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I have a probably really stupid question to ask here, but some music that I am trying to play has a B flat followed by a B sharp, what note do I play for the B sharp? Is it C?

Hello everyone! My practice today consisted of reviewing the material in Alfreds all in one book, starting at the C positon (pg 12) and doing all the exercises and songs up to the G position (pg 50). I may have fumbled a little here or there, but for the most part it went really well.

Mike: Welcome to Piano World.

Mandy: I don't know the answer to your question, but hopefully someone else who does will come along. In the meantime, can you upload an image for a visual?

Next stupid question.... How do I upload pics onto here?

Are you sure it is not a typo, and it supposed to be written as " natural" sign (to cancel the B flat)?

Which musical piece is that? Maybe we can search for it in our books or in the net :-)

Andrew, that sounds fantastic ! I'm at about the same spot in the book as you, but that sounds a lot more polished than my effort. How long have you been playing ? I started in Sept 2013.

"Mike: Welcome to Piano World. "

Thank you, TX.

Thanks EnGee I just played it as a normal B and it sounded ok so that must be what it means. Edited to ad its the Alfred's Greatest Hits L1 book, Beauty and the Beast.

MandyD
To answer your questions, yes, if you did see a piece with a B-sharp indicated, you would play the C. There are reasons for writing it that way (instead of just writing it as a C) but that's more advanced. I can't imagine that you would ever see that in a beginner's method book, so yeah it was most likely a B natural to cancel out the flat. When you see an accidental (a flat or a sharp) applied to a note, it applies to the rest of the notes of that type in that measure. If you want to undo it within that measure, you use the natural sign. Sometimes you'll see an accidental in parentheses. That's known as a courtesy accidental. It doesn't have to be there according to the "rules" but sometimes the composer (or editor) will include it as a reminder. So for example, you might see a note flatted in one measure, and then in the next measure see a courtesy natural to remind you that the note should no longer be flatted.

As for how to post pictures, if you go to the main thread page, one of the first post is a sticky thread that explains how to post pictures.

Warm Regards

Glad you could sort it out MandyD :-) fizikisto has explained it in details (Thanks, I also learnt from it).

I don't have "Alfred's Greatest Hits Level 1" book. I thought to buy it, but some reviews in Amazon.com said it is a little bit hard, so I thought to wait till I reach near the end of Alfred's All In One Level 1.

Today I finished reviewing all the stuff I've learned so far, starting from where I left off yesterday at the G position all the way up to "London Bridge." Yeah, that was a lot of review! I have to say, I hope pedaling gets easier. Tomorrow I will start in on "Blow the Man Down."

I have also started learning a piece that I hope to submit to the recital. I'm not sure I'll be able to get it presentable in time, though. Such is the life of a procrastinator.

Mandy: Are you doing the recital piece with your daughter?

Pete R and EnGee: Are you guys doing anything for the recital?

Hi Linda, I'm glad you are preparing something for the Recital. Which scale is it? (Although I know some scales/chords, but according to my current study, I can do C Major or A minor, the white keys only :-)

Well, I thought to answer "No, I won't participate", but after I read the first post in the thread "Recital 35 ..." I started to think "Why not? maybe I can submit something!". So, I will see really if I can play something (very short and simplified of course) from Mozart. If the recording won't be ready to submit, I might submit "Jingle Bells" :-D

Very glad to hear you are thinking about participating, I think it is good for everyone, no matter their skill level, to do so. Just the increased time spent on a piece to polish it, and then the pressure to record are beneficial to development. The more the merrier.

Thanks so much for the advice, I really appreciate the responses and have learnt something from them.

I have to work out how to record something and then put it in the right format, so if I can do that then I might submit something. I was going to do the Beauty and the Beast tune I've been practicing, but I can't get it right so I might go for something simple from Alfred's instead. My daughter hasn't mentioned anything else about it so I'm hoping she's forgotten or I'll have to hear either Ode to Joy or Skipping Frogs for the 10th million time! I wish she'd play something else but she's happy in her little comfort zone. Luckily the teacher keeps slowly pushing her out of it. The sad thing is that I'm sure she can read the music better than I can but she still struggles with getting her fingers to find the right keys.

Is there anyone else who is submitting something from Alfred's? EnGee I'm glad to hear your having a go and I'm sure what ever you submit will be great.

Thanks earlofmar,
Yes it will be a very useful experience to try and sound really good with nice dynamics and without mistakes

Is everyone having a good weekend? I did some note reading today using the note trainer app and also some sight reading from music sheets. Then I started working on "Blow the Man Down." I managed to do HT for the first 7 measures at a snail's pace. And then a little practice on the recital piece. I'm thinking my practice time for the next couple of weeks will consist mostly of trying to get this one piece (that I may have to shorten) ready by the deadline.

EnGee: The key signature (is that the same as scale?) on the piece I'll be playing is mostly G major, but 1 section is C major, and another section is D major. The chords are C, G, & D7.

Mandy: I hope you'll come up with something and get the recording/converting stuff figured out. I successfully recorded a song not that long ago, but then when I tried to record something the other day it came out all muffled/muted sounding. I must have accidentally changed something in the setup. I don't know what, though.

That's a shame TX, but good on you for how your going with Blow the Man Down. I looked at that today as I was flicking through the book and thought "ummmmm, I think I'll be passing on this one at the moment" lol. My eldest daughter suggested recording on her iPad so I might have a go at that and see what happens, hopefully there may even be some whiz bang app that I can download.

Linda, What is this recital you speak of ?

TX-Bluebonnet
Sort of, but not exactly. The key signature simply tells you which notes to sharp or flat in the piece, but that's related to the scale on which the song is built. Consider, for example, a piece with no sharps or flats. That piece could be built on the C Major Scale. Or it could be built on the A Minor Scale. Or it could be built on the D dorian scale, or one of the other so-called Modes which start on the other white notes. In western music, the vast majority of songs are built on either major or minor scales.

Scales are built up of a specific pattern of intervals. The distance between any two adjacent notes on the piano is a half step. Two half steps is a whole step. Think of playing only the white keys. If you play the white keys in an octave going from C to C, you can see that there will be a pattern of whole steps and half steps. From C ->D is a whole step (black key between them, so 2 half steps), From D -> E is a whole step, but from E -> F is only a half step (no key in between them). The full pattern of the major scale is WWHWWWH.

2 points about that:

1) If instead of starting on C, you start on another white note and play all the white notes in that octave, you'll get a different pattern of whole steps and half steps. If you start on A, you'll get the pattern that corresponds to the minor scale.

2) If you start on a different key than C, but you apply the Major scale formula of steps, you'll get a different major scale (one that inevitably includes some black notes). Since a song written based on that scale (or in that key, as they say) is almost always going to use those black notes, they are indicated by the key signature.

One might ask, what's the difference between a song built on the C major scale vs the A minor scale, since those scales both just use the white notes? The main difference is that different chords are more likely to be used, and that affects how the song sounds. Songs written in A minor tend to sound more somber, sometimes even melancholy. Songs written in C major tend to sound more happy. Each key has its own characteristic sound that can evoke a particular mood.

Warm Regards

P.S. Getting off topic a bit, but here's a really fun thing showing the difference in mood that can come from a song being in a different key.

Here's the REM song "Losing My religion"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2gHt-U1eSg

And here's the same song, with all the pitches shifted from a minor key to a major key

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6KmiIq2-m8

It's the same song, but simply changing the key gives it a really different feeling.

Those two videos are very interesting and educational. Please post more if you see more examples like them.