First Love by Utada Hikaru Piano Sheet

The Call (OST Narnia 2) Piano Sheet

Tong Hua Piano Sheet

Play The Piano by Ear...?

Playing by ear is the ability to play a piece of music (or, eventually, learn an instrument) by simply listening to it repeatedly. The majority of self-taught musicians began their education this way; they picked up their instrument and began playing an easy melody from a well-known song, slowly picking out the notes as they went along. And even after these musicians master their instruments or a particular song, playing by ear still plays a large role.

Many pop and rock bands don't play or write their songs based on sheet music, they figure the songs out by playing by ear. It's even common among non-musicians. Ever sit down a piano and mindlessly pick out the tune to "Mary Had a Little Lamb"? What about grabbing a guitar and suddenly finding yourself playing the opening licks to "Smoke on the Water"? That's playing by ear. You're able to play part of the song just because you've heard it so often. 

Playing by ear is a valuable technique for many musicians; learning songs based solely on hearing them is a great way to understand song and chord structure. In fact, a great number of rock and pop musicians learned to play their instruments this way. Instead of picking up a book or taking lessons, they concentrated on figuring out the notes and rhythms to a song until it was mastered. Then they moved on to another song. And another. Gradually, they learned their instrument just by playing by ear -- and in the process learned how to effectively structure a song in that particular genre. 

Playing by ear is also beneficial in helping a musician develop his or her own style; sure, they'll at first mimic the style of the song they're imitating, but the amalgamation of the music that they're playing by ear will help them create something distinctive, something indicative of them only.

What is Arpeggios?

An arpeggio is one of those terms in music that sounds very impressive. If you go to your friends and tell them that you played arpeggios in your piano lesson today, they are sure to be impressed. It sounds like something complicated and difficult and our first word of advice is to let you friends think that. You’ll impress a lot of people!

Now for the secret. We music types know that an arpeggio is not a difficult concept at all. In fact, the name contains the definition. Arpeggio is an Italian word meaning broken chord. Simply speaking, when we play an arpeggio, we split a chord in to its component notes and play them individually.Let’s look at an example.

Let’s say that we play a C Major chord. You probably remember from our chord article that a simple three note C Major chord is the 1st, 3rd, and 5th scale degree of a C Major scale. In this case, a C Major scale has the notes C-E-G and they are all played at the same time. When we play an arpeggio we simply play each of these notes separately. Maybe we play 1-3-5 up and down in quarter notes. In this case, we would play 1-3-5-3-1 broken up like we would play a melody.

Biography of Ray Charles

Ray Charles was born September 23, 1930, Albany, Georgia, U.S.—died June 10, 2004, Beverly Hills, California. He is an American pianist, singer, composer, and bandleader, a leading black entertainer billed as “the Genius.” Charles was credited with the early development of soul music, a style based on a melding of gospel, rhythm and blues, and jazz music.

When Charles was an infant his family moved to Greenville, Florida, and he began his musical career at age five on a piano in a neighbourhood café. He began to go blind at six, possibly from glaucoma, completely losing his sight by age seven. He attended the St. Augustine School for the Deaf and Blind, where he concentrated on musical studies, but left school at age 15 to play the piano professionally after his mother died from cancer (his father had died when the boy was 10).

Charles built a remarkable career based on the immediacy of emotion in his performances. After emerging as a blues and jazz pianist indebted to Nat King Cole's style in the late 1940s, Charles recorded the boogie-woogie classic “Mess Around” and the novelty song “It Should've Been Me” in 1952–53. His arrangement for Guitar Slim's “The Things That I Used to Do” became a blues million-seller in 1953. By 1954 Charles had created a successful combination of blues and gospel influences and signed on with Atlantic Records. Propelled by Charles's distinctive raspy voice, “I've Got a Woman” and “Hallelujah I Love You So” became hit records. “What'd I Say” led the rhythm and blues sales charts in 1959 and was Charles's own first million-seller.

Beauty and The Beast Piano Version

Tong Hua Piano Version

Vanessa Carlton ~ A Thousand Miles MV

Vanessa Carlton Biography

Vanessa Carlton was born in August 16, 1980 

Along with Michelle Branch and Nelly Furtado, Vanessa Carlton helped usher in a new era of female songwriters during the early 2000s. "A Thousand Miles," her first single, was one of the biggest songs of 2002, topping the pop charts in America and cracking the Top Ten in England. None of her subsequent singles came close to matching that song's success, but Carlton continued releasing albums into the following decade, fine-tuning a sweeping, cinematic pop sound that featured her vocals and piano skills at the forefront.

Raised in Milford, a tiny town in eastern Pennsylvania, Vanessa Carlton took piano lessons from her mother and composed her first song as an eight-year-old. Several years later, she was accepted into the School of American Ballet in New York. Despite being one of the best dancers in her class, she became frustrated with the strictness of the discipline and began to look elsewhere for inspiration, eventually winding up at the piano located inside her Manhattan dorm. Carlton began writing songs again, reaching beyond the classical music of her youth to incorporate influences from pop artists like Tori Amos and Fiona Apple. When it came time to graduate, she halted her dancing career and enrolled at Columbia University instead, where she continued to work on her songwriting. 

Hearing Practice, So Difficult...

I got a new homework from my teacher. It's hearing practice. I have to sing a song on my own and find the tone. But I'm not alllowed to use piano! OMG! It's so difficult.
I can find the tone easily if I use the piano but now........ I don't know what to say.
I also have to determine the price of tone and then I  have to determine the bar, it's 2/4, 3/4, or 4/4...
It's not easy... I have to strain my ears so I can find the tone.
It's something new for me although it's not easy, I have to work it out... ^^

NB : If you have tips for hearing practice, you can tell me through this blog or my email : honeybee.poohbear@yahoo.com

Beauty and The Beast Piano Sheet

I really love this song... :D
You can download the piano sheet here...
Beauty and The Beast

The Phantom of The Opera Piano Sheets

These is the piano sheets from Phantom of The Opera

Point of No Return
Music of The Night
Phantom of The Opera

and you can download "Think of Me" piano sheet (Another soundtrack of The Phantom of The Opera) here...
Enjoy it... ^^

Maksim Mrvica ~ Flight of The Bumblebee MV

My Favourite Piano Sheet... ^^

I really love these songs and I want to share them with all of you...
You can download the piano sheets here... ^^
Elton John - Can You Feel The Love Tonight
Mandy Moore - Only Hope
The Corrs - Runaway

You can download the others in http://www.take-a-piano-sheet-music-break.com/free-piano-sheet-music.html

Joseph Haydn Biography

Franz Joseph Haydn is best remembered for his symphonic music, honored by music historians who have dubbed him the "Father of the Symphony." That is a well-known fact. But did you know that Haydn worked his way from peasant to Kapellmeister where he lived in the house of a prince? Did you know that although Austria was his home, he traveled to London to write his most famous symphonies? Did you know that Haydn's oratorio "The Creation" grew out of his love of nature, as he was an avid hunter and fisherman? Or did you know that Haydn was mentor to a young music student by the name of Mozart?

These are the lesser-known facts, the parts of Haydn's life that allow us to peek inside a great man's legacy to see what made him tick. Haydn was indeed a self-made man. Born in the small village of Rohrau, Austria on March 31, 1732, Franz Joseph Haydn was the second of twelve children. His father was a wagon maker by trade, but quite musical. On Sundays, the Haydn family often gave private concerts. Haydn's father played the harp while Haydn and his mother sang.

The Types of Modern Piano

Types

Modern pianos have two basic configurations (with subcategories): the grand piano and the upright piano.

Grand

There are many sizes of grand piano. A rough generalization distinguishes the concert grand (between about 2.2 m and 3 m/9.84 feet long) from the parlor grand or boudoir grand (about 1.7 m to 2.2 m) and the smaller baby grand (around 1.5 m).In grand pianos, the frame and strings are horizontal, with the strings extending away from the keyboard. The action lies beneath the strings, and uses gravity as its means of return to a state of rest.

All else being equal, longer pianos with longer strings have larger, richer sound and lower inharmonicity of the strings. Inharmonicity is the degree to which the frequencies of overtones (known as partials or harmonics) sound sharp relative to whole multiples of the fundamental frequency. This results from the piano's considerable string stiffness; as a struck string decays its harmonics vibrate, not from their termination, but from a point very slightly toward the center (or more flexible part) of the string. The higher the partial, the further sharp it runs. Pianos with shorter and thicker strings, i.e. small pianos with short string scales, have more inharmonicity. The greater the inharmonicity, the more the ear perceives it as harshness of tone.

Samuel Feinberg Biography

Born: May 26, 1890 - Odessa, Russia Died: October 22, 1962 - Moscow, Russia

The eminent Russian pianist, pedagogue and composer, Samuel [Samuil] Feinberg, was born in Odessa and raised in Moscow. From an early age he exhibited an extraordinary talent on the piano. He enrolled in the Moscow Conservatory and studied piano with Alexander Goldenweiser. During his student years he took instruction in composition privately with Nikolai Zhilyayev. After his 1911 graduation from the Conservatory, Samuel Feinberg launched a career as a piano soloist while writing music on the side. Before he was sent off to war, Feinberg met Scriabin, who praised his pianism. His active participation in the Russian military ended abruptly when he became gravely ill and had to spend the remainder of the war recuperating in Moscow.

Yiruma ~ Kiss The Rain MV

Kiss The Rain Piano Sheet

7 Rules of Piano Fingering

Piano fingering is one of the most crucial aspects of learning the instrument, yet it is among the most overlooked. Here are seven of the most important rules for fingering, prefaced by an instruction to...

Rule #0: Finger it out for yourself!

Though hands have more in common than not, no two hands are exactly alike. What's comfortable for one person may be unplayable for the next, as in the case of large stretches unreachable by small hands

More importantly, our fingering determines our sound. Using different fingers changes dynamics and articulation in subtle and sometimes dramatic ways.

It's therefore essential to devise your own piano fingerings rather than rely exclusively on the editor's. (The exception is usually the composer's own fingering, though these are generally rare and, in the case of early 19th-century music and earlier, may apply to period instruments such as the fortepiano, harpsichord, or sometimes even the clavichord, more so than to the modern piano.) This is why I recommend many unfingered sheet music editions.

That said, it is important to play by the rules. Good piano fingering is based on the natural shape of the hand. Generally, what is most natural is most comfortable, and what is most comfortable sounds the best.