Instrument Players - Come and chat (Part II)

[CoteDAzur]

Previous thread is here.

We filled one thread, so here’s another

Of course, if you love Beethoven and want to play that only, that is absolutely the best thing to do! I definitely think the only point of it is to have fun.

Yeah - you can give DS a chord sequence and he'll improvise over the top without a second thought, he could presumably do it from notes too though on guitar that would make less sense. Chords are just a way of formalising the relationship between notes.

Although it's obviously way less complex than what Alma does it's the same process: he finds a melody or a motif that he elaborated on.

To do it well though the physical side of playing has to be almost automatic, your fingers have to go where they need to go without thinking about it. It's easier on guitar because changing key just involves moving up or down X number of frets. Harder on piano because you have to know your keys back to front.

I'm experimenting with something at the moment which I hope will make me a better player and better improviser. I have a book of exercices and I choose one a day and then transpose it into every single major key (major just because it seems to work best for these particular exercises). After a few days my fingers seem to more or less know where to go in each key. I find it more helpful than scales because it imposes knowledge of the relevant intervals too.

Yes I try to include some playing of songs in every key - I think it's a really powerful exercise. I'm no great shakes at piano (grade 3? who knows? - it doesn't seem that translatable since this sort of thing isn't in grade exams) and before September I had no clue about harmony theory at all.

But I can now take a simple song (eg something with 5 chords, like Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen or Over the Rainbow), play the melody and some kind of invented accompaniment based on the chords and transpose it all round the circle of fifths in every key. If you have the circle of fifths in front of you, you can use it to work out what all the chords in your song should be in every key. My aim is to get to the point where I don't need to look at the circle any more...and then to the point where I don't even have to 'work it out' - I believe your hands should just naturally go there after enough practice.

Same thing on flute - I try to work out a tune by ear, then repeat another 11 times starting on all the other notes so I've done it in every key. Tough at first and I was literally starting with Frere Jacques (had to swallow my pride and ignore the voice in my head saying "but I've got grade 8!"), but it's got much easier with practice and I feel it's really helping train my ear.

Tintini you have inspired me, I've just printed out the circle of fifths. I think I'll start with Frere Jacques too...

Do you know how to use the circle of fifths to show you the chords in simple songs? Apologies if it's obvious / you already know what I'm about to say but it was a complete revelation to me when I discovered it a few months ago!

Basically the 'main' (diatonic) chords that are most likely to be in your song cluster around the key you're in on the circle. So if you're in C, the diatonic chords are the ones surrounding C on the circle - ie F, G, Am, Dm and Em. The reason those are the diatonic chords is that they are the ones that only include notes that are in the scale of your key. If you learn the chords in the song as their number in alphabetical order (ie C = I, Dm = II, Em = III, F = IV, G = V), then to transpose to a new key you just move around the circle, making whatever key you've chosen become the 'new' I, and look for the new chords that cluster around it. So in the key of G, G is now I, Am is now II, we've added a new chord - Bm - as III, C is now IV, and we have D as V (still in alphabetical order, just shifted...). They are always in the same relative positions. The important thing is learning the chord progression as numbers, not just as letters.

I'm sure there are loads of YouTube videos explaining it better than that! You can buy or make your own 'spinning' version if like me you have to turn maps around to work out which direction you're going in.

The circle of fifths is definitely the most useful music thing I've ever encountered. There are patterns in it everywhere - eg from it you can deduce all the major and minor arpeggios/chords, the pentatonic scales, the full scales etc etc. There must be loads of patterns I haven't spotted yet.

I'm still a bit mystified that I never learnt much about it when I had all those music lessons years ago - all I remember was something about how it showed the order of adding sharps and flats, and it had no practical use that I could see. But actually it holds the key (for me at least!) to understanding harmony and playing better.

I learned this in music theory.

We also talk about it endlessly in piano lessons... Though many composers go rogue and refuse to play by the rule nicely.

That's great Never! I'm beginning to think I was a bit unfortunate with my teachers (or was just particularly dim!). I really hope this is just basic normal stuff that everyone learns and I'm in a small group of people who missed it. I don't remember any of this from music theory, but I only did the obligatory grade 5. If it was in there, I passed the exam with no real understanding!

I don't remember which grade but I did the harmonising and writing things in 4 parts and stuff... I remember enjoying the lessons, though I can't remember too much of the details.

I never had much music theory so only recently came across the Circle of Fifths, and I never understood what it was about. Until this explanation where the information is explained really well. The videos are interesting, too.

Ah yes, that's a nice explanation. I think the Classic FM site is good - lots of very accessible articles and I like the ones that do a bit of cross-over with other genres, celebrating that it's all music rather than just saying "pop is rubbish" - eg www.classicfm.com/discover-music/best-pop-songs-classical-music-angle/

Another good person for that sort of thing is Howard Goodall - I like his documentaries.

Oh thanks for the classic fm pointer. I have been listening to it as part of my education, and the web site answer my basic questions

I am still plodding along with my Schumann sonata. I've learned the first 3 pages and the last 5 pages, at least to play slowly.

Thanks for the circle of fifths info Tintini and CoteDAzur, I can see how it will be helpful with figuring out guitar chords. I don’t remember it ever being mentioned in music lessons at school, or maybe I was too busy trying to play Wonderwall, etc, lol!

Raider I have absolutely no clue how I didn't hear about this after many years of school music and private instrumental lessons.

I guess the circle of fifths does look a bit intimidating at first (although I don't think it's harder than anything we did in GCSE maths for example) but playing songs by ear using the 3-chord trick on the guitar/ukulele/piano is properly basic and I didn't even know that until a few months ago...yet I was playing Mozart concertos in my teens! Something went wrong there.

The circle is sort of mystical and mathematical - I wouldn't be surprised if there's a cult devoted to it.

Quick update - Bach Prelude in C Major with pedal tonight! Very enjoyable to play. My teacher wants me to try to memorise some of it now!

Post a vid!

Hmm...need more practice first!

I memorized the Prelude in C a few months back (can't remember it now though of course - need to keep playing these things!) Since it's a clear series of broken chords I found it helped to name all the chords and then memorize them as a little story of chords progressing. That way I started to see the patterns in the chord progression (eg the same progression but in a different key) which in turn made it easier to memorize. Not sure if that's how people usually memorize these things(?), but in the past I always just played and played until it was in my fingers if I wanted to memorize something (or learned it note by note) and it seem to take much longer that way - I guess I was more relying on spacial/muscle memory and also if I stopped in the middle I had to start from the beginning again!

Tintini that's very helpful, thanks! I'll give it a go tomorrow and see how far I can get.

It's such a nice piece. I feel like memorizing pieces makes them sort of more 'real' for me...maybe that's partly because piano sheet music stresses me out a bit! If it's in my memory I can relax and just enjoy it.

My teacher encouraged me to memorise pieces. I'm not very good at it. The strategy I use varies depending on the type of music. Sometimes I memorise chord patterns, sometimes I memorise sequences of notes, or notes at particular points in combination with hand positions; sometimes I kind of visually memorise the sheet music. Obviously listening to what you are playing is important too.

I'm the other way - I can't help memorising pieces, but I'm rubbish at playing them from the music! I don't really have a method of learning them - they just stick in my memory somehow. It's the opposite on the flute though, I always play from the music.

It's really difficult! I think like Mistigri says it's going to be a combination of chords and remembering finger patterns!

I find it almost impossible to memorise music. I think I can play the first page of Rachmaninoff's Prelude Op.23 No.5, for some reason. And nothing else.