bio

Here you'll walk through some of my personal history...
You don't need to.

It'll tell you what KIND of piano player I am, though.
Perhaps my advice is not for you if you're not the sort of piano player I am.
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Circa 1971-1976:
I spent 2nd-6th grade in Japan as a 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 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 PianoCheater 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 just sound lifeless.
A computer defaults to playing every note at EXACTLY the same volume.
Boooring.  No feeling to it.

Music needs to be by a human and 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 2 real songs.  Slowwwly.
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 high school :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!  I find...
   pianofundamentals.com and
   pianoworld.com
   a 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 45 mins 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 lots more songs under my belt now :)
And more will be coming.
And this last one came MUCH faster than the first.
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 :)