hope so too, thanks Andrew!!

Puh, okay, one less thing to worry about ^^

That's right. Oh and yeah, Uematsu is a genius at composing and it's a wonder what full and great sounds he did with all the old Videogame Soundchips which were so limitating. And well, not to mention the Masterpiece To Zanarkand. I'm also impressed by his great progressive keyboard playing. (with his The Black Mages Band, you know them?)
I think my favourite is Yasunori Mitsuda. I like all the influences he takes from music all over the world, it sounds like you can find a bit of so many cultures and countrys in his music, combining it into one beautiful thing, I love that !

I hope so too. ^_^

maggiekedves wrote:Hi Dustin, the first thing which came into my mind when I was reading your intro... wooow you know English quite well... and at the end you were worried about it. You dont have to worry about it at all.
Otherwise some of us including Andrew enjoys to read a lot and get to know people so it was great to read your long story.
I exactly know how you feel about old keyboard... I know they might be vintage but having no touch sensitivity kills any quality music.
I guess I did not played enough computer games when I was younger because I am just discovering those tunes with the help of some forum members. So if you would ever like to play those tunes I am sure you can find plenty of sheet music on the internet for it For you the most touching things is the guitar I feel the same way about the piano ( Im sure plenty of us shares this feeling around here )
Probably I should practice more during the night too, it is easy to forget myself in front of the computer though... especially with this forum.
It is great that you already have a band, I hope you will find new members soon and you can work on your new songs.
So nice to have you here and feel free to ask and come and participate in our community as much as you can

Hi Maggie !

Wow, thank you, I tried my best =)

Yeah, it's quite annoying, because I can't trying all the dynamics and stuff and also the small keys .. It's like I'm hitting two keys at the same time sometimes because they are so small. My brother has a biiiig midi masterkeyboard with key senivity, mod and pitch wheel and everything. But I can't bother him all the time, and also when I'm playing and practicing I want to be by myself and don't want to annoy anyone, thats why I try to keep practicing nights when It's quiet and everyone's sleeping. (God Bless Headphones!)
Well, I kind of grew up playing them. I really can recommend you Yasunori Mitsuda's Works, for example Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, and KiRite is also a really great piece of music. Yeah, I hope I can find some easier sheets for beginners. I already bought a piano book for some Chrono Trigger tunes some time ago, but it's more for indermediate players, and my KiRite CD were including also notes for one song, but it's too difficult. Too much with two hands.
I think guitar and piano are both the most touching instruments for me, I don't know why I started with guitar first. Maybe because I thought it was the easier one, or because I was more in rock back then. Anyways, It's time to learn the piano now !!
Yeah, it's really cool when you have a keyboard and headphones. So you really have your privacy and if you are a night person like me, you have enough time too.
Thanks, I hope so too ^_^ I can't wait to get more demo recordings done. (One is completed already. )


Thank you all so much for nice welcome message ! ^_^

Even a real piano is quite limited compared to a guitar, but without touch sensitivity etc, it's getting worse....
I know, my keyoard isnt touch sensitive either...

Playing with two hands can be hard, that's how I found Andrew, I wanted to know if there was a faster way to memorize songs that required two hands,
but it's really just to practice, and that can be quite hard, and take a while.

Do you and your brother live in the same house? Does he use it?

I'm a fan of Uematsu, sad he "works" for Microsoft now, because even if FFXII have great music, it's something missing, and that's Uematsu.

I see you're a Red Hot C fan, if you havent yet, you should watch this video, and learn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uIMr3gMA3k

I basically got Red Hot C - Snow ( hey oh ) throwed in my face while I was watching WWE, it's the official Wrestlemania 24 song, but as you live in Germany I doubt you watch that stuff ^_^

Well there are many good stuff here in this forum for you as a beginner, I am a beginner to and because of that I tried to collect as much knowledge as I can... when I join this community I thought I might as well share what I got to know...
So please if you know good sites for sheet music or just teaching sites post it in the forum. There are topics for sheet music sites and for beginners sites in the General Piano Session..

And of course if u know a good Yasunori Mitsuda site I would appreciate that too
I know the feeling when you think a sheet music is kind of easy but it turns out to be intermediate... but we will get there !!

I am definitely a night person... it is 9 oclock here and I had to wake up 5 this morning and it was killing me... ( of course I went to bed around 1 am )

Well have fun and ask and comment ...

VictorCS wrote:Even a real piano is quite limited compared to a guitar, but without touch sensitivity etc, it's getting worse....
I know, my keyoard isnt touch sensitive either...

Why is a piano limited compared to a guitar?

VictorCS wrote:Even a real piano is quite limited compared to a guitar, but without touch sensitivity etc, it's getting worse....
I know, my keyoard isnt touch sensitive either...

Playing with two hands can be hard, that's how I found Andrew, I wanted to know if there was a faster way to memorize songs that required two hands,
but it's really just to practice, and that can be quite hard, and take a while.

Do you and your brother live in the same house? Does he use it?

I'm a fan of Uematsu, sad he "works" for Microsoft now, because even if FFXII have great music, it's something missing, and that's Uematsu.

I see you're a Red Hot C fan, if you havent yet, you should watch this video, and learn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uIMr3gMA3k

I basically got Red Hot C - Snow ( hey oh ) throwed in my face while I was watching WWE, it's the official Wrestlemania 24 song, but as you live in Germany I doubt you watch that stuff ^_^

Mhm, I don't think it's limited compared to the guitar. There are things you can't do on a piano what can be done with a guitar and also there are things that can't be done with a guitar, but with a piano. ^^

Yea, I believe it's a really difficult thing. It's right now the thing I have definitely the most problems with. Fingering, Arpeggios and all that stuff are working really fine, it's just crushing when two hands are coming in.

Yea he live in the appartment above us, and he dont uses it that much at the moment. But it's really big.. it's one of this great DOEPFER Master Keyboards and it would be a big act to get it down here and also I have unfortunately not enough space in my room here.

Mhm, it was just one soundtrack for the XBox until now, wasn't it?
I mean he's a freelancer now, let's see what he's doing next. Liked the Black Mages III Album.. Distant Worlds is great !
Yea, he is definitely missing but I didn't like the game so much. I think the good FF-Saga came to an end with FF X.

Oh yeah ! I can play the main riff for Snow [got the Bandscore for the Stadium Arcadium Album here], but not the other parts.
I love John Frusciante, he's a great guitar player and songwriter (He has some really great Solo Albums). His improv. on Lives is fantastic !

When I was a kid I watched Wrestlemania sometimes (the good ol times when the Undertaker was still the undead haha).
Nowadays I rarely watch it, and it's not that often shown in TV than a few years ago.

maggiekedves wrote:Well there are many good stuff here in this forum for you as a beginner, I am a beginner to and because of that I tried to collect as much knowledge as I can... when I join this community I thought I might as well share what I got to know...
So please if you know good sites for sheet music or just teaching sites post it in the forum. There are topics for sheet music sites and for beginners sites in the General Piano Session..

And of course if u know a good Yasunori Mitsuda site I would appreciate that too
I know the feeling when you think a sheet music is kind of easy but it turns out to be intermediate... but we will get there !!

I am definitely a night person... it is 9 oclock here and I had to wake up 5 this morning and it was killing me... ( of course I went to bed around 1 am )

Well have fun and ask and comment ...

Oh really? I have to check out these topics tonight !
I wanted to search for nice and easy sheet music tonight anyways, so if I'll find anything that's not already mentioned I'll of course post it !

I'll keep my eyes open, I wanted to look for that anyways hehe, so when I find something I'll let you know
I hope so ! =D

Hehe, then practicing in the night could be really useful, yay =D

I'll do, thank you

Hey hey hey....hows it goin?

thomandy wrote:

VictorCS wrote:Even a real piano is quite limited compared to a guitar, but without touch sensitivity etc, it's getting worse....
I know, my keyoard isnt touch sensitive either...

Why is a piano limited compared to a guitar?

Piano = You push black and white keys ( you dont touch the strings ) in different speed, dynamics and rythm, and you have some pedals that control the "rev/delay"...
Guitar = You play the strings, you can choose to pick the string normal, as natural harmonic or artifictial harmonic ( 1 "key" can have 3 different sounds + dynamics ),
you can slide and bend, mute and ofcourse add vibrato.....

When that's said, piano and guitars are 2 different instruments that shouldnt be compared like that... I didnt mean the piano was limited in a bad way, but there are some stuff I'd really love to see on a piano ( most digital today have a pitch bender ).... I cant see why the cant add a huge tremolo bar on a piano ( ofcourse, the tension of the strings are high, maybe thats why ^_^ ).

So anyone into 80's music ( you guys/girls better be! )? Anyway, this song, Heart - Alone, is filled with beautiful piano playing, and a guitarsolo kicks in at 2:38 with lots of bends:
Love the haircuts ^_^:




monophile, I heard you like To Zanarkand, if that's true, you should aim for that one, when you get a bigger keyboard/piano, beautiful piece, my first "two-handed-song",
started learing it 6-7 years ago, and I usually play it once each day.....

Well, this sound better than most of the guitarsolos I have ever seen!!

I've played both and am still not sure which one makes me feel better when I play it... but now I only have time for piano. Anyway, the joy of music is what counts!

Welcome monophile musicphile

Yeah, Its all a matter of taste. I can enjoy guitar, at summerparyts and at the beach. Its good for different situations. But, you can make more beautyfull music with a Piano. But, hey, thats my opinoion. And for every opinions there is a thousends others aswell ;D

thomandy wrote:Well, this sound better than most of the guitarsolos I have ever seen!!

Woow that is a weird guy but he for sure can play... I tried the guitar sounds on my keyboard too... it is pretty neat...
I also tried the drum but it has a lot of different sound and that is strange for me.

VictorCS I like some 80's music yeah. I really like Tears for Fears for example, and some other synthi pop stuff.
Oh yeah ! I love it, I checked out the intro for the right hand (from the piano collection sheet) already, and works in really slow speed.
How long did it take after you did start playing until you could use your two hands?

Thomandy Wow! This guy is really doing some crazy things with his keyboard, am I surprised how good this sample sounds and how good it emulates all the distortion and the palm muting he is using in some parts.


And again, thanks to everyone for the nice welcome. I like it here !!
So it's night here now *gets his keyboard here* ^_^

monophile wrote:And again, thanks to everyone for the nice welcome. I like it here !!
So it's night here now *gets his keyboard here* ^_^

Great team I agree... you better hurry before the night ends... You start it real late night... or should I say early morning?

Over here it's 01:28 AM and at the moment my bedtime is around 04:00 - 05:00, so I have so time left hehe =D

monophile wrote:Over here it's 01:28 AM and at the moment my bedtime is around 04:00 - 05:00, so I have so time left hehe =D

I know it very well, my computer is set for my home town timezone that is why I told you to hurry... but you are right if u go to bed around 4-5 you still have some time left. Have fun playing

That youtube dude is awezome, but lulz, I just lulz, how can you be THAT weird and make great music..... Shouldn't be legal ^_^

You can start playing with 2 hands tonight if you want, I usually memorize the right hand first, then I add the left hand... The first day you'll struggle, and you dont think you're gonna make it, the second day you seem to get it right, but it's going slow, the 3 and 4 day you've prolly feel like you're doing good, but struggle with the hard parts, then you'll probably get frustrated because you cant get the speed right and there are a few weird rythms....

Now I'm so pissed off, because I cant seem to get the last part of "FF1 - Underwater Temple" right, and it's a 150bmp song, and I can do it at about 130bmp right now... But the weirdest thing is that when you first get it right, it's just so EASY.

How many keys do your keyboard have?

VictorCS wrote:That youtube dude is awezome, but lulz, I just lulz, how can you be THAT weird and make great music..... Shouldn't be legal ^_^

You can start playing with 2 hands tonight if you want, I usually memorize the right hand first, then I add the left hand... The first day you'll struggle, and you dont think you're gonna make it, the second day you seem to get it right, but it's going slow, the 3 and 4 day you've prolly feel like you're doing good, but struggle with the hard parts, then you'll probably get frustrated because you cant get the speed right and there are a few weird rythms....

Well put. It like that for me to. The second day It suddanly is In you fingers. That is why I am a bit superstisious about doing the last walktrough "perfect" so my brain can struggle trough the night with my best "performance" hehe
But, its like that, in the 32note - first solo in fur elise, before I couldn do it at the right speed, then suddanly I struggled couse I couldnt do it slow enough And now I can do it as fast as I want to, with ease, and that Is a great feeling!

I also start memorizing the right hand first, usually! I memorize notes pretty easly. Think it got somthing to do with, that I dont relly memorize every single note. I memorize the patterns. If you ask me what note I just hit, I probably cant tell you
But I guess this is normal?!

VictorCS I'll try that, thanks for the tip. I'm just trying to find a quite easy sheet of some (videogame) piece I like, but I can't find one, duuuh. To Zanarkand is still definitive a few levels tooo high.

I'm not that familiar with the older FF Soundtracks. I know everything from FF VII on, and some from FF VI.
I got 4 Octaves + 1 C. If I'm right that should be 49 Keys, if not .. damn ^^
Good luck in getting the part trained to 150 bpm !

Thomandy Yeah, I guess it's pretty easier to learn patterns. I know that from my guitar playing, especially in solos you can really see much patterns which is a lot better to learn than try to memorize every single note.

monophile wrote:

Thomandy Yeah, I guess it's pretty easier to learn patterns. I know that from my guitar playing, especially in solos you can really see much patterns which is a lot better to learn than try to memorize every single note.

Yeah, thats true also. But I was also thinking about in generall when there really isnt any patterns also.
I guess its just musclememory. When Im learning away, canon to my sister I got to start from my last memoryspot Everytime she is ready for a new step. Andrew talks about these spots in one of his lessons. Its important to have some of those if youre performing!

thomandy wrote:That is why I am a bit superstisious about doing the last walktrough "perfect" so my brain can struggle trough the night with my best "performance"

If you ask me what note I just hit, I probably cant tell you

I usually aim for a "perfect" before I quit, just to make sure my brain is cooking the right patterns, but I actually doubt that's how the brain works, because the brain probably tells itself when it plays wrong, it's prolly just tossing the wrong pattern away, and saves the right pattern, the brain is an awesome thing....

I dont know every note myself either, i just know the pattern...

I've started to do some blind memorizing to feel the pattern instead of looking at it,
and it's working kinda good, maybe a placebo effect, but still a good one...

I do sections, lets say I can start from 1sec, 15sec, 30sec ,45sec, 60sec, etc... Several startingpoints in a song, so if I screw up at 26sec I can go back to 15sec or forward to 30sec...

You've play'd pokemon, monophile? I practice Pallet Town for fun right now: http://www.ninsheetmusic.net/sheetmusic.php?franchise=Pokemon
It's midifiles, so you need Finale Notepad or something to make it look like a sheet, but you prolly know.

VictorCS wrote:

thomandy wrote:That is why I am a bit superstisious about doing the last walktrough "perfect" so my brain can struggle trough the night with my best "performance"

If you ask me what note I just hit, I probably cant tell you

I usually aim for a "perfect" before I quit, just to make sure my brain is cooking the right patterns, but I actually doubt that's how the brain works, because the brain probably tells itself when it plays wrong, it's prolly just tossing the wrong pattern away, and saves the right pattern, the brain is an awesome thing....

I dont know every note myself either, i just know the pattern...

I've started to do some blind memorizing to feel the pattern instead of looking at it,
and it's working kinda good, maybe a placebo effect, but still a good one...

I do sections, lets say I can start from 1sec, 15sec, 30sec ,45sec, 60sec, etc... Several startingpoints in a song, so if I screw up at 26sec I can go back to 15sec or forward to 30sec...

You've play'd pokemon, monophile? I practice Pallet Town for fun right now: http://www.ninsheetmusic.net/sheetmusic.php?franchise=Pokemon
It's midifiles, so you need Finale Notepad or something to make it look like a sheet, but you prolly know.

I guess we practice the same way then. I usually practice scales without looking, and hanon, and chromatic scale + part of songs. And of coure the easy side in a song. I only look at the side where I need to look. Usually the lefthand =)
I do belive we get better of blindtraining. Couse then we dont need to rely on the visuals. I also really never look Where im going to hit. I cind of just look where I am, if you understand.. :p

Im gona check it out. I havnt playd so much pokemon. I had 1 game on my gameboy advance. It was fun! Zelda is my game! =)