hearing the notes in your head. What if you play different instruments?

[ZZZenAgain]

strange title I know but I hope someone can make sense of what I am asking. I don't really know anything much about music as will be obvious, but this is the thing at the moment with dd and the violin.

She can (and also has to according to her teacher) hear every note in her head before she plays it. She could always do this when she played slowly on the violin but she had to slow down playing fast notes in order to get those too, now she can after paying constant attention to it, also hear every note, however fast, before she plays it. Teacher also wants her to do this so she is focussing on it a bit atm.

My question is: She is supposed to start on piano now and I am just wondering if this will totally confuse her ear because to my untrained/unmusical ear it sounds very different whether you play say an A on the violin and an A on the piano.

I don't if anyone knows what I mean but I feel as if a piano A is somehow not exact, like it is a bit blurred. Is this just me and it makes no difference to focusing on your ear if you play piano and violin?

The other thing I am wondering is dd says when she reads sheet music she hears it as if it is being played on a violin in her head , just like when she is playing, she hears the note as played on a violin in her head before she plays it so would it totally mess her up to do the piano at this stage? Would it be better to leave it for a bit IYSWIM?

Your daughter is very lucky to have such encouragement to play music

IME an A is an A is an A.

I'm a singer,guitarist and pianist and in the past have played brass instruments. I've never found it to be a problem.

Learning piano will broaden her existing knowledge, building upon what she already knows. The main point of confusion will be learning to read Bass Clef as piano music is written in both bass and treble clefs, whereas your daughter is probably used to reading in solely treble.

How old is your daughter?

I would say that I know very many musicians who play 4/5 instruments and are average at best on each. Always better to focus on one instrument and strive for brilliance imo.

so it is my bad ear that makes a piano A sound different to a violin A! I suspected as much.

She is 11. Well I was told she should start on piano because if she were to study violin one day, piano would be a prerequisite. I don't know if she will study violin though.

When you play guitar, are you then hearing the notes in your head as if they were played on guitar strings and with the piano then differently, as if they were played on piano keys? Is it like switching between languages, just automatic or do you always hear them the same in your head whether you sing or play any kind of instrument?

I cannot imagine this sadly because I absolutely don't hear the music in my head when I look at it. Well maybe she should just not do then the piano then and stick with the violin for now.

Piano would be good to start and I would definitely encourage it.

Pitches are the same. As Tangerine said - An A is an A is A.

Most musicians develop 'relative pitch' where you relate the notes you see and hear to each other. i.e. - The note B is one tone higher than A.

A few people have perfect pitch, where they can tell what a note is without having any reference point of pitch.

Some instruments (not violin or piano) are transposing instruments which is a bit more complicated, but not relevant to your DD at the moment.

Start her on piano as well for sure. She will have no probs.

Feel free to ask more if you want to.

Just as a random thought, when did you last have your piano tuned? Where a violin has one string a piano has 2 or 3 for each note depending on pitch - the lower octaves only have 2 strings, the higher ones (which would be at the same frequency as a violin) have 3. If the tuning is getting a bit dodgy its possible for the 3 strings to be vibrating at slightly different frequencies - so each string producing a slightly different note - which could result in it sounding "blurred" to you.

As an aside, for me personally, singing did far more to develop my sense of pitch than playing an instrument (even though I only ever sang for fun).

What does your DD think about learning the piano? What standard is she at on the violin? Have to confess to being a bit confused - I know a lot of musicians (got to grade 8 on piano and cello when at school and still play the cello with a couple of local orchestras), some of them extremely good, and have never come across the view that learning the piano is a "prerequisite" to studying another instrument. If your DD aspires to studying to a high level then a 2nd instrument might be necessary, but I don't know of anything that says it has to be the piano . Don't get me wrong - there are lots of benefits to learning the instrument - I'm just a bit bemused by your DD's teacher's apparent logic.

IMO, the level of work required to learn to play an instrument well is so great that you need to be motivated by a love of that instrument if you want to do well. If your DD is keen to learn the piano then its a wonderful instrument and I hope she enjoys it and goes far - but if it were me I'd want the drive to come from my DD rather than from her teacher.

Tangle: some university music courses do require a certain standard of piano playing to get in. I play 3 instruments to grade 8 standard and 2 to grade 5 standard plus sing, but because I can't play piano some unis and music colleges i applied to would not accept me without it.
(I took a theatre degree in the end! Lol)

I would definitely encourage piano, an A on violin is the same as an A on piano (don't really understand transposed instruments as I've never played one).
I found it very easy to transfer what I learnt on piano to other instruments and your daughter sounds very talented, it shouldn't cause her any trouble.

thanks so much for your advice. It is a book with seven seals to me so I really appreciate it.

So it would not confuse her ear to learn piano alongside violin atm. I asked her last night and she says it makes no difference to her. I put her on the waiting list for a teacher I really liked a while back, thinking it would take absolute ages for a place to come up but it seems not so I didn't know whether or not to embark on it. Think dd should try it. She could not manage more than about 30 minutes practice a day though on top of the violin.

Transposed instruments tbh sound a bit scary...

Tangle, does she want to learn piano? Well, the thing is her previous teacher said if she were to study violin, she would be required to have a certain level in piano to get on the course (conservatory) so she was not tbh thrilled at hearing that because she would rather have more time for violin IYSWIM, but she does like the piano and will, like all dc, tinker about on one as soon as she sets eyes on it. So she likes to play her violin pieces on the piano or bits of them but she doesn't know what is the right way of going about it.

The drive coming from dd? no, I don't think it did, it came from being told it would be necessary if she wanted to study violin. Left to herself she would be happy just to play the violin I think.

Is piano required? I checked with her new teacher and her paternal relatives who are all classical musicians in Russia. They have all told me that she would need piano to study violin. So I assumed it was always the case but maybe just in some countries? (We live overseas -cz). Maybe in the UK, it isn't always the case?

sorry Tangle, you asked about her level too. I don't know what level she has because she doesn't do grades. She has a new teacher and I trust him. I find he works very well at developping things she needed to develop. So I just go with the flow with it. I see constant good progress and it gives her so much pleasure. I am ok with it, how it is but I don't know how to compare it to what other people do IYSWIM

When I auditioned to Music colleges (late 80's) I had to audition on 1st instrument and piano. Grade 5+ was the base-line standard for piano. When I arrived at Music College to study, it was compulsory to study second instrument of either piano or organ. 1st study pianists/organists could second study any.
I had 1 hr lessons on 1st study, and 30 mins on piano. I did achieve grade 6 piano (2nd attempt) before entry to RCM.
Def get her playing piano.
Good luck to her!!

To study music at degree level, she's likely to need piano - some places require Grade 5, others just "competence" on piano/keyboard, so it would be worth her starting it now to be proficient on it.

She's only 11. If she's not keen on piano and has not decided on music yet then I'd wait until she was sixteen. She'll get to grade 5 in two years at that age with her violin knowledge.

I am just not sure if at 16 with A levels and the violin, she would really realistically have much time to learn piano from scratch up to grade 5. School is not OTT yet but later on, it might prove difficult to fit everything in. I will speak to her violin teacher and the Russian crowd and give it a bit of thought. Thanks very much for all the advice. Really helpful bu hard to decide.

She could wait till shei s about 16 and see if it is really what she wants to do.
She could start now and gradually build up to that level alongside the violin and if she doesn't study it, she hasn't really lost anything.

Hmmm such a quandary

Hi ZZZen. Asked dd who does violin and piano about how she hears the notes and she said they sound the same and then she went on to sing an A and played it on her piano to demonstrate that an A is an A. But she did say that if violin and piano are being played together you would need to tune the violin to the piano (I suppose this relates to the point someone made about relative pitch).

I remember one teacher she had who suggested strongly that we get her a piano and he in lesson would make her turn away from the piano, he would then play a note and ask her to identify it. I suppose this was about aural development and whereas a (tuned) piano will produce the correct sound for a note at the tap of a key, the student needs accurate finger placement on the violin. She can work this out if she knows what it should sound like.

Dd has taken very well to piano which she started in September - music teacher at school says she is flying at the moment and I have no doubt that that is helped hugely by her violin experience. I think violin will always be her special instrument but it's obvious that piano gives her much joy as well.

It may be worth having trial lessons to see how she feels once she has started learning it.

Good luck!

FYI, I was grade 5/6 at age 11, then swapped to a related instrument at 16 - which is what I went on to study at Music College. Piano I think I started around age 15 ish , when I'd decided to 'do' music more seriously.
As a musician now, I wish I was better at the piano.

I wouldn't spend too much time focusing on the pitch issue. Anyone who plays an instrument naturally develops a sense of pitch. I play piano and a brass instrument which technically are different pitches, but it all makes sense once you play the instruments. Your DD sounds like she understands it just fine. Enjoy!!

If you can afford for her to do both and she will practise, I wouldn't hesitate to start her on the piano as well. I was a double first study saxophone and voice, but having grade 8 piano meant that a lot of theory classes etc. at the conservatoire were a doddle. It develops your ability to follow multiple parts in a way that can't be replicated on a violin in my opinion. It will be very very good for her .

OMG you are all so talented and so skilled. When I hear about all these instruments you have learned, I wonder just what on earth I was doing my entire childhood.

Ok I have decided there is no harm in trying it for half a year and seeing how it goes

Good decision!!! Give it a year.
Also, I hope DD plays in local area or school orchestra????

oh sorry , didn't see your last post. OK a year then!

She plays in a youth orchestra. I think it is a very good one (although maybe I am not much of a judge). Highlight of her week tbh