Learning piano to accompany singing

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Mach13
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Joined: Wed Dec 20, 2017 7:24 am

Learning piano to accompany singing

Post by Mach13 » Thu Dec 21, 2017 4:33 pm

Hi, I'm just wondering if there is a way to create/develop an additional training suite of modules that's suited to those that want to sing and play piano, (or is there something that I've missed?

I currently write for acoustic guitar and want to transfer to piano. That's kinda why I've signed up for your course; as a starting point, but if there was something to help with the accompaniment side of things that would be ace.

Ultimately I want to write my own music and transpose the acoustic stuff I've already got for piano. Maybe something on transposing for singing?. I would have thought that creating something targeted towards the singer songwriter would also open up the market place for you.

Just a thought
Keep plugging away coz...Progtid makd parfit, Pradtic mskes Pwrfegt, Practicd makez parfait, Praktiss maykes perfekt -keeping at it really works! eventually! :roll:

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sw1tch73ch
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Re: Learning piano to accompany singing

Post by sw1tch73ch » Sun Dec 24, 2017 1:51 pm

Hello again, Mach :) (Assuming you read these in the order I wrote these messages.)

I hope they create the Accompanist Course they discussed a while back.

Here is one way to think of transposing: Scales are the basis of must music -or Keys might be a better way to think of them. You have 7 "active" notes in any given key out of the twelve available in each octave (there are scales where the number might be different) The Root of the Key is number 1, the first next note is 2, and so on.

So if you play 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 3, 2, 1 in the Key of C, playing that same numeric sequence in the Key of G is the same "song" (really poor song in this case), but in the different Key. In the Key of C, that is C, D, E, F, E, E, D. In G it would be G, A, B, C, B, B, A. My example is too simple, because in the Key of G you have F sharp - which in the Key of C would be the B natural. The idea is if you number the notes in a scale so that each of the active notes for that scale get a number, you can apply those numbers to any key. You may have heard of "7th" chords and the 7 is one of these numeric representations.

If you are going to transpose Scales are the important thing. This is really worthy of it's own full course (or boot camp to use the Playground Sessions paradigm). One post might not be enough to get the idea I'm trying to express across.
== Just keep playing. Just keep playing. Just keep playing, playing, playing! ==

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Mach13
Posts: 14
Joined: Wed Dec 20, 2017 7:24 am

Re: Learning piano to accompany singing

Post by Mach13 » Mon Dec 25, 2017 7:07 am

Thanks again for that, I think I get your point.... I guess it's a bit like using a CAPO on guitar, which offers the ability to play in a different Key for the same fingerpicking pattern?

It's all early days for me at the moment (still at Rookie level 7) but its starting to make sense. :P
Keep plugging away coz...Progtid makd parfit, Pradtic mskes Pwrfegt, Practicd makez parfait, Praktiss maykes perfekt -keeping at it really works! eventually! :roll:

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sw1tch73ch
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Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2016 1:23 pm

Re: Learning piano to accompany singing

Post by sw1tch73ch » Thu Dec 28, 2017 11:17 pm

I think it is nearly exactly like using a capo. The fingers, or perhaps more descriptively, the "hand shape" or how the fingers relate to each other, stays roughly the same as you go from one key to the other, just where you start from changes (and whether you play the sharps and flats). They're adding new courses, so maybe we'll see that "Accompaniment" course yet - which hopefully will cover how to manage different keys for different singers.
== Just keep playing. Just keep playing. Just keep playing, playing, playing! ==

-- jbs --

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