“Quick Start and More” Transcription
Introduction
Hello everyone, I’m so glad you made it to our page. Who else wants to play beautiful piano music? Are you moved deeply when you listen to music and now need to make it yourself? In this video I’m going to tell you the little-known secrets that makes learning piano easier so you can satisfy your artistic desires to create beauty.
Sarah’s Story
But first Let me tell you a quick story about one of our customers who learned to play using our site. This was relayed to us by an eye witness. “We arrived at Sarah’s annual Christmas party and to everyone’s surprise she had bought a piano. She said playing was something she always dreamed of doing and now that she was retired had the time. Encouraging shouts rang out for a recital but word got out she had bought the piano only 4 months ago and as Sarah walked over to the piano, I could see some people snickering and overheard one person whisper “does she really know how to play.” When she started to play a tense silence fell on the guest. After a few bars were played you could hear gasps of amazement and as the last notes of Liszt’s Lieberstraum No. 3 died away the room resounded with a sudden roar of applause. Everyone was excited about what they just witnessed and rushed to congratulate her; some hugged her. Sarah said before using our instructional site she was ready to give it up but now playing piano has become one of the things she most loves doing.”
Unique Features
How did Sarah learn to play so well so quickly? Let me tell you about the unique features our site has. You will laugh at the difficulty of learning if you follow our plan. The first is a shadow is created when a key is depressed. The second is the video was transcribed into sheet music and thirdly we also transcribed the video into Word Notation which is the notes written out in letter form copied onto a Microsoft Word Graph developed exclusively for this website. Many of our customers who can’t read sheet music or don’t want to learn it use this instead and really love it. Let’s take a closer look at all three. Like all sites we have the overhead of the keyboard showing the player playing the piano, but on our site, you can see a shadow when a key is depressed which is much easier to follow.
Many of the other how to play sites do not have this shadow and hear is an example of that. Some sites use a digitally created highlight and here is an example of that. Our site uses an actual light shined across the back of the keys which makes the shadow more intuitive and organic providing a better understanding of the players intended dynamics. We also break a song down into parts, sometimes as many as a dozen, by placing chapter markers in the video. In Beethoven’s 5th symphony, a relatively short song, you can see it was broken down into 6 parts. Each part is followed by the letters SM meaning slow motion which repeats the part at 30% of normal speed. Going down to the speed controls and selecting .5 reduces the speed by 50% and now the slow-motion speed will be 15% of normal. We also provide two supplemental materials that you can print and take to the piano. The first is sheet music which was transcribed from the video and includes the marking where the parts of the song were broken down.
For the seasoned musician or note reader the video and sheet music will provide all that is necessary to learn these songs but for a beginner or player with limited experience with sheet music many of the scores on this site are going to be beyond your ability to read and play. Piano sheet music has a massive 88 key range with two staffs and multiple notes to read at a time and is one of the most difficult scores to read compared to other instruments. It takes pianist years to hope to read both clefs at a high level. This difficulty is one of the main reasons students don’t start or quite the instrument. To help solve this problem we developed a substitute for sheet music called Word Notation. This Word Notation is the notes written out in letter form copied onto a Microsoft Word Graph which is 100 times easier to learn and read. If you know the alphabet from A-G you’re halfway there to understanding how to use it. Let’s look at this notation and look at the song Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.
The word graph is made up of four rows and 20 columns and follows the section of songs as played in the parts. The right hand is on the 2nd row in black type and the left hand on the 3rd row in blue type. What octave the note is played is written on the top row for the right hand and bottom row for the left both in green type. At the top of the page are the symbols for the rhythm where an underlined letter means the note is held longer and when shown in red indicates the note is played faster. You can learn more about this notation by going up to the main menu and selecting Training Videos and watching the How to Use the Word Notation video.
Testimonials
Have any doubts? Here is what Cooper Walker, one our customers says, “This piano instruction makes difficult classical and contemporary arrangements easy to digest in an intuitive and revolutionary way by offering an alternative to sheet music called Word Notation which is easy to understand and read.” Hannajoy Gephardt says “I’m a violin teacher and I struggle reading the bass clefs notes for a piano piece I’m learning and I use the Word Notation which is absolutely fantastic.
Conclusion
With our the easy-to-follow shadow, ability to watch the video in slow motion, our supplemental sheet music and Word Notation The Very Best Piano Instruction clearly lives up to its name. Thank You for visiting our site and we encourage you to watch the previews to find a song you’ll love to learn to play. Watch the Step 2 Quick Start Video “How to use the site” to learn more.