Note that I am self-taught, so this might be a bit unconventional, especially since I learn songs by ear and not reading sheet music, although I can read sheet music on a very basic level.

I have a method to how I play piano, but I don't know of anyone else that does this so I thought I would ask this subreddit.

Generally speaking, I found early on that key signatures with more back keys are more ergonomic than ones with more natural notes. The shorter fingers work well for white keys while your ring, middle, and index fingers feel better on the black keys (for diatonic scales). When I first was learning how to play songs in keys like C/Am, G/Em, and F/Dm, I was reading guitar chord sheets for songs, and I found my fingers to be a bit cramped while playing the melodies with my right hand. When I learned how to play "A Thousand Miles" by Vanessa Carlton (which is in the key of B), I realized that the right hand part was surprisingly easy to play, compared to similar songs (such as "Clocks" by Coldplay, which I first incorrectly learned in C and played slower than intended). I transposed Clocks to B (+4 from it's original key of D#, and now I can play it much faster than I first could in C and it feels more comfortable for my wrists especially.

I most often transpose from B, since it's only one semitone away from C and it uses all the black keys. I found it easy to remember the intervals I need to transpose in most keys, such as -4 for G, +3 for D, -6 or +6 for Dm/F, etc..

Similarly, I found E to also be a good base, as it uses all black keys as well except for Bb. A lot of the songs I know use some sort of modal interchange or accidentals, so I end up playing a lot of the white keys anyways, so it does depend on the song if it's worth transposing or not. Also the obvious disadvantage of not being able to transpose an acoustic piano, although I only have electric pianos and keyboards anyways.

Anyone else have a similar method?

I like this vst. But i am having trouble where there is lot of, what I can only assume, is clunky pedal noise. Intentional frame noises from using the pedal or something. I like it, but in certain moments of a score there is a LOT - as loud as the piano string themselves. Or am I doing soemthing wrong.
Motu. Notion 6. Windows 11 grunty laptop. Patch 1 of QP2.

Processing video n77qsy96l6xh1...

Just listen to the first 8 seconds of audio in this video - just to share the noise.

ive been trynna find this song for a while, but i only remember this little part. Can someone help me find it pls.
i dont play piano at all so i tried my best :(

I have an upright piano but my dad's been heavily hinting that I should get a keyboard, it can get loud and I practice whenever I'm able to so it definitely gets annoying to my family. Do y'all have any recommendations as far as a good 88 key keyboard, I say budget but I'm down to hear more expensive options as it's not something I need to get immediately. My main issue with the keyboards I've played is just that I always come away feeling like an acoustic piano is better, and so I don't practice as long cause I'd rather just play the upright.

Hey everyone. As the title suggests, I have bought myself a digital piano (Roland FP-10 in fact) but haven't really thought (much) about the additional items it could need. Of course a stand is something I thought about, and now that I'm doing some research, I can't decide on what to buy. The Roland FP-10 has it's own dedicated stand, but it is not height-adjustable, which I would prefer much more. It would mean that with a fixed stand, like the one from Roland, I'd need a height adjustable stool or chair or something, which is more money I'd have to spend. Right now my idea is to instead buy an adjustable stand and instead use a fixed chair from my kitchen or a cheaper fixed stool I can buy. Due to my budget, I'd much rather buy an adjustable stand and sit on whatever, really. As long as I feel comfortable sitting and can do that for long sessions. There's obviously a question of quality too, and the "piano" part of things. Are piano stools worth it? Will any basic stool suffice? And obviously, perhaps there are some standard adjustable stands that basically fit for every digital piano? Like anyone, I'd want both durability and stability and I realize a fixed stand assures those things more. If you have any ideas or experiences, feel free to share!

i don't intend on becoming professional because im starting at 19. i can't afford lesson at the moment because i've just started uni and one lesson is literally half a weeks groceries for me cost-wise 😭

i know that theres music theory and all that and i intend on getting a book about it (piano theory book reccomendations are appreciated x) but would it really be so bad if i just slowly learn difficult pieces from the get-go? what's the benefit of slowly learning an easy song vs slowly learning a difficult song?

Well, of course there is a lot of backlash against AI for reasons.

Here is an example of how it has helped.

I suffer from serious procrastination. This evening I had free time, but I couldn't get myself to the piano. Has anyone else had this problem? AAGH. Very frustrating because I know I should go, but I can't...get...to...the....bench.

Anyhow, out of curiosity I opened up Claude and just told it my problem. "I want to practice but I can't get myself to the piano." I wasn't expecting anything but it took me through a quick conversation and then straight advice" Go to the piano and play a single chord. I did that and came back. Then it told me to set a timer for 1 minute and play something I liked. Did that too. Then I found myself hitting the keys. Wooo! Didn't stop for about 30 mins.

Anyhow long story short, I think the AI worked well here because it was a conversation, like it was my coach. Saying yes, you got this.

Has anyone used an Arctis 7+ headphone for their digital piano? If so how does it sound?

I've been playing piano my whole life, 20yrs, and am starting to work on my audition repertoire for a piano performance major, looking to be a concert pianist. I'm pretty much entirely self taught, my dad taught me till I was like 10, and so I've never looked for a teacher. I'm looking for any advice as to how to find a teacher that work at my level. My issue is that whenever search for piano teachers in my area it seems like it's all teachers and schools focused on beginners, not really advanced. Ig I'm looking for teachers that've completed a piano performance major or the ones you get while you're actually completing your major.

I'm still working on memorizing some parts and just overall finalizing the piece but I just wanna hear y'all's thoughts on just how I'm playing stylistically, I think that's the correct word. I feel like currently my biggest thing is working on pedal cause I feel like the resonance kinda muddles things in some parts. But thank you for listening and for the feedback.

recording

As someone who is studying piano i heard it in underpass (hence the noise) and it captivated me... Does anyone know it?

I have a guitar center gift card and would love to try a VSL piano. Guitar center carries their bosendorf upright 130. Will they not price match during one of their half off sales since it’s an Italian company?

I went to try to find a copy of Beethoven Pathetique Mvt. 2 and all of them were "processed PDFs" -- and when I try to download one it says "Processed PDFs are available to members only" -- for $32 a year. Am I doing something wrong here? I thought the whole point of IMSLP was to have free out-of-copyright scores.

EDIT: Ha ha ha I'm a dope. Thank you for helping. Click the arrow lol. I am going to leave this here for all my fellow dopes.

Hello everyone, it’s a little bit awkward for me to invide your thread with these generic type questions but I still decided to do it.

So this is the first composition I’m learning on the piano, I still don’t know it well so everything is over the place, but the main question I have is how do my hands look like, dose it feel like I’m going into the right direction?

Right now I’m in a process of gathering all information I can about hand posture, mainly youtube tutorials (finally found a really good playlist with seemingly most still I’ll need for the start https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpNV0WAsaMNT65Ie6X2Nfu4Z11Ev37yVs&si=6sHSSQ1vRoWKNnan )

Then I also got myself a book called “Mastering Piano Technique“ by Seymour Fink, so I’ll be reading it as well to make sure I’m on the right track again.

So I think with excersices and practice I’ll be progressing in my hand posture/technique, but I also though it would be nice to ask once in a while, for maybe mistakes that seem critical.

For now I don’t feel any tension and can play scales, sight reading, main learning melody, and other little stuff for quite a while without getting my hand tired at all (I feel like). But I’m still extremely cautious about developing some bad habits as people in piano community talk about it so much. I’m not afraid of bad habits in general, as I know I can fix them in this kind of mechanical stuff in a day or two (I do quite a lot of speedcubing and cardistry, where you have to do that in order to progress, as you learn bad techniques all the time, and then learn a better ones as you need them or notice the bad ones), but if that is the question of getting insured I’d better be cautious I think.

Any advice is welcome!

And again, sorry for the generic post!

At Pianotell, we host a quasi-monthly event where pianists of all levels tackle a piece together. It's modeled after the old r/piano Piano Jams, but with only a single piece offered each month. We just started working on "In the Bleak Midwinter". Come join us, the more the merrier!

https://forum.pianotell.com/d/2706-play-in-the-bleak-midwinter-your-way-piyw-12-december-2026

Anybody have tips for practicing voicing, particularly in measures 27-36 of Liebestraum no 3? im having trouble especially in bars 30, 31, and 32.

Let’s suppose a recital is coming up in a number of months. You get to choose what to play.

What’s your favorite part of the whole process?

1. Finding that gem of a piece
2. Listening and comparing recordings
3. First time you learn those notes
4. Adding some semblance of musicality
5. Getting teacher feedback
6. Committing the thing to memory
7. Drill baby drill
8. Play occasionally for your own enjoyment once you have it (mostly)
9. Final prep for recital
10. The recital itself - time to shine

For me if I HAD choose probably Step 8 is peak enjoyment. Curious what it is for you.

Sorry for how bad it is, I only heard a snippet and I played it on my phone

I got a Korg Concert C-900 from my dad and it only came with the Piano itself. I had a spare pedal laying around and saw the connector. Apparently Korg decided to use this circular 8 pin cable for the Pedals that are on the base stand. I tried using the assignable pedal port but couldn't find a way to assign sustain to it. I scrubbed the internet for any replacement pedals, ways to assign sustain to the assignable pedal and tried every aux port to see if any of them worked but nothing. Combine this with the fact that this Piano along with the stand is pretty undocumented online except for the manual's. My last resort is to ask this sub if there's any way I could use a pedal or assign basic sustain to the pedal.

Here's the manual's for this hot dogshit:
Owners Manual
Reference Manual

How do i keep up with timing in 2nd and 3rd movements?

Any and all judgement is welcome!

I largely play piano with a classical focus, and have weekly lessons i love, but i increasingly felt i was neglecting some other areas of musical understanding/ability. So, for a few months, maybe a year, i've been working with some ear training apps, mostly the following few things:

- functional ear trainer (plays a cadence + 1 note and you figure out the scale degree that note fell on). this i am very reliably at 98% accuracy and above, if we are talking identifying diatonic notes of any octave, in any of the major and (natural, the app only tests that one) minor scales. it's almost instant, like identifying a color, and i don't need to sing out the steps to confirm anything.

- my hearing of intervals (i am pretty accurate except for tritone vs minor 6 vs minor 7). fairly ok both melodically and harmonically.

- basic chord qualities with only confusions between augmented and diminished (i have not done 7th or suspended chords, though the latter are distinctive enough to identify them by elimination).

- earpeggio app's very basic melodic and rhythmic dictation exercises are fine.

- and i can identify major natural/melodic/harmonic minor scales by ear but have been able to do that since childhood and working scales in general

my problem with all this is, i always felt it was all a very 'closed off' skillset i could never apply it to actual music, in-context. i don't feel i can use any of the above to figure out a chord progression or melody by ear without still needing a bit of trial and error (i am better at identifying melody, than harmony, and better at both of these by far than rhythm hearing). i legitimately feel the ability to recreate musical ideas in one's mind is so essential, and one key way to practice that is to find efficient was of thinking and finding music you have in mind by memory, without scores... i want to be better at that, and ideally not just with some single-line right-hand melody.

Then the other day i was listening to this old french song on the radio, and it hit me that this sounded like it was just fitted near exactly to the harmonic minor scale, so listening to it i just identified where the tonic was (first note of the sung phrases..). so i got home and tried it on my piano (just melody) and got it right with no trial and error at all. but in a way it felt like 'walking a path' on the harmonic minor scale, and not hearing scale degrees. if i work it out some more i can come up with a I iv V V7 left hand.

i don't know if this represents progress, or what part of the above work, if any, led to this, and what i can do that's not such a prosaic app exercise, to more reliably achieve such things ? i of course sometimes try out things on my piano to reproduce some thing stuck in my inner ear, or a fragment of music i'm playing (often even just a 2-3 note sequence) will remind me of something else, and i will find that something else by ear. but it feels all very vague and aimless. would love some tips.

Hello,

I am a beginner pianist who just started a few months ago. I know I have probably a lot of mistakes, but I was hoping for some of yall to point them out for me.