Welcome Students!
Firstly, be aware that this might be the single most boring blog on the entire internet. And, as a bonus, you may even participate and post to the this blog as well but you must follow the rules or face The Hand! Now, on with the show...
Now don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed some great musical moments and had some good shows but am continually frustrated by my technique - I cannot always play what I feel or hear in my head. So, I am going to take a crack at really practicing. I kept a practice journal before and it was very helpful so when I started to do my first entry for this next round, I thought it would be better as a blog. Maybe some other people want to practice too.
How?
Here is the structure of this blog. If you want to contribute posts to this blog, you must be practicing and support the following format/structure:
- a post is about one whole practice session and each practice session is made up of exercises. (no mulitple posts for one practice session)
- an exercise can be anything (even an improvisation). each exercise has an objective/criteria that you are using to measure yourself back against.
Now you are probably asking yourself "did he say 'MIDI' file?". That's right, music and technology. I practice on a weighted keyboard (roland fp-3 - great unit) or my grand piano with a moog piano bar into a sequencer. I then review my performance visually and see my playing as it is being payed back. I can see where my fingers/notes are not right together, or that certain fingers and/or notes need work, or my timing needs work, or my dynamics could be better for this certain passage. Totally objective method. I use the piano roll type view for this, not the score although you could probably use the score view just as well.
What Else?
This means if you want to participate in this blog, you will need:
i) an electronic keyboard or piano interface with a MIDI connectors,
ii) a MIDI interface to the computer
iii) a sequencer program on your computer that allows you save/export MIDI clips.
While I can't help you with i & ii, I can help out with iii! Here is Quartz AudioMaster: free sequencing software that has 16 midi tracks + 4 audio tracks and scoring!
If you read this far, have what it takes and still want to practice on this here blog contact me - HatHead (blogger at hatheadmusic dott com) If you are not a contributor to this blog, your comments to posts are still most welcome and encouraged!
This post took so long to write that I don't have time to practice this morning! I promise to practice today but need to get to work for a couple of hours at least - stuff to do today! This post serves as a good intro/faq page anyway!
...Bart better get his shit together...
Why?Now don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed some great musical moments and had some good shows but am continually frustrated by my technique - I cannot always play what I feel or hear in my head. So, I am going to take a crack at really practicing. I kept a practice journal before and it was very helpful so when I started to do my first entry for this next round, I thought it would be better as a blog. Maybe some other people want to practice too.
How?
Here is the structure of this blog. If you want to contribute posts to this blog, you must be practicing and support the following format/structure:
- a post is about one whole practice session and each practice session is made up of exercises. (no mulitple posts for one practice session)
- an exercise can be anything (even an improvisation). each exercise has an objective/criteria that you are using to measure yourself back against.
For each exercise:
* You first state your objective/criteria for the exercise. If possible, include links to the music/score (if you cannot host your own files, I will be happy to fix you up)
* Include link(s) to the MIDI files created during practice of the exercise - please note the BPM(s). (If you cannot host your own midi clips, I will be happy to fix you up)
* Comment on your performance of the exercise. Did you meet your objective? What was good? What was bad? What do you need to start doing? What do you need to stop doing? Notice anything new in your playing? etc.
Others can then offer constructive comments. Posting from contributors can also be on other piano related topics.
Now you are probably asking yourself "did he say 'MIDI' file?". That's right, music and technology. I practice on a weighted keyboard (roland fp-3 - great unit) or my grand piano with a moog piano bar into a sequencer. I then review my performance visually and see my playing as it is being payed back. I can see where my fingers/notes are not right together, or that certain fingers and/or notes need work, or my timing needs work, or my dynamics could be better for this certain passage. Totally objective method. I use the piano roll type view for this, not the score although you could probably use the score view just as well.
What Else?
This means if you want to participate in this blog, you will need:
i) an electronic keyboard or piano interface with a MIDI connectors,
ii) a MIDI interface to the computer
iii) a sequencer program on your computer that allows you save/export MIDI clips.
While I can't help you with i & ii, I can help out with iii! Here is Quartz AudioMaster: free sequencing software that has 16 midi tracks + 4 audio tracks and scoring!
If you read this far, have what it takes and still want to practice on this here blog contact me - HatHead (blogger at hatheadmusic dott com) If you are not a contributor to this blog, your comments to posts are still most welcome and encouraged!
This post took so long to write that I don't have time to practice this morning! I promise to practice today but need to get to work for a couple of hours at least - stuff to do today! This post serves as a good intro/faq page anyway!
posted by HatHead at 11:09 AM
2 Interludes:
Just getting home from work!! It turned out not be such as=n easy day! Fires everywhere to put out!!!
That was the creepiest movie ever made.
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