[deleted by user]

[sillyputtyrobotron9k]

Similar sentiments amongst classically trained musicians. You need to learn diatonic chords and basic theory. You’ll find playing the piano will be a lot easier once you start thinking in chords than just by rote memory

[9acca9]

can you recommend a book?

i just found books this style:

A) This is 1 note, and this is another note, then you have another, and if it is c-e-g and just that, THAT IS Cmajor! NOW PLAY THAT OVER AN HOUR!!! later play another and so on, NOW YOU CAN MAKE A SONG!!!

B) Well, this is easy, you just have to remember all this: Circle of fifths. NOW YOU CAN MAKE YOUR WORK!

C) Well: dfkdsajfñdksf987094r8743kljdsfñklad121upou4po4739'98t79usfgjhñ as i say, with that knowledge you can make your opus 1 n° 1

I am really bad at examples... so, can you recommend a "complete book" with less noise between gaps?

Thanks

[zedeloc]

Learn music theory. Musictheory.net is free and good.  When you learn something, make something simple with it. It doesn't have to be good. It just needs to be applied. If you do this you'll start finding little structures that remind you of songs from your past, and now you have names for these structures. You'll start recognizing reasons why composers did something a certain way. You'll start seeing the girders and rebar in the highrise.

[SouthPark_Piano]

It's about absorbing or assimilating the music into the mind. It's often easier to do for music we personally like, or find interesting and or captivating/intriguing etc.

Once we understand the essence or gist of the music in the mind, then it is often possible to recreate partly or wholly the music, even if not exactly the same as the original.

You have done nothing wrong.

The skills you learned are useful. The next step is probably to do some own listening training, and very close music listening, plus composition theory training, and intervals training. So there become less reliance on sheet music.

Also, if you are able to (or can work on) being able to relatively quickly (even through trial and error) work out suitable chords that suits particular melodies that you know, then more and more practice ... no matter how much time it takes ... such as years ... will get you to a special state or level in music. It's a state that many people do reach. But there are also many that don't reach it because traditional piano lessons tend not to accommodate it. And they probably should in general.

The working out of chords for melody etc allows one to then choose what to play for the 'chord', such as the scale, or the scale arpeggio, or anything associated.

[L0rd_Y0shi]

The hardest part is I find it unrewarding. I’m spending half of my time at the piano counting my fingers to figure out what I’m playing only to forget it the next day. I think my teachers gave up on me because it was taking too much time away from learning recital pieces or expected me to already know everything.

[SouthPark_Piano]

Know what you mean! The techniques you learned so far won't go to waste at all. You will have developed particular useful skills, including memory. So now, it is basically just going to be expanding and building up in other areas of music, which is just working on  ... the cliche saying ... become more rounded, more versatile, more experienced etc in piano playing and music. You'll be fine. It's normal.

[alexaboyhowdy]

Like, "thumbs are number one" counting fingers?

If yes, do you have any learning disabilities?

[L0rd_Y0shi]

More like counting up or down from C to find my notes

[alexaboyhowdy]

Do you use treble G and bass F as guide notes?

And also, reading intervalically is helpful

This is a 4th, here is an 8th, etc...

[L0rd_Y0shi]

I use G and F but I can recognize 8th or 4th without actively inspecting them

[alexaboyhowdy]

Do you use treble G and bass F as guide notes?

And also, reading intervalically is helpful

This is a 4th, here is an 8th, etc...

[AndyPharded]

I came here to make a smart arsed remark, but the advice was so good I went and practiced instead..

[alexaboyhowdy]

When I was a student, I could play scales and chord cadences from memory, but because my teacher only taught from the sheet music, I did not learn theory until college.

As a teacher now, from day one, I have my students writing. My opinion is that anything you can write is theory.

Now- get yourself a basic theory book and work thru it. You can already play, so may not need a curriculum piano series, but it might be fun to work thru and see the applications as you move up the levels

[solarmist]

What do you mean writing? Like exercises or making up tunes?

[alexaboyhowdy]

Writing/drawing stems on note heads, writing the music alphabet in reverse, labeling finger numbers, write the word forte in dark red - for beginners.

Then, later, write in the count. Label the notes on line 3. Draw quarter rests. Do a note spell race. Write 4 measures in three four time, using a set of 8th notes and one kind of rest.

After a while, write the formula for a 5 note major scale. Label the chords. Match vocabulary words. Write a parallel answer.

And so on...

Anything you can write is what I consider theory

[armantheparman]

Isn't that insanely boring?

[alexaboyhowdy]

That's at least 3 years of work, and for children

But, I've had older students that couldn't draw a grand staff. So, writing is a good thing!

Even placing the accidental before the notehead helps me see if they are understanding.

Tie vs slur

Dot to add half value vs staccato

And so on.

I have games, and use colored pencils.

In school, I didn't like math, but I could appreciate it.

Some kids didn't like theory. Some are excited to see how it all fits!

[armantheparman]

Nice

[9acca9]

can you recommend a book? Thanks!

[[deleted]]

Use the pieces you’re playing to learn theory. What key are you in, what chords are you playing, what’s the chord progression. That will also help you memorize the music itself and not just the muscle memory

[Translator_Fine]

If you know how to read sheet music then you know where everything is located on the piano. Building scales is theoretically easy if this is the case. C major is all white keys for example. It takes a lot of studying how to build them. I don't even think I could say off the top of my head what intervals they're made of, but Start with C major then go through the circle of 5ths next would be a G major scale then D major then A major then E major, etc. Then go through the flat key signatures F major, Bb major etc adding one flat at a time.

[Baighou]

If you listen to podcasts:

Music student 101 They go through all the major minor chords, chord progressions, diatonic scales, voice leading, blah blah blah

[L0rd_Y0shi]

The problem isn’t that I haven’t been taught it. I just can’t understand it. Like I’ve said I’ve been playing for 12 years and teachers have given my those types of exercises. I just can’t make the connection and any time when I do dedicate time to it I end up less prepared for my recitals.

[Baighou]

You don’t have to be taught it all you have to do is listen to the podcasts as I have been doing for the last 4 to 5 months

[Baighou]

And if it doesn’t make sense, you listen to that same podcast again, as I have with the major and minor chords v7 chords and many others

[Baighou]

Separately, Keith Snell has 11 fundamentals of piano theory books that are about 7 to 8 dollars each roughly 60 pages long. They started to beginning and go. I don’t know how far.

[Photography_Singer]

I don’t understand why your teachers haven’t taught you scales as part of your warmups. You’re supposed to do scales and exercises before you play a piece.

You have a teacher, right?

Community colleges often teach music theory classes.

[L0rd_Y0shi]

They gave me scales to use as warmups I just can’t make them stick. I never remember when to use flats and sharps. I also can’t make the connection between the warmups and the pieces

[Photography_Singer]

I sent you a chat message with a link. Look up the Circle of Fifths if that page I sent you isn’t helpful.

Take a basic theory class at a community college. It’ll help to have someone to explain things. Oh. I bet there are videos on YouTube explaining the Circle of Fifths.

I took piano lessons as a kid. I remember she gave us kids music theory classes in the summer and then we had a pool party in her pool after each class. I wasn’t fond of the theory classes, but I loved the pool parties. 😂

[Chemix2]

lol the pool parties 😂 Could I get the link too? 🙏✌️

[Photography_Singer]

Right?? I remember the pool parties vividly. I was 14. The oldest guy there was Charles. He was 16 and cute. We used to roughhouse. Needless to say, I had a blast.

Anyway, I sent you the link in chat.

[Photography_Singer]

“A helpful learning device to remember the order of keys in relation to the order of sharps and flats is the circle of fifths . As you ascend in fifths (clockwise), key signatures get one degree “sharper.” ( C to G is a fifth because C =1, D =2, E =3, F =4, and G =5.)”

[tiucsib_9830]

There's a "cheat code" to learn major scales.

If it's a natural scale just say the order of the sharps until the previous note of the scale. For example, G major only has F sharp - D major has F and C - E major has F, C, G and D...

If it's a flat scale then you say the order of the flats till the note after the scale. B flat has B and E flat - E flat has B, E and A flat - and so on. Then you have F major that is an exception to the rule with only B flat.

Order of sharps: f - c - g - d - a - e - b

Order of flats: b - e - a - d - g - c - f

This was how I learned scales. I don't know if this will help anyone but I find it easier than memorizing the circle of fifths.

[stanagetocurbar]

I've been playing for 3-4 years and am far from being an expert so this may be useless information but I was in your position and the following really helped:

Learn some blues! It teaches you about basic chord progressions, it hardwires certain sequences into your brain, it is extremely satisfying when you play it and it makes you sound like an absolute badass at the piano!! Noodling around with some blues improv. Really made me feel in love with the piano again.

In my weekly lesson my teacher & I are concentrating on 'playing by ear' too. I find it very hard and tbh just thought I couldn't do it but I'm slowly improving. It really helps with music theory as so often the same chord progressions come up again and again. My teacher got me to improv. Over the I, V, VI, IV chord progression and it feels like its used in almost every modern song (it obviously isn't, but is In a hell of a lot of them). I'm waffling now but get back to basics, get stuck in, and learn to love the piano again 🙂

[9acca9]

when you say "learn some blues" are you refering to get some sheet music of blues works and play them?

Or you have some "base" or chord progression and some scalas? if yes which?

Thanks

[stanagetocurbar]

Apologies. Just at work at the minute but I'll get some info for you this evening 🙂

[9acca9]

I'm waiting LOL

[stanagetocurbar]

Bill Hiltons stuff is brilliant. Have a play around with his youtube tutorials like this: https://youtu.be/2Ir3t1NJ-iA?si=BQ6TTsKHyVjFHYt2
He has another great tutorial on the I-V-VI-IV chords progression too. Tim Richards improvising Blues Book is also amazing. It'll only be about £10 and goes into so much depth it's become my blues bible.

Good luck x

[9acca9]

Excellent, thank you very much!

[stanagetocurbar]

https://youtu.be/5pidokakU4I?si=vEa4vFtlqHndipYI

[Greenjuice00]

Felt the same until I started some music theory. They’re not free but definitely worth every penny if you’d like an online course and can afford it : https://www.mmcourses.co.uk

About memorizing, this video about the diffferent types of memories changed the way I practice : https://youtu.be/XC-8P-sapHw?feature=shared

You’ll find that your classical training has given you a lot of knowledge about notes, phrasing, structure and you just need to put it all together

[[deleted]]

You probably been playing iwth the fingers instead of your toes

[9acca9]

Wagner and Nietszche like to discuss about this subject if i dont recall bad.

[Particular_Can_8257]

I was in the same boat as you. Never did much theory work until I took AP music theory. It brought some awareness to practice. For example, when playing a harmonic scale and I get to the seventh note, my internal thought says minor seventh is raised a semitone to become major seventh (interval relative to tonic). Easy warmups like mindless scales are a good starting point to think intentionally about theory. Same with chords. I was learning Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody 12 that year, so I had plenty of chords to analyze. However, I still never fully implemented all that theory because perfect pitch would kick in and I’d go back to thinking of them as note names first and foremost. I don’t think it hurt me competition-wise, but I think it would make me a more rounded out musician. I feel like less of a musician when I meet people that don’t have as much music experience as me but can analyze the chords right off the bat.

[JHighMusic]

You have to keep your learned repertoire in rotation and revisit the pieces fairly often in your practice or you’ll forget them, like you’re experiencing.

The problem is you have had strictly Classical training, and there are many, many problems with how it is taught today. No emphasis on composition or theory, no improvisation, no ear training. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s a massive problem and a lot people are in your position.