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Hello fellow piano lovers. I was hoping someone could answer a couple questions I have. I am self-taught and have just taken delivery of a brand new "white" Pearl River piano. I've got many piano books and I'm having trouble with the thickest ones staying open to the piece I'm playing. I've tried potato chip bag clips but they are not strong enough and the book always comes open and falls down on the keys and it gets real irritating. Also, if you are playing in 4-4 time I realize it is one beat per quarter note. When it changes to 2-4 time how are you supposed to slow down. Like I say, I'm self-taught and apparently in my rush to play songs skipped over some material I should have learned. Thanks.

I have the same problem with thick books (that’s when spiral bound comes in handy), I usually copy a few pages.
For 2/4 time you do not need to slow down, the 2 indicates 2 beats per measure and the 4 indicates that a quarter note gets one beat.

I find that those potato chip bag clips have trouble keeping potato chip bags closed, a seemingly simple task. Maybe something like this might help.

All music should be sheets or spiral. I have some of those thick books, too, but since I have a stage piano, I use a music stand and can fasten the book itself to the music stand and then I also use a bag clip to keep the book open. Or else I go somewhere and copy the piece. If you have a scanner, you can scan your pieces and then print them out and spread the pages out on the music rack.

Or you could just memorize everything and not need the music.

As far as the 4/4 to 2/4 time question: Each beat should continue to get the same amount of time, so the 2/4 measures would be half the time of the 4/4 measures. The reason for making this type of a change is because it does change where the natural accents are in each measure.

I like to use the big binder clips for holding some music open. Like Rhonda, I also use a stage piano with a music stand and have an extended stand that allows me to have about 5 pages of music spread out. I will also copy pages to minimize page turns. Cardstock (67#) works really good for printing this onto.

Rich

Thanks to all for replies. This seems to be a common problem among us pianists - well I can't really call myself that yet. I've got several books with 200 pages and hate to tear them out or spend hours copying. Thanks to all.

I go down to my local Kinko's office services. For about $5 they will make any music book spiral bound. The pages lay flat without any problems after doing this.

I second the Kinkos suggestion. I take all my big books to them and have them re-bound. Works great.