Hello, Ciao and Keyboard for beginners.

[clearlessmusic]

Hello everyone,

I'm a music graduate specializing in computer music and sound design.

I have recently, after eager anticipation, joined the world of EastWest by purchasing my first virtual instrument entitled Gypsy. This purchase is long overdue as I have been interested in EastWest products for some time now but only recently have I had the funds to do so.

My main instrument is the guitar but I feel I would benefit from these V.I. if I played the keyboard. I have a basic understanding of the instrument i.e. I know what and where the notes are and I have good musical knowledge so I would like some help with common practices, scale shapes and anything that anyone thinks will help. So I ask, If there's anyone who can direct me to a good book or possibly a web page that might help me get to grips with the keyboard it would be appreciated.

Thank you :)

[fongi]

Hi there ! wherever you are U.K. or Italy ? and welcome on board, if you want to play any keyboard properly get yourself a good classic piano tutor book, just about all of these keyboard books with a CD are garbage and they won´t help you learn the correct finger techniques at all. That´s my 10 cents. :D Chris

[clearlessmusic]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the info. Are there any books in particular that you could recommend?

ps. I'm living in england at the moment :)

[Jay Coffman]

Finger exercises are a great idea -- even piano players out of practice suffer from loss of dexterity. Probably the most common piano exercises, at least for classically trained pianist's, are the Hanon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Virtuoso_Pianist_In_60_Exercises) piano exercises. The are some other resources though -- just google "piano exercises" and it comes up with websites with all sorts of things, including video guides.

[clearlessmusic]

Thanks Jay, i have been doing exercises all night and I already feel a bit more fluid around the keys.

[BigSound123]

Welcome to the forum!! :) Have fun, enjoy and create some big sounds!! :) John

[paulwr]

More so than the Hannon book, the "Little Pischna" exercises will get you in/out of the black notes better. Hanon is more all white keys and sort of 'builds muscle', whereas the Pischna exercises will build great dexterity for more intricate playing and have your 4th fingers able to keep up with your 1st and 2nd fingers Don't let the word "little" mislead. These are very tough exercises to play, but very easy to understand what you are supposed to play, so no major reading as they just go up chromatically in their repetition. You can perform them very slowly and still get a ton of benefit and just build speed as you desire. I learned about these from a phenomenal jazz pianist in the 60's. He could play both Pischna books and Hannon at full speed on the metronome with full accuracy.

-Paul