Week 2 - Learning Melodies and Learning the Piano

Progress

It has been a great week of progress. I decided to learn the song "Ode to Joy," and started on the right hand, or melody. I have noticed that I was inclined to use both hands while attempting to complete it. I forced myself to only use my right hand, because I know that later on the chords or accompaniment will be played with the left hand. At first, I burned into my mind the first half of the melody. Slowly but surely, I built on that. Practice means perfect, and after hours of practice and watching tutorials, I was able to successfully play the melody to "Ode to Joy." I then commenced on mastering it. My goal was to play the melody to "Ode to Joy" blindfolded, and I did that. It took hours of practice and repetition, but I can now say positively that I have mastered it. Below is a video of that progress.

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Learning

After mastering the melody, I started on the left hand, or accompaniment. So far, I have really been struggling in getting this part down. Not only is it using my non-dominant hand, but memorizing multiple keys at once. For example, the "A7" chord requires four keys to be played at once. To help me switch between these keys, I have been taught to keep my hand in the root position. While keeping my thumb on the same key, I can switch between the A7 and D chord with much more ease.

Root position: the lowest note is the root (hence the name), but

other notes are the lowest in other inversions of the chord.
I have to invert my notes, because I am using a shrunken keyboard. The sounds are the same, but they are played in a different way.

I have also color coded the keys. Blue is the A7 chord, and Pink is the D chord. Once I memorize these, I can move on to the two other chords that need to be memorized. Eventually, I will pair the chords and melody to play the full song.

Week 1 - An Introduction

After seeing the corny title of my blog, and the cliché skill to learn that I have chosen, I do not blame you to expect to be underwhelmed. I hope to, however, entertain the reader with my progress, and wishfully enlighten them on the process of going from no skill to some proficiency.

About Me

Before reading on, there are a few things you should know about me, myself, and I. Basketball and any other sports are probably my favorite things to do. Friends are made, skills are established, and competitiveness are all reasons for me playing them. Playing an instrument has always been something that bored me as a kid. Whenever my parents would suggest it, it would be met with a long sigh and a resounding NO. It wasn't until recently that I have found that being able to play a song of any kind and making something that sounds good to the ears is exciting.

Goals that I hope to reach. Journeying from nothing to something.

I truly hope to be able to play with both hands by the end of my time pursuing this topic. From my experience of about three hours of learning so far, attempting to play with both hands feels like rubbing your stomach and patting your head, except twice as hard. I will measure my progress by my ability to play melodies and chords flawlessly. Once that has happened, I will group them together.

Another goal to reach would be to familiarize myself with musical notes. I have never played a musical instrument on a high level, and therefore have no experience reading notes. Understanding the notes would allow me to further appreciate the music I’m playing, and is used in all instrument playing outside of simple tutorial/lessons.

How are you doing this? Are you some kind of all-knowing wizard? 

The answer is no. I am using a keyboard called the “ION Piano Apprentice” which came with an app that teaches me songs and the notes that go with them. I will also be using resources such as “HDpiano” on YouTube.