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Where to start (keyboard)?

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Gnik Nosmirc View Drop Down
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    Posted: April 01 2024 at 14:58
Hi.

I'm 25. Never played an instrument. I don't know anything about theory. And I want to learn the piano, to play prog rock of course. My inspirations are Soft Machine (early), Caravan, Vdgg and ELP. The first Soft Machine album is a great example of what I'd like to play.

I'll probably start learning the basics of music theory and a few crappy songs to get my head around how the instrument works. But once I understand the basics, where should I go? Jazz? Blues?

Also, do you have any advice for what gear I should buy? Something not too expensive (I'm short on money), something with which I could play with headphones (I have neighbors and I want to play at 3AM), something I can easily carry.

Sorry for sounding like a complete noob (because I am). Hope I didn't ask anything stupid.

Thanks for reading.


Edited by Gnik Nosmirc - April 01 2024 at 15:02
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Easy Money Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 01 2024 at 15:58
I make my living teaching piano. Get a good basic beginner book for adults such as the one by Alfreds. Start working with the book and over time you will start being able to branch out and do the things you really want to do.
Learning an instrument is hard work and some of the work is boring and tedious, if you can't handle that then I wouldn't bother.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Gnik Nosmirc Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 02 2024 at 07:41
Originally posted by Easy Money Easy Money wrote:


Learning an instrument is hard work and some of the work is boring and tedious, if you can't handle that then I wouldn't bother.


I can handle that, if it gets me where I want to go.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote JD Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 02 2024 at 12:14
And HOURS...you gotta put in the hours. Ant instrument that needs to be learned (ie: not derived from natural ability) needs repetition. Muscle memory.

Remember he old joke?
How do you get to Carnegie Hall?
Practice, practice, practice.

Somewhere there is a study that says if you want to be proficient at something (anything?) you need something like 10,000 hrs put into it.

Try not to get frustrated with your progress if you're not playing like Keith Emerson after a year. That's not really how it works.
Good luck !
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote moshkito Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 02 2024 at 12:42
Hi,

Get a reasonable midi keyboard ... they are getting cheaper these days and the 48 key ones are not spendy ... from there you plug it into the computer then you go looking for VST's for piano ... and many of them are free, and voila ... you have a piano available to you.

They say that practice makes perfect, and then you find many a musician, that is an individualist and disdains any kind of teaching ... and it goes as far as folks like Keith Jarrett trashing education for not teaching you anything except what is dead and wasted after so many years of repetitions!

To me, and I am a writer, the "muscle memory" is only necessary when you are mechanical in your playing. If you are a person that plays off colors and visionary material, it only has to do with your familiarity with what each note sounds like, and you would never worry about any teaching or chords and a teacher that is not an artist ... he/she is a musician ... massive difference.

If you have a good FEEL for the notes on the keys, musical theory won't enter the equation ... because you are following your own feel for what the notes speak to you personally, which has nothing to do with theory at all ... and you better realize that before you take it up ... because that is the first brick in your head ... you want to play something you can't find ... ditch it ... instead visualize a scene and put your fingers around the keys for it ... 

For a weird/bizarre idea, if you read well check out the folks that are really special in their creativity, and notice how they are not into the chords and notes ... they are into the quality of their feeling via this note and then that note .. has nothing to do with theory whatsoever. And the best joke of all is the one that musicians hate the most ... in the Robert Wyatt book there is a story about Syd Barrett in one of the sessions for his album ... and a guitarist asks Robert what key Syd is in. Robert's reply? "He don't know the chords or the notes. He just plays!" ... a perfect example of the memory of "knowing" what it sounds like when you do this, or that ... and that's what you need to create "music" ... the rest is all notes!
Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Easy Money Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 02 2024 at 13:12
Re the instrument: Keyboards are pretty cheap these days and are quite good. A 61 key keyboard will last you a long time and should be available new for around $150.
88 key digital pianos are just like the real thing and sound great, they can run up to around $700.
Keyboards do not have touch sensitive heavy keys, but a digital piano does. There are some hybrids that are kind of in between a keyboard and a digital piano.

Edited by Easy Money - April 02 2024 at 14:28
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Logan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 02 2024 at 13:46
I have a Casio digital piano (about 700 dollars) and some other keyboard. Portability is nice. I wanted one with 88 keys and they keys are weighted to start.

I would like to get a Casio Celviano Grand Hybrid or some other digital "hybrid" piano for my son.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Valdez1 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 02 2024 at 18:48
I'm very impatient but I'm learning slowly with Alfreds books also (as easy money said).   I spend more time just practicing my ability to find a note I want immediately and just jamming along to stuff.  Armchair Musician here. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote moshkito Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 04 2024 at 07:27
Originally posted by Valdez1 Valdez1 wrote:

I'm very impatient but I'm learning slowly with Alfreds books also (as easy money said).   I spend more time just practicing my ability to find a note I want immediately and just jamming along to stuff.  Armchair Musician here. 

Hi,

I would like to add a wee touch here ... for fun and something different, that will help in the end.

If you spend an hour on the Alfred books, and they are very good, do yourself a favor ... put away the book for an hour and just explore each key on the piano, and FEEL it, and even ADD a color to it (as Hiromi will tell you!) ... and study that "sound" a bit ... eventually, it teaches you to blend various sounds and keys on their own without a book, and you learn some intuitive bits ... for example, you like this particular touch and sound, and like to follow it up with this and that ... without worrying about the notes ... only to find that tomorrow, you can duplicate that almost the same, which tells you that you remembered the sound that you felt.

I think it is fine to put a "name" on it ... note this or that or chord this or that ... although I find it more beneficial to me, as a writer though, not to have any idea what it is, or what it was "supposed to be" (the worst thing about music!!!) ... thus making more freedom as to where you take it next as opposed to being tied to a chord this or that.

The history of music is about the "freedom" that folks found off what was next to them, and the 20th century broke the mold on that idea to pieces ... and the only thing that bothers me is that we're still stuck on "learning" something that is too old, and is what is being "retired" from the annals of music as everything ends up digital.

The value of this "freedom" is something that is hard to explain, and is something that most musicians are afraid to try ... because it takes them out of their comfy knowledge of three chords and 2 more notes on their guitar or on the counting by the drummer, who has no feel for the music at all since the drumming never changes!

Good luck ... I've done really well in theater with actors, working with "nothing" as well as I have with writing ... but musicians, for the most part, are afraid ... to consider anything but what they know. 
Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Gnik Nosmirc Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 04 2024 at 08:33
Thank you all for your answers. I have carefully read them and they will hopefully help me in the future, as I start playing the keyboard.


Edited by Gnik Nosmirc - April 04 2024 at 08:34
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote octopus-4 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 05 2024 at 06:57
I started playing guitar in 1972, initially practicing at least 4 hours/day. 52 years later I'm still unable to perform Al Di Meola's Mediterranean Sundance, despite many attempts. Nowadays I enjoy keyboard, piano, bass and flute, but none of them well enough to let me say that I'm a musician. 
My suggestion: Even if it doesn't take you where you want, it can be an amazing journey. I'll never be able to play Emerson on piano, but I still enjoy pressing black and white keys to get some chords. 
If you enjoy it, don't care about anything else. Just enjoy it.
I stand with Roger Waters, I stand with Joan Baez, I stand with Victor Jara, I stand with Woody Guthrie. Music is revolution
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote moshkito Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 05 2024 at 07:13
Originally posted by octopus-4 octopus-4 wrote:

I started playing guitar in 1972, initially practicing at least 4 hours/day. 52 years later I'm still unable to perform Al Di Meola's Mediterranean Sundance, despite many attempts. Nowadays I enjoy keyboard, piano, bass and flute, but none of them well enough to let me say that I'm a musician. 
...

HI,

Time out ... 

Who says you can not create the Octopus-4 Mediterranean Sundance on the roof with the Riviera Sun?

Comparisons, are tough, and they kinda hurt your seeing where to take your own intuition, which seems to think that others got right and you can't.

Your intuition is the "creator" and the Emerson, and the Di Meola, are NOT because of what they did ... it's a tough thing to recreate the past, and one of the worst teaching tools about any instrument ... all teachers can tell you this and that and this and that ... but none of them can even consider asking, or helping you find your own "note" ... that's sick ... it's like you are doomed to be inferior, regardless.  Everyone else has the "note" and "song" and you won't? What kind of positive lesson is that for a student?

Go listen to Keith Jarrett talk about teachers ... and many musicians that went their own way when they were young, and many are worth the story .. Eno, Wyatt, Hammill, Vander, Emerson (you gotta hear his stuff played on piano first by Rachel Flowers!!!) and many other "originals" that made a serious difference.


Edited by moshkito - April 05 2024 at 07:16
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote moshkito Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 12 2024 at 18:48
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

...
Time out ... 

Who says you can not create the Octopus-4 Mediterranean Sundance on the roof with the Riviera Sun?

Comparisons, are tough, and they kinda hurt your seeing where to take your own intuition, which seems to think that others got right and you can't.
...

Hi,

In other words, it's about you finding a "note" that sounds right to you, and you follow it up with this note, and then this other note here ... without worrying about what it is, or isn't, supposed to be, or sound like, because a lot of music teaching says that this must follow this and that!

It's about you coloring your inner mind, and view ... and if you say/think that you do not have anything like that inside your head when you play, even better ... go primitive/intuitive, and I guarantee that out of that you will find something special ... a touch, or flow ... that no one can teach you, but you can learn to "follow" by yourself ... because in the end, that is YOU ... not anything else, called music or otherwise!

Who inspired you is an illusion, that defines something that you like ... and it does not, necessarily, mean that it is something for you to do. Sometimes a combination of notes feels like this or that ... and all you end up saying is that you have no inner life, and can't find three or 4 notes, that .... ARE YOU ... not someone else. You just have to bang at it ... until each note SPEAKS for you ... not represents someone else!

Find yourself through the music ... telling us that this or that is your inspiration only states that you are not quite interested in yourself, and think you are a lesser person for it! That's not a good idea, if you want to play and get better ... and you have to make a decision on that!
Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Cristi Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 13 2024 at 00:01
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

...
Time out ... 

Who says you can not create the Octopus-4 Mediterranean Sundance on the roof with the Riviera Sun?

Comparisons, are tough, and they kinda hurt your seeing where to take your own intuition, which seems to think that others got right and you can't.
...

Hi,

In other words, it's about you finding a "note" that sounds right to you, and you follow it up with this note, and then this other note here ... without worrying about what it is, or isn't, supposed to be, or sound like, because a lot of music teaching says that this must follow this and that!

It's about you coloring your inner mind, and view ... and if you say/think that you do not have anything like that inside your head when you play, even better ... go primitive/intuitive, and I guarantee that out of that you will find something special ... a touch, or flow ... that no one can teach you, but you can learn to "follow" by yourself ... because in the end, that is YOU ... not anything else, called music or otherwise!

Who inspired you is an illusion, that defines something that you like ... and it does not, necessarily, mean that it is something for you to do. Sometimes a combination of notes feels like this or that ... and all you end up saying is that you have no inner life, and can't find three or 4 notes, that .... ARE YOU ... not someone else. You just have to bang at it ... until each note SPEAKS for you ... not represents someone else!

Find yourself through the music ... telling us that this or that is your inspiration only states that you are not quite interested in yourself, and think you are a lesser person for it! That's not a good idea, if you want to play and get better ... and you have to make a decision on that!

Are you arguing with yourself?! LOL Are you alright? Confused
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote moshkito Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 13 2024 at 07:15
Originally posted by Cristi Cristi wrote:

...
Are you arguing with yourself?! LOL Are you alright? Confused

Hi,

I felt one more statement was needed to clear up the previous bits.

It's tough trying to help someone with something that is, essentially, totally intuitive, and very internal, and the sad fact is that all the comments are about something that is less about the INNER MUSIC that you and I have, than it is some idea of what "music" is about via its physical design. And for some reason, folks don't seem to notice that every new generation of new music, dismantled, and changed/added something new to the story of "music" ... which suggests that too many folks are in it to grab some money or a star studded idea of what it is like on the stage. And worse ... people teaching theory, when the history of music is a lot less about the theory and its changes!

Kinda strange in a very strange world that thinks knowing your ABC's and 123's is the answer. What's left? ... not a whole lot for the individual trying to find himself/herself ... and worse, the criticism by folks that don't see that!
Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Valdez1 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 13 2024 at 07:38
Excellent advice from everyone. I don’t claim to know how to play the piano/ keyboards competently or even correctly. But I’m working on it . Pardon my language but sometimes I just like to treat the piano like an old wh@re and bang the crap out of it. You can learn a lot about a piano by going extreme on it. Fast and furious. It’s fun too!   

Also go to you tube and look up backing tracks for lead guitar ( not piano) and play along to them with piano notes. It’s easy, it’s awesome.

Somebody here said “let the music play you” and you are more likely to develop your own personal style for better or worse. The style will be quite simple at first but that’s fine. Many great songs have a rather simple piano line. Also there is a YouTube short called ‘Paul McCartney teaches you how to play piano” . It’s a basic chords lesson described brilliantly. He tells you how easy it is to do (starting at middle C) and all of the things you can do with it from there. I will see if I can find a link to it.

Here it is
https://youtu.be/0-sXAqgP5KE?si=9onYYjucz2gHxDqi

Edited by Valdez1 - May 13 2024 at 08:51
https://bakullama1.bandcamp.com/
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote progaardvark Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 13 2024 at 08:59
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

...
Time out ... 

Who says you can not create the Octopus-4 Mediterranean Sundance on the roof with the Riviera Sun?

Comparisons, are tough, and they kinda hurt your seeing where to take your own intuition, which seems to think that others got right and you can't.
...

Hi,

In other words, it's about you finding a "note" that sounds right to you, and you follow it up with this note, and then this other note here ... without worrying about what it is, or isn't, supposed to be, or sound like, because a lot of music teaching says that this must follow this and that!

It's about you coloring your inner mind, and view ... and if you say/think that you do not have anything like that inside your head when you play, even better ... go primitive/intuitive, and I guarantee that out of that you will find something special ... a touch, or flow ... that no one can teach you, but you can learn to "follow" by yourself ... because in the end, that is YOU ... not anything else, called music or otherwise!

Who inspired you is an illusion, that defines something that you like ... and it does not, necessarily, mean that it is something for you to do. Sometimes a combination of notes feels like this or that ... and all you end up saying is that you have no inner life, and can't find three or 4 notes, that .... ARE YOU ... not someone else. You just have to bang at it ... until each note SPEAKS for you ... not represents someone else!

Find yourself through the music ... telling us that this or that is your inspiration only states that you are not quite interested in yourself, and think you are a lesser person for it! That's not a good idea, if you want to play and get better ... and you have to make a decision on that!

I agree mostly with your philosophy. When I first started out making my own music, I tried emulating songs or sections of songs that I thought were interesting. What I ended up finding out, and it's mostly due to lack of musical training, is that I never ended up with a piece of music that sounded like the songs I was trying to copy. In other words, I was already unknowingly applying my inner mind to these pieces of music. Initially I dismissed some of these as failures because I wanted them to sound like what I was copying, but over time I looked back on them and saw that I was subconsciously (for a lack of a better word) applying my own creativity to them. 

Initially the creativity seemed to focus on certain aspects of a piece music and I failed to look at the whole piece. So my drum bits were lazily programmed. Admittedly I did not have the software I needed back then to envision my dream but over time I began to focus my creativity on these lazier areas I ignored and now I feel like I'm doing what I always wanted to do. I don't care about chords anymore. I don't care what key I'm in anymore. I don't care what time signature I'm in. I just do what feels right to me. I'm not out to please any listener but myself. I love to experiment.

As for keyboards, if this means anything to anybody, I use an Alesis V49 USB MIDI keyboard that is plugged into a PC running the Reaper DAW. I have dozens of software synths, plus drum, bass, and electric guitar software. I can play all of this software by hand using this MIDI keyboard. Sometimes I play four or five software instruments at the same time on this keyboard by arming all the tracks in Reaper. I know that sounds nuts, but it works for me. And that's really all that matters. Plus having fun doing it.


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Valdez1 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 13 2024 at 09:14
I like my old cheap Yamaha YPG625. 88 weighted and touch sensitive keys. A million other instruments, drums. It’s a workhorse. And the Grand piano setting sounds fantastic.
https://bakullama1.bandcamp.com/
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote moshkito Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 13 2024 at 15:51
Originally posted by progaardvark progaardvark wrote:

...
Initially the creativity seemed to focus on certain aspects of a piece music and I failed to look at the whole piece. So my drum bits were lazily programmed. Admittedly I did not have the software I needed back then to envision my dream but over time I began to focus my creativity on these lazier areas I ignored and now I feel like I'm doing what I always wanted to do. I don't care about chords anymore. I don't care what key I'm in anymore. I don't care what time signature I'm in. I just do what feels right to me. I'm not out to please any listener but myself. I love to experiment.
...

Hi,

Nice. Enjoyed reading this. 

Being, for the most part a writer, this is my "style", more or less. In general, I never worry about "meaning" or "ideas" and it's like dreams, when you can see them ... they just flow and go and don't give a damn about what you think! They have their own logic.

I have been, for many years, simply writing, "out of the blue" and never have I sat down and thought ... something like ... I want to do this, or that ... because you (or I) thinking that you are doing that is an illusion that you made up to justify your thoughts. In essence, I simply write what shows up in my "inner movie" (as I call it) and where it goes, it goes ... and I don't know where it is, or is going, until the time when it's "over" and I stop ... and then read it back ... and that is the time when you realize how much your mind wishes to "control things" ... and having an exercise that disdains that, is valuable in showing many potential threads, that your imagination can not find, or ever see.

Many seem to write for "meaning", and honestly, I couldn't careless for "meaning" since in the end, everyone has different ideas and opinions to what it says or doesn't, and agreements are mostly impossible.

This is better seen, and experienced with exercises that are done in VERY ADVANCED acting classes for theater, if a professor is so inclined, instead of some other ideas. You will find that you can extend an improvisation, and the 2nd hour is different, and the 3rd hour is even further different, and they really have no relationship, other than the fact that you are the common denominator ... and this is a very tough issue for a lot of musicians that are stuck in "processes" that define how any music should be ... and thus, the ability to find "new music" is pretty much relegated to "new old music" with the same instruments and the same designs.

Again, comes the joke about Syd Barrett from Robert Wyatt's book ... (Different EVery Time) ... when some guy asked him what key Syd was on during a recording, and Robert's answer? He don't know the keys or the chords ... he just plays.

AND, sadly, no musician that I have ever met, or found, has ever wondered how he could have done that? And the reason why he was eventually taken out ... .because the other folks could not stay with him anymore. Before they found a way to be together, and somewhere along the way, it had become what note and chord it was ... and Syd could not explain or help ... which, of course, the drugs did not help! Very sad altogether, that no one had the foresight to get him immediate help, not that it would make a difference, which is the part we can not guess about.

But there are some I did meet, that had it ... internally. Daevid Allen of GONG was impossible to keep up with in terms of being nuts, crazy and fun ... total fun ... and very with it ... so was Gilly for that matter. Others I find worth reading and studying a bit, would be ENO, although I have to re-read his book, because I did not find him opening up and discussing his breaking down of music, like he does in various bits and pieces in the tube. His "style" is also a complete breakdown to its simplest form, one bit at a time, and  his changes of it along the way, and in many cases, no changes at all. In the end, this is completely anti the design and what makes for the definition of "music" as we know it ... and I'm not sure that many of us realize that, when we hear it. 

Wonderful to hear you describe things ... that is so rare here, and something, that (in my book) is not quite understood or respected, in favor of the commercial ideal and numbers. 

It's lovely, and exciting to find another member of the club so to speak.
Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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Location: Philly burbs
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote AFlowerKingCrimson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 13 2024 at 17:41
I own a keyboard but I don't know how to play either. I started to but never really got very far. Now here's the crazy part. I can still shred like a professional keyboard player but I don't really know what I'm doing or why it sounds good. I can't play any actual songs though. I'd like to learn just so I can better and actually play and not just do wild soloing.

Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - May 13 2024 at 17:42
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