bio

Here you'll walk through some of my personal history...
Hope you can handle that :/

You probably don't need to.
But it'll tell you what KIND of piano player I am.
There are a million kinds.
And perhaps you're not the kind that I am.

This will let you know to read elsewhere on the web or to keep goin here...:)
________________________________________________________________________________

Circa 1971-1976, when I was a kid, I spent 2nd-6th grade in Japan as an MK.
(missionary kid).
We were EXTREMELY lucky and had an old upright piano for me to dink around with.
I'd hear those McDonalds melodies and other commercial jingles and plink em out
on that ole piano.  My Mom was pretty impressed, so I kept on plunkin out the
jingles.  In 6th grade I took a piano lesson at school.

It really sucked.

The dang teacher wanted me to play scales, scales, scales and yet even more
SCALES!
And I was getting frustrated with all this music where my left hand had to be
playing notes AT THE SAME TIME as my right hand.
I QUIT !!

I just stuck with those commercial jingles.
My Mom was just as happy and so was I.

Soooooo, I grew up, got through high school, college and hit my first real job.
My Gramma always told me I should get BACK to playing the piano.
I ignored her.  Well, tried to.  She was pretty tough to ignore.

THEN i found out there were these things called SYNTHESIZERS.
And I now had the kind of money to buy one.
And you could hook em to your COMPUTER !!
And the COMPUTER could play the music FOR YOU !!
That was it.

Computers were my first love.
See here
But, well, I'd found somebody new.

Well, not like that, really.  I'm afraid computers are still my first love.
But music is my second.
Well, ok, stick my wife and kids and family in front of those,
but you get the idea...

So I tool around with ditty for a while and discover that, hmmm, the computer
CAN play the music for you.  But you really don't want IT making the music.
You want IT -helping- you make the music.
Otherwise, well, the music you get out will be EXACTLY the music you put in.

Art needs to be LIVE :)

You're still gonna have to learn the piano, Steve !!

So I read all kinds of piano and synth books.
Sound synthesis is a REALLY interesting subject.  I spent a while reading about
the guts of synths.  That's just how I roll.
I learned sheet music format (which I find HIGHLY ANNOYING - more on that later)
I plowed through some real songs (2 pop songs - Steve Winwood's "Higher Love"
and that Madonna "Live To Tell" song).
It took me aaaaaages to learn these.  I picked up a blues book and since those
tunes are much shorter got thru quite a few.
I like the blues.  How can you not :)

So anyway, I turn around, I'm a Dad and I CAN'T FIND ANY TIME TO LEARN NEW SONGS

Sighhh

I start dreading practice because it takes sooooooo long to learn new songs.
All I've got is the 2 pop songs and a couple blues.
And they drive everybody except for me CRAZY since they've all heard these 2+
songs a KAJILLION TIMES and even I'm getting sick of em...:(
And starting to FORGET em...:(

Well, my kids are mostly grown now (youngest in 6th grade :O ).
I seem to be getting more time for ME lately and it's NICE and, hmm, how can
I put it to good use...?
Let's seeee...

Then BAM!
stumbleupon.com got me to pianofundamentals.com got me to pianoworld.com


stumbleupon.com
   is a great timewaster and hops you to all KINDS of interesting websites.


pianofundamentals.com
   is a great reference for HOW to practice piano


pianoworld.com
   has a great forum of piano players from ALL over the world chattin bout piano
   Ask these sages allll those piano questions!

So the most useful thing i pick up on pianoworld.com is that i should

GET A TEACHER !!   And NOW !!

So I did.  Finally.  My gramma can be happy.  (up thar:)

So now I'm at the realization that, hmm, if I want to become a good musician,
   I'll probably have to PRACTICE.

Ain't no gettin' round that one.

So I've started practicing about a half hour a day ROUGHLY.
In short spurts.  I sit down, play thru some stuff for as little as 10 mins if
I'm just not into it.  And if I am into it, I come back and have another go.

Short spurts of practice right before bed REALLY can help your fingers learn
FAST.  (And your brain, of course.)

Anywayzzz, that's where I'm at now.
I've got one more song under my belt as of now.
But more will be coming.
And this last one came MUCH faster than the first two.
And it was MUCH more enjoyable practicing.

And practicing has once again become FUN !!

I think once you get to the point where practice is fun (and it should be!),
   well,
      it's just a matter of time before you get good automatically.

I think I've reached my first goal!

"Try to be a piano player that doesn't suck" ??     CHECK !!

Ok.  Enough about me.  Sorry to have to do that to ya.
Hopefully you picked up SOMEthin in all that.
The rest of the stuff will be more useful - I promise :)