The SECRET Development !
WOW!
During the last few weeks we have received SO many emails from our newsletter members and new site visitors asking us, when will The Piano Encyclopedia be ready, how to get one of the 25 Free copies, and asking for an update on The Piano Encyclopedia development!
We got tons of emails like these ones:
“Hey Rod!
How are you?I just wanted to check on how the development is going and when it’ll be ready…
Thanks!”
… or
“Hi!
I am very interested in trying your product and just wanted to know if you have already started the beta-testing…”
I have personally read them all, but we’ve received so many emails that I actually couldn’t answer all of them yet.
However, in order to thank you even if we haven’t replied your email yet, we have added everyone that has sent us emails in the past months to our VIP List. This means that if this is the case, we’ll make sure to send you the previews and special content a few days before the public release, before anyone else gets them. J
First of all, I really want to THANK YOU for following The Piano Encyclopedia development, especially if you have been with us from the early beginning.
I know everybody is very excited to get his or her invitation and be one of the first to try it out! And I really want to thank you for your patience and support- it keeps all the development team members motivated! 🙂
We have been so busy on the development over the past few months, and even we updated the Community Chat Room with some short news, we actually missed the blog update… Actually on the last post I told you that we’re going to give away some free copies, but I actually didn’t finish telling you about HOW you can be one of the 25 people to receive a free full copy of The Piano Encyclopedia.
BUT before I go into that, you might be wondering why this post is called THE SECRET DEVELOPMENT:
…Well part of the answer is because we have been developing so many things I haven’t actually told you about! To tell you the truth, I really don’t know where to start.
We made SO much incredible progress during the last few months that this project is nothing compared to what it was at the beginning. It’s actually bigger and much better!
Even though I’ve been giving away some hints on our Community Chat Room, I actually didn’t want to tell you what we’re doing until we had everything worked out, we could actually SHOW you what we were doing, and we were close to give you an invitation to try it out.
So the great thing about all this, is that TODAY, all those three conditions are true, and right NOW, right here, I am going to be able to show you some PREVIEWS of everything we have been doing the last few months!
Stay tight, and I am also going to be announcing on this same post -for the First Time- the OFFICIAL RELEASE DATES, and the DATES of the upcoming EVENTS OF THIS MONTH.
Yes, from now on, we’ll be stressing quite much on dates, so you’re able to follow the upcoming special release and preview dates for EACH month. You’ll also be able to see some changes in our blog layout by next week, as we’ll be adding a date calendar, as well as some other features to make date following easier.
To begin, why not start by showing you a screenshot of a sample page of our Piano Encyclopedia?
This is how one of the pages of The Piano Encyclopedia’s Scale Dictionary is looking:
In this page you can see all the D Common Scales, directly from our Scale Dictionary. You can play the scales either up or down, watch the interactive animations, and get detailed info and composing tricks about each one by clicking on the Toolbar Buttons and links.
Please click here to see the image more closely
So what has been going on in The Piano Encyclopedia’s LABS during these last few months?
Where to start?
…Well, I say we could start right at the beginning :o) . I hope you might agree with that! 😉
You’re going to love this…
NOW our project is divided into 3 components. How come three? I mean, up till now I’ve only told you about just one, right?
So…
Component 1 of The Piano Encyclopedia: The Core
Yes, until now you had just heard about The Piano Encyclopedia itself, our practical guide to composing, improvising, and improving your piano skills, with more than 700 pages, 2500 piano recordings, and 2400 interactive illustrations of piano keyboards.
Just for a short recap, this includes our:
· Interval Dictionary-> every interval explained, as well as their relation with chords and scales.
· Scales Dictionary -> about every scale on the planet and in every root
· Chords Dictionary -> all standard chords and even all of the strange and exotic chords, full of expert’s tips for composing and improvising.
· Harmony Guide -> the harmonization of all the included scales, categorized by musical style
· Composing & Improvising Tips-> find out all chords that can be used with a certain scale, typical chord progressions, and chord substitutions.
· Interval, Chord & Scale Finder -> if you don’t know what you are playing, simply let the finder help you. Just input the notes and the finder will tell you what scale, chord, or interval you are playing.
This is all looking real good, so I am sure you’d like to take a sneak peak? 🙂
This is an extract of a page from the Chord Dictionary, where you would be able to see all the 12 Ninth Chords. You can play any of these chords, and activate the interactive animations by clicking the toolbar buttons and links. For example, by clicking on the rightmost toolbar button, you can actually explore any chord’s Inversions and Voicings, to discover how to create new exciting sounds.
Please click here to see the image more closely
Discover how to Build all the Chords on ANY Key by mastering the Chord’s Musical Structure. This sample page, for example, shows you how the Db m9 chord can be built on any key, by understanding the relation between the chord and the music intervals. In this case, we can see that playing a simple Db minor triad and adding and adding a Minor Seventh and a Major Ninth can create the Db m9 chord. Discovering how the intervals and chords relate to each other, you’ll find it more easier to master all chords on all keys, and even make your own chords.
Please click on the image to see it more closely
So we have advanced a lot on this, and we’re really happy with our progress.
Just to mention it, regarding the Beta-Testing of the previous developments, many people have emailed us asking us if the public beta-testing had already started (as they had seen the Beta-Testers Only sign on our site). However, I just wanted to make it clear that we have posted that sign for the Private Beta-Testing we’ve been running for team-members’ family and friends, to detect and fix the major bugs first. Soon, we’ll be going into the public Beta-Testing, so everybody that has signed up to our newsletter will receive our exclusive invitations to test the different developments as soon we go public-beta! (if you’ve signed up you should be receiving our newsletter, but if you’re not receiving it, you can check by re-entering your mail again, and if you’re already signed-up a message will tell you so) 🙂
However, TODAY, I can say this is just the tip of the iceberg.
The two other components that are now in development and complement everything I just mentioned, and I think they actually take the whole overall piano learning experience to another level.
They are actually closely related together so let me tell you about these two…
NEW! Component 2 of The Piano Encyclopedia: The Main Piano Lessons Course
Even though The Piano Encyclopedia is a practical guide for composing, improvising, and improving your piano skills, we figured out that for some people –especially beginners- it could be difficult to know where to start especially with so much information available at the tip of your fingers.
Also even though all of the above contains many interactive tutorials and explanations of how to harmonize a scale, suggestions of what chords to play given a certain melody, and how to create each of the explained chords in any key, we thought it would be a great idea to create a Step by Step guide, explaining everything from beginner level to advanced to master all the secret tricks of composing and improvising. Now I just call them ‘secrets’, but as you’ll get to see -and actually real soon (I’ll tell you why at the end of this post)- these are very powerful music concepts that are really easy to learn but that will probably change the way you see music.
So in this way, The Piano Encyclopedia’s Main Piano Course has been born.
The idea is for it to complement the whole reference guide, so that you can master all the elemental scales and chords before going into learning the more exotic chords and scales of the rest of The Piano Encyclopedia.
In this way, the idea is to transmit to you all the necessary knowledge so you can then use The Piano Encyclopedia’s Tools to boost all your compositions, improvisations, and improve your piano skills.
The best part of all of this is that the Main Piano Course is actually completely linked to The Piano Encyclopedia itself- meaning that you’ll be able to walk step by step through the lessons and with just a click you’ll be able to explore any topic in depth by going to the chords, intervals, scales, or harmony pages -from the actual lessons to The Piano Encyclopedia back and forth.
If you don’t want to follow the actual lessons and create your own unique path, all the related pages of The Piano Encyclopedia will actually contain recommended chapters of the Main Piano Course lessons for you to read.
I am going to tell you more about The Piano Encyclopedia’s Main Piano Course, in the upcoming posts, but before that, let me show you the Third component of our big project!
NEW! Component 3 of The Piano Encyclopedia: The Community
Now I am going to tell you about the Third component, which we have spent several months working on in our Piano Encyclopedia Labs 🙂
I am going to give you a quick preview, but let me tell you that this is going to get as important as The Piano Encyclopedia itself, and stay tight cause I am going to show you how this final component ties everything together.
We had been thinking about how to improve our overall piano learning experience and listening to your comments, feedbacks, and mails, and so we created our new The Piano Encyclopedia’s Community
What is this all about?!
We’re not talking about just a simple Chat Room as we have now.
It’s a whole community system we built from the ground up that is completely connected to the previously named components.
That is, the Piano Encyclopedia’s Main Piano Course is actually going to be held under our new community. First off this means that not only you’ll be able to enjoy the lessons and the interactive components of The Piano Encyclopedia, but also to ask questions to fellow pianists and musicians!
So the new Piano Encyclopedia’s Community will be a place for you to share piano experiences with fellow piano students, teachers, composers, and professional musicians.
Even more, you’ll be able to share your piano recordings, compositions, and your knowledge – and learn from other pianists in the community.
However what will make this piano community different from any other is that it will actually be powered by The Piano Encyclopedia Engine!
We have created a very powerful technology that actually detects and identifies any music keyword found on text: even any chord, scales, or interval name. What this means is that if you write a question on one of the lessons, or write a comment under the community’s forum, all the chord/scale/interval names will be auto-magically converted into their respective piano keyboard images plus their sound! But wait, that’s not all, moreover all the music keywords will be linked to the pages of The Piano Encyclopedia itself.
What this means, is that anybody will be able to extend and complement the hundreds of pages of our Piano Encyclopedia, and all their written articles and lessons will be as interactive as The Piano Encyclopedia itself!
You’ll also be able to make new friends and have a buddy list, a personal user profile, and share your piano performance recordings and compositions!
Wow! As you can see this is all really big. But the great thing is that thanks to previous months of intense development, TODAY I can tell you that this is no longer an idea, but actually a dream come true for me and the whole team.
We had actually thought of adding this community feature post the launch of the original Piano Encyclopedia, however the community had the potential of adding so much value to the overall piano learning experience that we had decided to work on that now – and it’s looking wonderful.
This way, not only will you have tools for improving your piano skills, and boosting your compositions and improvisations, but also a whole community that will support you. A place where you’ll be able to share your recordings and show other people your progress, ask questions, and learn from a community that is using the same lessons and tools as you’re using.
In this way, as you can see now, everything will be fully connected: The Piano Encyclopedia, the Piano Main Course Lessons, and the Community.
Let me walk you through some of the main features of our new community that are already implemented:
- Ask piano and music related questions to fellow members on The Piano Encyclopedia’s Forum
- Enjoy interactive piano lessons and music-related articles written by members of the community, and interact with them, in the User’s Piano Blogs section.
- Interact with people that love the same stuff that you do, join the current User Groups or create your own: make your own Jazz, Blues, Chopin, Bach, or anything-you-love piano Group, and let people in.
- Find people with similar interests and add them to your Friends List. Follow what they are doing, send them private messages, share your posts with them, or even write messages to them on their Profile Wall.
The good thing is that we will open The Piano Encyclopedia Community to you guys exclusively real soon –before the rest of the developments. Apart from you getting to try all those new features, we thought the community would be a great idea to get to know each other, and listen more closely to your feedback and comments, specially using the new forum. Many of you sent me emails proposing to add a Beta-Testers forum, so it will be great to use our new forum, real soon.
I guess it’s time for the PREVIEW!!!
Ask Questions to fellow piano students, teachers, composers, and professional musicians. Share your progress, participate into piano recordings, compositions and composition contests– and learn from other pianists in the community. Make friends with people that are using the same lessons and tools you’re using and enjoy user created content.
Please click on the image to see it more closely.
So as you can see we have been making some incredible progress during the last few months, and I hope you agree that the waiting was worthwhile! 🙂
I’ll tell you more about the Community’s exciting features in our next post, and eventually you’ll get to try them all!
However, I know that you have been anxiously waiting, and so we have thought a lot about you and how to make your waiting time more enjoyable.
For this reason, we have decided to release from now on periodic PIANO LESSON REPORTS!
The Piano Lesson Reports!
What are these?
These are going to be piano lessons reports that we’re going to be releasing every two or three weeks!
While we continue creating the rest of the product and developing the new Piano Encyclopedia’s Community, we have decided to release some periodic piano lesson reports so that you can start practicing chords, scales, and get a sneak peek into composition and improvisation tips, even before The Piano Encyclopedia comes out!
These lesson reports will not be releases of the content of The Piano Encyclopedia’s Main Lessons themselves, but actually just independent lessons that I’ll be taking the time to write myself, while you wait for the Main Lessons to be finished :o).
Yes, I’ll be writing these lessons reports for you, as my idea is to share with you all the tips from my own piano classes and tell you about the music concepts that changed my piano skills completely during my 14 years of piano playing. As I mentioned previously on this post, I really want for you to learn all those simple but powerful music concepts that really changed my piano life.
We really want to THANK YOU for all this time you have been anxiously waiting, so we hope that these piano lesson reports that I am going to prepare for you, every two or three weeks, make the waiting time shorter and a more enjoyable ride, while we test and finish developing the Piano Encyclopedia’s Main Piano Lessons courses, the new interactive Community platform, and all the new exciting features that we’ve working on the past months.
However the greatest thing of all, is that TODAY I can also tell you that the first Piano Lesson Report is almost ready, with now more than 35 pages full of content and tons of graphics!
So stay tuned, as the first Piano Lesson Report will soon hit your inbox!
We’ll be announcing the exact release date of this first Lesson Report this Friday 19th, but I’ll assure you’ll get a copy before two or three weeks from today.
As you might have read in this post, we’ll be stressing quite much on dates from now on, so let tell about the upcoming ones…
The Official Release Dates
So many people have sent us emails about this and sent us tons of emails about this.
Therefore, we have decided to publish for the first time an OFFICIAL RELEASE DATE!
- 19th of September (This Friday): We’ll be posting the next blog update and I’ll be announcing the exact date of the release of our Piano Lesson Report! Remember I assure you that you’ll have it in your inbox in less than two weeks, but on this Friday we’ll announcing the exact date!
I’ll also be telling you more about our community and the main lessons, and show you more previews on everything we’ve been developing. We’ll be also making an update on our blog layout by adding a calendar so you can keep up with the upcoming dates and events more easily!
- December 15th of 2008: date for the OFFICIAL PIANO ENCYCLOPEDIA RELEASE.
UPDATE: Given the incredible feedback we have received about our Music Fundamentals eBook (You may read some VERY intresting comments from fellow pianists here) we have been greatly inspired and decided to focus first on releasing the Piano Encyclopedia’s Main Piano Lessons, before we release everything else. In this way, during the last months we have worked on expanding our lessons with new sections and new interactive tools (you may read an update here) so as to include everything necessary for mastering composing and improvising – step-by-step – from beginning to advanced. And the great news is that they are looking absolutely great, and at this point, we expect to be releasing them very very soon!
Today, I invite you to reserve your FREE copy of our 100 page eBook “Music Fundamentals”. Yes, we are giving it away for free, as we want to THANK YOU for all your support, and since we definetely want to make your waiting time shorter as you wait to enjoy each of the components of the Piano Encyclopedia’s Piano Learning Experience.
Stay tuned for more freebies, and beta-invitations along the way! 🙂
But now- take a sneak-peek inside our “Music Fundamentals” eBook and grab your free copy:
Click here to Automatically Receive
our Music Fundamentals eBook
(End of Update: continues post of September 12th)
Regarding how to get 25 free FULL copies of the final version of The Piano Encyclopedia once everything is finished, I can only tell you by now, that this is going to be related to a contest we’ll run on our new Community!
So stay tuned and really THANK YOU for all your support and following the Piano Encyclopedia development.
All you comments and feedback we’ll be more than welcome so please make sure to write a comment in this post.
I would also love to get to know you better, so it would be great for you to tell me:
- How long have you been playing piano?
Or are you looking forward to it? 😉- What are you most interested in learning?
- Which music styles, composers, or music groups are your favorite? 🙂
I an really intrested in meeting each of you, so stay in touch and tell me more about you by posting a comment!
Stay tuned for next update on this Friday 19th!
Cheers!
Best wishes,
Rod
P.S: If you haven’t subscribed to our mailing list yet, you may do it here and I’ll make sure you get the First Piano Report in your inbox -real soon! :o)
Dear Rod
I thank you very much for this website, in my point of view I would say it will most likley contribute into the comeback and the revolution of the piano once again. This website will help so many people with there piano work and create a useful(unlike the others online) piano community which can discuss and help students/teachers with real piano issues! I am happy to finally see all the pianos needed information to be gathered in one single site and will be using this site and contributing to it without doubt.
Sincerely
Ali Janahi
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Hi Ali,
THANK YOU so much for all your support. 🙂
We have been working really hard during the last few months and I can say that we’re actually super happy with the results we’re getting with our system. So we hope that with The Piano Encyclopedia we are able to provide a superior piano learning experience and definetely take piano learning to another level.
Stay tuned for tomorrow, Friday 19th, as at 20:00 EST Time we’ll be announcing the EXACT day we’ll release the first Piano Lesson Report!
Ali, stay in touch and really thanks for such a wonderful comment!
Best wishes, 😀
Rod
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I think it would be a great idea for me to start answering the 3 questions myself so you also get to know me better as well! 🙂
QUESTION 1) How long have you been playing piano? Or are you looking forward to it?
I have been playing the piano for more than 14 years and I love it!
QUESTION 2) What are you most interested in learning?
I love composing and improvising, discovering new sounds and new ways of enriching my creations. I love composing and improvising while playing the piano, or playing songs by ear. My compositions range from Waltzes -very much influenced by Chopin 🙂 – to more modern Jazz or Blues pieces, and even some Romantic Pop -like ballades.
QUESTION 3) Which music styles, composers, or music groups are your favorite?
For Classical music, my favorite composers are: Bach (also a great fan of Glenn Gould!), Beethoven, and especially Chopin. I really enjoy playing his waltzes and listening to Ballade No. 1, but from Bach I specially like the Goldberg Variations.
I also like playing blues and some Jazz standards once in a while (like for example Autumn Leaves), although I enjoy improvising or playing by ear (by building up the harmony) much more than reading. And for pop music, I really like Coldplay, Guns’n Roses (especially November Rain), and The Beatles 🙂
Go ahead and tell me more about you! 🙂
Cheers!
Rod
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Hi Rod!
I’m really excited about the good news, so I’ve been waiting since the day I found your web site. I have always wanted to learn piano, although I have no idea about how to do it. I thought this should be a thing for “virtuosos”, but not for me. Anyway, I invested some bucks in an electronic Yamaha keyboard and tried to play some notes.
So, actually, I’m interested in learning all about piano, from zero: chords, intervals, composing tips… I dream with the day I can play “Für Elisa” or “The Turkish March”.
Thank you for your effort and your great idea! I’ll stay alert for the next news.
Best regards from Spain,
Pedro A.
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Hi Pedro!
How are you?!
Thanks so much for you comment!
I am glad you bought a Yamaha keyboard and you’re ready to get started. 😀
Even though The Piano Encyclopedia is both for beginners, intermediate, and advanced students alike, we actually weren’t sure about where to start the Piano Report Lessons.
Luckily for you, and probably for many other people that are just starting out, our first Piano Lesson Reports starts right at the beginning! This will be a great recap for most intermediate and advanced students too, as we’ll be teaching some fundamentals with a different approach.
We’ll be quite stressing on understanding the relationship between chords, scales, and music intervals- right at the beginning- so you’ll be able to see songs from another perspective and advance quite fast, as we move quickly into the world of composing, improvising, and understanding music!
“Für Elisa” is a lovely piece, it was also once of my first.
I am sure that day will come soon 🙂
Pedro, Thanks so much for your support!
Make sure to keep in touch and tell more about you!
Thanks!
Cheers,
Rod
P.S: Bach Minuets are also really nice pieces to start. I Highly recommend them and they are really lovely. Specially Bach’s Minuet in G major.
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Hey Rod,
Thanks so much for the update on what sounds like such an amazing product. I really want to learn how to improvise/compose on the piano, but I don’t know where to ge started. And being a college student, I have absolutely no time for lessons!
I’ve looked before for books to help me with harmony and chord progressions, but I never found anything that really fitted my needs. Until I saw what you guys were working on here. Thanks so much for all your hard work and dedication, I can’t wait for Dec. 15th!
Austin
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Hi Austin!
Thanks so much for your comment! 🙂
I really understand what you mean about being in college and having absolutely no time! I’ve been there too 😉
It used to take me months to prepare some pieces, and with college it was hard to keep it up.
However, the great thing about improvising and composing is that you’ll be able to just sit on the piano and play new songs right on the spot.
Regardless of time issues, I also find it like a whole new way of communication and expressing myself, as now I can not only try to convey a composer’s intention through my playing, but to also to transmit how I am feeling at particular moment through my own pieces.
So learning harmony is something that I think will definitely help you in every way 😉
Stay tuned as we’ll be going over chord progressions soon in the our Piano Report Lessons releases!
Austin stay in touch and thank you!
Cheers! 😀
Rod
P.S: Just curious… What are you studying in college? 😛
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Rod,
Thanks for replying! I’m a freshman chemical engineering major, and even now, I’m struggling just to find enough time to sleep! To you and your team, thanks again for putting the Piano Encyclopedia together. You guys are heroes to pianists everywhere, whether they know it or not!
Austin
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Hey Rod!
I just wanted to say thank for developing the Piano Encyclopedia ❗ After practicing piano for a little over 2 months now I’ve come to love the instrument and have developed a real passion for practicing.
Like many others, I, too, have developed an interest in improvisation. I feel like it must be considered THE way to personalize your music and develop your own ‘sound’. Right now I’m in the process of learning all my chords so I can’t wait to see the final release of The Piano Encyclopedia; it looks like it will be a HUGE help in the chord learning dept. Its a real relief to know that The Piano Encyclopedia is helpful for beginners, intermediates, and advanced players as well. I’m sure I will be using it to develop my skills from throughout my piano playing experience.
I first became interested in piano listening to classical music on NPR and our local Public Radio broadcasts, especially at night-time. But I’d love to list them out for you (ah, I can just hear them playing now 😀 ) Bach Goldberg Variations, Partita in B Flat (Dinu Lipatti), Beethoven’s Sonatas, Mozarts Concertos 20 & 21, Scott Joplins The Entertainer, Schubert, Chopin, Debussy, Brahms… ahhh so much!
But lately I’ve been listening to that ‘ole Otis Spann
Maybe I’ll pick up enough blues piano to take on some of his music someday. For now its a great inspiration.
Looking forward to the release!
-Allen
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OK then. First of all, and at the risk of quoting someone else, I really believe this project is going to cause a revolution. A lot has become possible over the last decade because of the internet, but there’s still a lot to be achieved and possibilities to explore, and I think The Piano Encyclopedia is a great example.
To the questions then:
– I really don’t play piano anymore. I used to play, mostly when I was in highschool. I even have a couple of music conservatory years to back me up, but nothing else. When I graduate (or if i graduate), I plan to begin playing again.
– I think that piano, as an art that is, is widely understood. What nearly nobody knows is the science behind it all (you know: resonance, ondulatory physics, and so on…). I think that a basic understanding of these concepts could make any pianist better than he or she already is. Teaching methods is also another topic that leaves room for improovement and creativity.
– As an argentinean, I like our very own national rock, though I think there hasn’t been a good song since the 80s. However, currently I’ve become some sort of music “consumer” instead of listener, and I, more often than not, find myself liking particular songs more than styles or even authors.
Keep up the good work!
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Pingback: The Piano Encyclopedia Blog - The Piano Learning Revolution » The First Piano Lesson Report’s Exact Release Date IS….
How long have you been playing piano? Or are you looking forward to it?
About 5 years in total. Played a couple of years when I was a teenager, but gave it up for about 10 years, until I went back to playing the piano for about three years ago.
What are you most interested in learning?
I want some new challenges on the piano, other than learning to play other people’s pieces, and I found that challenge in trying to compose myself. I’m interested in learning to compose on piano, and, later on, maybe even orchestrate the pieces for an orchestra. At the same time I hope I cen get some tricks with me, as far as improvisation goes.
Which music styles, composers, or music groups are your favorite?
I’m not a person that usually focuses on any spesific genre, songwriters, bands or composers, so I play everything from “Für Elise” and “The Blue Danube”, via “Over The Rainbow” and “The Rose”, to recent pieces from artists such as Elton John and Alicia Keys. However, my interest in movies has got me to play a lot of music from movies. Some of my favorite pieces here are Alan Silvestri’s “The Feather Theme” from Forest Gump, The theme to the old “The Incredible Hulk” TV-series and Howard Shore’s “Concerning Hobbits” from the LOTR Trilogy 🙂
Thank you so much for developing this site. This might become one of the great resources I need in my desire to compose music and become even better on the piano.
Looking forward to the release of it all 🙂
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Hi Cres!
Thanks so much for replying the questions!!! 😀
I like your goal of composing for orchestra, I think it’s like the next step after composing for piano 😀 . Composing and improvising are really rewarding 🙂
Regarding your music preferences, I also like many varied styles, but you surprised me with your interest on “music for movies”.
Lately, I have been much into that, and it’s actually one of the types of music I most enjoy regarding composing.
My last two compositions are actually meant to be music for movies. What I like to do is to think of a scene, the plot, characters, and a story, and then create a music piece that transmits all of that…
So in this way, what I love to do with some special people is to tell them an introduction to a short story that describes a scene and then play the song for them. Then I ask them afterwards what did they imagine and how did the story end for them. For me, this way of transmitting my emotions through my compositions has been one of the most rewarding experiences, as I get to know if the listener really felt the same emotions I meant to transmit.
Let me share with you one of my favorite ‘movie’ chords:
This one is actually a minor Eleventh Chord, with 6 notes, but played in a very particular voicing, separated by Fifths, which gives it a very intresting sound.
Play the following notes in this order:
C – G – D – Eb – Bb – F
In this way, the chord covers two octaves. Then try playing the same chord type in keys C, F, and G, and play them in arpeggio form.
You’ll get to listen to a lovely melancholic sound that would fit really well in a Movie Soundtracks. 🙂
If you’re intrested, soon, I’ll share with you the piano keyboard images of this chord, it’s recording, as well as how to play it the different keys.
There is also a major version, which has a really interesting and bright sound.
I have used both in my compositions so I hope they become helpful to you 🙂
Stay in touch and thanks for answering the questions! 😀
Cheers!
Rod
P.S: Stay tuned as on October 5th at 4pm EST Time – less than two weeks- the first Piano Lesson Report will be released!
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Hi Rod,
I’m glad to hear that you are into Music for Movies as well 🙂 I have a tendency to think orchestra when I try to compose already today 😀
I like your process of letting others hear your music and after that to hear from them what they felt or pictured themself. It’s a great way to get feedback on your Music for Movies, and you can also learn how people react to the different sounds and melodies and so on. Could be an interesting study in psychology 😆
Thank you so much for sharing your favorite “movie-chord”. It certainly sounded good and could work well in a movie soundtrack. I’ll be very interested in seeing this chord played in all its variations soon 🙂
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Question 1:
I have been studing for two years
Question 2:
I would like learning composition and mainly to know the music structure in order to get skills to play someone song.
Quiestion 3:
I like all kind of music but specially classic, romantic and religious music
I am very interested on the course and I have a logic question: How much it cost?
Thank you because WEBs like that actually are what the world need
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I studied piano when I was little but not for too long. Now I am 29 and I’ve re-started studying piano four months ago. I am interested in learning more about music-language. I am doing some’ear-development’.My teacher is a very good teacher and I am learning a lot, I am very satisfied with her teaching. The only problem is that she is moving far away in November and I don’t want to loose what I’ve learned because I am doing a very good progress.I am amazed !!
I started last week composing some simple songs that I used to play in my guitar.My own songs, and I think that’s great !! They sound so beautiful in the piano.
I like beethoven, etc… I like pretty much all music but I prefer to play soft music. I like rithms, sounds, scales, I enjoy listening and learning them.
One of my music-challenges is learning to compose and play rock and roll !! … I am just a begginer !!!!
Looking forward to know more about your teaching. 😉
I love music.
Maria Bruna, from Argentina.
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Hey Rod!
Well, i’ve been playing piano for about 6 months, but i’m kind of frustrated becuase i can’t improvise or compose freely yet, i have to read the notes from the music sheet and that’s not what i’m looking for, so i’d like to learn how to compose and improvise, that’s what i’m looking forward to.
I like a lot of music, so i play a lot of music as well, everything from classical music, Bach is my favorite here, to pop and that kind of stuff, a have several favorites here like coldplay, evanescence, alicia keys… and so on 😀
lastly, it’s very good that we can find everything about piano lessons/teaching in a single website, and even more important a community that can really help you with piano issues just by making a post (… not like other sites)
so thank you for having such a great idea and developing the site.
➡ Piano rules! 😎
Daniel, from Colombia
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Hey Rod!
Well, i’ve been playing piano for about 6 months, but even tough i can play a lot of music sheets, i can’t improvise or compose yet, and that’s what i’m looking for, specially since i started college and realized that a good short film has great music, and since the piano can give a lot different moods to a song, all i want to do is composing the music for my own short films…
i like all kind of music, so i play wahtever comes to my hands… from classical music, Bach is my favorite here, to contemporary music as pop, jazz or blues, being coldplay, alicia keys and evanescence my favorites…
Finally, i just want to thank you and your team for developing such a great website, where you can find real help with piano issues.
Best wishes from Colombia,
Daniel S.
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Hey Rod.
First let me tell you that I can feel a lot of enthusiasm about the project, and thanks to all of you for that.
1.- I have been trying to learn by myself piano since march of this year, but I haven’t practicing regularly. I learned the basic mayor notes, scales, triads, the minor notes, and some blues basics such as the 12 bar progression. I learned the piano intro of a song made by Genesis, hearing it out by ear. Just as a side comment, I have been also playing guitar for about 10 years, bass guitar for 1 year, and drums for 3 years.
2.- I am most interested in learning and know by heart the scales and notes of any kind, so that I feel I am able to add piano to a tune. I want to be able to accompany the right hand notes with the correct left hand notes in the piano. Piano would help me compose better songs relate better to the guitar sounds.
3.- I love Rock, classic rock, progressive rock and a bit of grunge. Classic music has also its charms. I admire and like jazz and blues of course. I like Genesis, Yes, King Crimson, Rush, The Beatles, The Who, Gentle Giant, Al Di Meola, Coldplay, Radiohead, Spocks Beard, Kevin Gilbert, etc.
Gabriel, from Chile.
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Pingback: The Piano Encyclopedia Blog - The Piano Learning Revolution » A Sneak-peek into the Piano Lesson Report One: Music Fundamentals
I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.
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Pingback: The Piano Encyclopedia Blog - The Piano Learning Revolution » Musicians are not born - they are made. Discover The Logic Behind Music!
Hi been trying to teach myself for years… to many piano courses to count and to much money spent. I am a song writer and singer and my goal is to accompany myself, and write songs that have more than chords 1,4,5 in them and now i know i can, thanks to your E book. No one EVER TOLD ME about tension and release. Want to play Christian based songs with a jazz flair. I read you have chord types that go in particular to what style played, that is exciting. Its been difficult to do rock or classical, when they dont interest me.. no offense, im 51yrs old, gotta focus.
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