Writing out chord notes?

[FredCDobbs]

Hello all. This is my first post here.

Learning keyboard on my own, and coming from a sax background, so I'm having to learn not only the C clef but the notation below middle C on G clef. My question is this: I've been tempted to notate the chord notes on sheet music (such as writing out vertically C Eb G Bb) to facilitate my finding them on the keyboard, but I'm not sure if this is frowned upon as far as retarding my learning to read the standard notation. Any thoughts?

 

[CowboyNQ]

Mate I'd say do whatever works for you. However if you seriously want to learn to read music in treble and bass clef for piano, the best way is practice, practice, practice. I'm a terrible reader these days as I tend to cheat and play by ear, or just use chord charts.

There's a lot of tools available by way of ipad apps these days that can help too.

 

[FredCDobbs]

Thanks, Cowboy. One of my problems is that, once I figure out finger placements, and practice several measures over and over, I tend to play them from memory, which seems to undermine the acquisition of good reading skills. Not sure if that's okay but it's almost impossible to break the habit.

 

[CowboyNQ]

That's pretty normal I think. Just keep learning new pieces and you'll be constantly flexing your reading muscles.

 

[b3maniac]

Try finding one of these:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Banana-Keyb...449?pt=Guitar_Accessories&hash=item4d27fe0ff9

 

[FredCDobbs]

Neat tool--thanks. My chief problem is not so much finding chord notes on the board, but being able to read them with relative facility on a score, fast enough to play with some coherence. I think Cowboy's observation is simple but true--just have to keep gnawing away at it.

 

[happyrat1]

Aside from the fact that it helps to know your music theory about the wheel of fifths and the basics of chord formation in any scale it helps to study how the chords are created rather than simply memorizing them as you go along.

A couple of books I'd recommend include

http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Reading-Music-Step---Step/dp/1593373244

http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Music-Theory-Book-understanding/dp/1440511829

And a freeware software which can help facilitate your reading is one called Pianobooster which is available open source for pretty much all platforms.

http://pianobooster.sourceforge.net/

Gary

 

[FredCDobbs]

Thanks, Gary! Actually, I have a background on the sax and theory, and can read the G clef okay from low Bb upward. But I'm very very slow on C clef and reading block notes in general (chords on a melodic instrument are necessarily arpegiated). The pianobooster program looks like something that will help a lot.

 

[b3maniac]

Fred, check this out too. Learning scales and chord inversions is a must to move ahead to more advanced playing. If you learn this when you're starting out, it will benefit you greatly.
http://www.piano-lessons-made-simple.com/piano-chord-inversions.html
Don

 

[FredCDobbs]

Thanks Don. That's a great site. I put it on my desktop.

 

[happyrat1]

Actually there's a whole slew of excellent tutorial links stickied at the top of this forum.

Check out this thread :

https://www.keyboardforums.com/threads/good-tutorial-links.24556/

Gary