The Musicarta Easy Piano Style
Sample contents - Page Three
This is the third of the Musicarta Easy Piano Style (MEPS) 'sample contents' web pages - desigend to inspire! If you've 'just landed', rather back-track and start on the series home page.
The Musicarta Easy Piano Style (MEPS) digital home study download is now available. Browse these extended table-of-contents pages to get an idea of what the Musicarta Easy Piano Style can do for you!
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MUSICARTA EASY The Musicarta Easy Piano Style shows you how to get your hands on the keys and start making music right away! With lots of graphics, full audio and MIDI support and all the solos on the Mister Musicarta YouTube MEPS video playlist, you’re sure to get some beautiful pieces into your repertoire quickly – and learn how to find the music in the keyboard for yourself. |
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MEPS will have you 'making music in minutes!'
MEPS - with thirds
A 'third' in music is a pair of notes, also called an 'interval'. (As well as indicating the pair of notes, an interval is the distance between them - "a third above", "a third below", etc.)
The third is a sweet-sounding interval - it walks around the keyboard very harmoniously, and is a great way of harmonising melodies. All modern keyboard players should be able to find and use them in their right hand without fuss.
In the Musicarta Easy Piano Style workbook, you start getting to grips with thirds in the two 'Pairs of Chords' you already know. Here are the two original studies and the 'with thirds' versions in a table, so you can see how you are building on familiar ground.
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The original studies: C and D minor 'With thirds' - C and D minor |
E minor and D E minor and D |
As always, their are step-by-step build-up-of-syncopation exercises for the studies, with MIDI files you can slow down and repeat on MidiPiano until you can see just what to do. Watch the videos on the MEPS YouTube playlist.
There is also a collection of practical and useful thirds finger exercises, designed especially for the modern keyboard styles player. There are no exemptions - little and often does the trick!
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MUSICARTA EASY The Musicarta Easy Piano Style shows you how to get your hands on the keys and start making music right away! With lots of graphics, full audio and MIDI support and all the solos on the Mister Musicarta YouTube MEPS video playlist, you’re sure to get some beautiful pieces into your repertoire quickly – and learn how to find the music in the keyboard for yourself. |
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Your solos so far
You now have enough keyboard building blocks for the first collection of 'proper pieces' in the MEPS workbook. The pieces stray a little from pure MEPS keyboard texture, but the accompanying notes are there to help you bridge the gap.
Here are the five solos, embedded. Below them are brief notes about additional 'keyboard composing' resources covered in the workbook notes.
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Tanza Tanza takes the MEPS music-making machine into six-eight time. The second half of the piece uses the chords from 'Three Fourths and a Pair' (previous page) - in the MEPS work, we use every opportunity to recycle and get a bit more mileage out of what we can do! Ever True Ever True uses only three chords - A minor, G and F. It's in three-part A-B-A 'form' (structure), the only difference in the 'B' strain being the more adventurous left hand. If you can't manage the bigger left hand, there's a simpler version for you to play. An Unsettling Notion Like some of the other pieces in this section, An Unsettling Notion divides the four MEPS chord tones two left hand, two right hand - another way to get more out of your hard work. Like Ever True, the repeats have a bigger left hand for you to try - but see the section on 'Stepping-stone performances' below. |
Afternoon Afternoon features 'walking tenths' and 'slash chords'. A tenth is an octave plus a third - from the lowest to the highest of the MEPS hand position notes. These wlk very nicely across the keyboard too. 'Slash chords' are chords with a note that's not the root in the bass - G/B, Bm/D and so on. Slash chords bring a lot more variety into your chord progressions. Fanfare Fanfare uses the four chords you're most likely to find together in music of any and every kind. In this piece, they are C, A minor, F and G. In the Roman numeral system - I, vi, IV and V (One, Six, Four and Five). These four chords can be the oldest cliche in the book, but taking vi (A minor) as your starting point produces a very different effect. All pieces have 'skeleton music' to focus your efforts and guide you speedily to performance readiness. All pieces have chord charts. You will find playing chords from chord symbols and charts getting easier and easier for you. Hand positions for all the chords are in the Visual Glossary (dictionary), so don't worry if you're not much of a reader... All pieces have section MIDI files to play and repeat and copy at your own chosen practice speed |
'Theory that works'
Notice how you're gradually introduced to the vocabulary of music theory. The 'theory' word puts a lot of popular-styles players off, but it shouldn't. Properly taught, with relevant and attractive examples, music theory is a great enabler - it shows you 'how music works' and therefore, how to create it. The Musicarta Easy Piano Style is a great way to spend time 'just 'messing about at the keyboard' - porbably how most great music and songs start life!
'Stepping-stone performances'
With classical music (and most piano lessons) you can either play it or you can't. That's frustrating - and not how most adult and other self-directing learners want to feel.
Musicarta teaching material is different. Every Musicarta study and piece 'builds' from simple to complex, so that you can always come away from a practice session with some kind of performance - even if it's only doodling the basic chords.
Can't get the hang of that last bit of syncopation? It doesn't matter! There's a version without that bit, that you can play until you master the final trick - and nobody will know. A much more encouraging way to learn!
Do you think you would enjoy learning keyboards like this?
Musicarta is the brand leader in digital keyboard home
study. Your Musicarta Easy Piano Style download contains
- An illustration-rich PDF workbook of around 135 pages;
- The
audio and MIDI files for all the musical examples; and
- The MidiPiano application (to play the MIDI files).
The workbook has a full 45 pages of beautiful, playable piano music - the 21 studies and piano solos you can see-and-hear in advance on the Mister Musicarta YouTube MEPS playlist (and using as a continuing practice guide).
Musicarta's home-study downloads are the result of hours of classroom teaching, and are designed to structure your efforts, maximise your progress and give a boost to your keyboard creativity.
And all for less than the cost of a single one-on-one piano lesson - assuming you can find a teacher within traveling distance who can teach you what you want to learn!
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MUSICARTA EASY The Musicarta Easy Piano Style shows you how to get your hands on the keys and start making music right away! With lots of graphics, full audio and MIDI support and all the solos on the Mister Musicarta YouTube MEPS video playlist, you’re sure to get some beautiful pieces into your repertoire quickly – and learn how to find the music in the keyboard for yourself. |
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Continue the tour...
Other Musicarta digital home study downloads
If the Musicarta Easy Piano Style material isn't for you, there are three other Musicarta digital home study downloads to choose from.
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The PYRAMIDS VARIATIONS The Musicarta Pyramids Variations aims to exceed expectations by coaching beginners and re-starters to an impressive ‘Concert Performance’ in just eight lessons. After that, you learn a set of variations which model all the contemporary keyboard player’s knowledge and skills. |
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Click through to the Pyramids Variations YouTube playlist here.
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The CANON PROJECT Pachelbel’s Canon in D is perhaps the most famous chord sequence of all time, and the basis of dozens of popular hits. If you can play and understand the Canon chord sequence, there isn’t much in popular music harmony you won’t be able to figure out! Its regular structure also makes it a great springboard for improvising and composition. |
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Amazon Books also available Udemy
Click through to the Canon Project YouTube playlist here
Click through to the various download home pages using the ‘LEARN MORE’ links. There are sample content pages to help you decide which home study pack would suit you best. All three home study downloads are designed to help you enjoy becoming a creative modern keyboard player!
If you're just looking for pieces to play, try the first Musicarta Piano Solos album.
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PIANO SOLOS Piano Solos Volume 1 is a collection of eleven solos from across the Musicarta spectrum. Each solo has a couple of pages of notes explaining how the music is put together and offering useful practicing advice. Easy-inter to inter-advanced solos with audio and MIDI files and player and a 50-page PDF (A4/US Letter). |
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Listen to the Mister Musicarta YouTube Solos playlist, and click through to the Solos page to check out the contents in detail.
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