New York Piano Center

Posts Tagged ‘World Of Music’

It’s not the latest rage on the Internet. Actually it has been there for a while now. I think it started with Napster. At least this web site was the most popular when it came to free music downloads. But the time changed. After a trial, Napster wasn’t allowed to provide free downloads of music anymore. A whole world of music lovers – especially rockn’ roll and pop-music lovers despaired – now the short era of free music is over. However, no matter how much these music lovers cried and wined they were wrong. The era of free music downloads were definitely not over yet and it will not be over, if you wanna know my opinion. I think it all is about that we were internalized to the ‘fact’ that art and especially popular music is not free, it can never be free which boils down to: no goddies can be free. Like a law of nature; he,he,he!

The ability to download music directly to your PC or portable device so that you can enjoy it virtually anywhere is here again. Actually it started even before the Napster verdict. While most of the services that offer this charge a small fee there are a number of free sources for online tunes that you can utilize. Many companies find that by offering samples of artists and albums without charge those same people come back later and end up paying for more.

If you are interested in finding out how to get free music downloads to your pc there are a number of ways you can go about it. Many artists and record labels will offer certain tracks on their websites for free. Many people also turn to online newsgroups and discussion forums that swap free music back and forth. There are also specialized software programs you can obtain to help you seek out tunes at no charge. Some of the methods require more PC expertise than others, but many people find that a simple search engine query can return a large number of free music downloads.

With recent news articles highlighting the legal issues surrounding online music, you might be concerned with the legality of downloading music for free. The rule of thumb to use is that if it is listed on a website owned by the artist or the record label then you are free to download and listen to the tracks without worry. It is only when you get into swapping and trading tracks that you, or others, have paid for that you will need to worry about the legal ramifications.

In this piano lesson you will learn to read easy piano tab notation. You will also learn to play an easy piano melody with the help of tabs. We will use the popular song Yesterday as an example.

To really learn to read piano sheet music is a goal worth striving for. It will open a world of music waiting to be played by your fingers. However, it will take some time to really master the art of reading sheet music.

Piano tabs are tools that can help you learn melodies fast. They are not a complete substitute for sheet music notation but can be an easy way to learn easy melodies as you develop your sight reading skills.

There is an established system for reading and writing piano tab notation. In this system you will have to learn the names of the white keys on your piano. The first note to find is middle c. This note is located at the middle of a piano keyboard. If you take a closer look at the black keys you will find that they are organized in groups of two or three keys.

The middle c is located immediately to the left of a group of two black keys in the middle of your keyboard. It is sometimes called c4 as it is in the fourth octave of an ordinary piano. On a keyboard with a less number of keys the key at the middle of the keyboard will still be called c4.

What is an octave?

If you start with the note c and play the notes to the right of c you will play a c-major scale. The notes are c d e f g a b. The note that comes after b is the next c. As you can see the next c has the same position to the left of two black keys as the middle c. This c is sometimes called c5 because it is in the fifth octave of a piano or grand.

The notes you play from c to the next c is called an octave. Octave means eight and you have played eight notes when you play from c to the next c. This interval is repeated all over the keyboard. c3 is the c to the left of middle c and so on.

The piano tab notation we will use in this article is a simplified form of the piano tabs used on the Internet. Here are the rules:

1. The white keys we will use are notated with lowercase letters. That is, c d e f g a and b.

2. The octave in which you are to play the notes are indicated with a number. c4 means middle c. If the following notes are in the same octave there will not be any numbers after the notes until you change octave.

3. If you are to play a black key it is indicated with an uppercase letter. C means the black key immediately to the right of c. In ordinary sheet music notation this note is written C#.

Now it is time to try to play the first notes of Yesterday by Beatles with the help of our simple piano tab notation. I will show you the first line of lyrics and below the corresponding melody written with piano tabs.

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away

d4 c c e F G a b c5 b4 a a

Now it looks as though they’re here to stay

a4 a g f e d f e e

Oh, I believe in yesterday

d4 c e d a5 c4 e e

Now we have completed the first verse. The second verse have the same melody so we will jump right into the bridge:

Why she had to go I don’t know, she wouldn’t say

e4 e a b c5 b4 a b a g a e

I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday

e4 e a b c5 b4 a b a g b c5 g4 f e

After this you can complete the melody by playing the verse again. I recommend that you memorize the melody one line at a time. This little piano tab exercise is an introduction to the complete tab notation system you will find on the net.