Quick Start Guide
This video is a quick start guide that will show you how to use the site followed by further details and some quotes that may inspire you to want to learn to play. You can get both the sheet music and the Word Notation by going above the video of a song you purchased. Clicking on the sheet music will open the score in a new tab and to get the Word Notation click on Word Notes and this notation can be found in your downloads. You can print both these supplemental materials to take to the piano. Scrolling down on the home page brings you to the players and clicking on the highlighted arrow in the middle of their picture will bring you to their page where you can view all their songs and courses. You can also go to the players page by clicking players at the top menu. You can look at the songs by category which includes all the players by going up to the menu and selecting songs. Next to the song menu are the courses which list the courses by all the players according to subject matter.
Going to the top of the players page the sentence in green type reads songs ranked by difficulty to play from levels 1 – 5, L-1 being the easiest and L-5 the hardest. These rankings are subjective but can be used as a reasonable guide. The sentence in red reads asterisk means song does not have sheet music or Word Notation. The harder to play level 4 songs and especially the level 5 songs were meant for the experienced player who could pick how to play just by watching the video. This asterisk will be next to the song title. Let’s pick a song and go to Matt’s movie and show tune themes and choose Mia & Sebastian from the movie LaLa Land. It’s a level 2 song and there is no asterisk next to the name so it comes with the sheet music and Word Notation. Clicking on this will bring you to the preview page which you will want to watch to see if you can or want to learn to play it. Hitting the buy button will take you to checkout where you will need to create an account or log in or you can buy it in a group for a discount. This site is pay as you go with no monthly subscription fees. This site has no shopping cart so you will have to buy the songs one at a time or you can buy them in a group at a time for a discounted price.
Now let’s go from the preview page to the main menu and watch Matt Peterson playing Mia & Sebastian. You can see the controls are similar to any video control panel with full screen, volume, video quality and speed but what’s different is the chapter marker tab with the horizontal lines. Bringing this up shows how the song is broken down into parts with the top two-chapter markers being intro and whole song. This song is broken down into six parts. Each part is followed by the letters SM, meaning slow motion, which repeat the part at 30% normal speed. Going to the speed control and selecting .5 reduces the speed by 50% and now the slow-motion speed will be 15% of normal. One other thing, to view the songs and courses you purchased click on order history located on the top menu the click on the My Courses tab on the upper left. We also have a more detailed video called “Using the Video and Notes” which goes into greater detail of all topics mentioned above that can be found by going to the top menu and clicking training videos. Hear you will also find the video to learn how to read the Word Notation, watch videos demonstrating how to learn a song, and view some video testimonials from our customers.
Further Details & Quotes
This ends the Quick Start part of the video which I hope will familiarize you with how to use this site and what follows are some details about the site not mentioned above and quotes that may inspire you to want to learn to play. The sheet music was expertly scored by Matt Peterson, one of the players, except for Ken’s songs which Paul the developer scored. Paul also transcribed the video into Word Notation and with help hard to find for this unusual task the project took over a year full time. All the Notation was double checked and then played to find mistakes but if a note seems wrong or a marked octave does not fit the passage check it against the video and mark the correction. Any mistakes we find or hear about in the Word Notation are replaced with the corrected one. Regarding the fingering feel free to change it if it does not feel right. Matt Peterson one of the players encourages all players to learn sheet music. If you want to develop your skills and opportunities as a player you can learn it by watching Matt’s 54-minute course called Piano Fundamentals and with the help of the Word Notation by looking at both transcriptions together. This site has available some very beautiful and popular songs with over 240 pop-rock songs by artist such as John Legend, Christina Perry, Pink Floyd, Lennon & McCartney, Bob Seger, Adele, and Supertramp. We have over 50 classical songs from composers Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and Chopin and many more played in both full version and simplified such as Liszt Consolation No.3. We have over 30 jazz songs such as It Could Happen to You, Moonglow, Skylark, and Stardust. Also available are 47 blues songs including After Hours by Avery Parish and How Long Blues in both Leroy Carr and Jimmy Yancey styles. We have 70 movie & show tune themes and also available are 130 songs with vocals and over 20 Christmas songs.
One of Paul’s favorite writers and philosophers is the late Roger Scruton who passed away in 2020 and said this “Art and music shine a light of meaning on ordinary life and thru them we are able to confront the things that trouble us and find consolation and peace in their presence.” Ken Phelps in his preview of Wonderful Tonight expresses similar sentiments when he says “Playing music is therapy, it calms you down after a tough day at work, it’s medicine for you and for people who listen to you. “Paul says playing music is exciting and the emotions generated when you play will be like no other. Playing a beautiful melody is pure delight and joy and playing in front of another person or many can be off the charts stimulating. Regarding buying an instrument to play on, used pianos are not that expensive and electric keyboard even less so. The entertainment value of what you spend buying songs on this site can be no better comparatively to other purchases, learn a song and you will play it for life. Thank you so much for watching and we wish you all well and good luck.