Online free piano course.

[Online free course]

Melancholy Baby is a piano standard a club/restaurant player should know.

Listen to this version of Melancholy Baby by Streisand in 1963. I'm not totally happy with it but it's a start.

By the way, I'm thinking of including lessons for club players in this blog.

Wikifonia best source for lead sheet music.

Source [+] Fantastic!

Good morning piano students. This morning I found a great source of lead sheet music. The site operates the same way as Wikipedia with contributions and edits from users. Let me tell you how i found it.

I have been looking for the introduction for "Luck be a Lady", from the broadway play "Guys and Dolls". All the regular sheet music and lead sheets leave out the introduction. I don't understand why they do that. It ruins the piece, in my opinion. The introduction lyrics set the song up and it's always essential to play it. Anyway, it was hard to find.

I googled around and around and finally found this site... [Wikifonia]. What I was looking for was free and available here... take a look at how nicely it displays... [+] I took one look at that and knew I had to have it so hit their print button--- when they asked me register-- but no credit card needed! So register I did and a minute later I had that complete intro with correct chords and lyrics that were too labour intense for me to sit and listen and figure out myself. Beautiful!

So as my online piano student, I highly recommend this site. It works. And the price is right. There are more elements to the site but basically I've explained the fundamental reason you would use it. I'm sure you can do more with it than I have.

[Discussion]

Famous Taiwan song "Bottles for Sale" has historical importance.

[Lesson notes, discussion, questions etc. ]

Table of Contents

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Interested in Playing the Piano?

Beginners approach

Children
Young People
Working Adults
Retired People and Seniors


My Favorite Tunes

My Philosophy of Instruction

Bill Evans plays My Foolish Heart

[Lesson discussion]

Required watching: Bumble Boogie

[Discussion, lesson instructions, questions, tutorial, sheet music availability etc. ]

Weekend lessons coming up and more Golden Buddha evening meal piano for Phoenix

Dorothy and me will be playing GB all week 5-9 pm and doing lessons on Fri and Sat. If you're a student, be sure to show us something you've mastered during your week. As well, we'll do a couple of new tunes for you. Parents, if you have requests for your child, let us know.

[Questions, inquiries, discussion etc. ]

Intro

Welcome to PianoLessonsEtc.com. This is a strictly experiment site at this time since it's very difficult to teach piano lessons on the internet. Still, the prospect is full of promise and I try to do some teaching here, free of charge. If you're in Phoenix however, you may call me and arrange lessons with me or Dorothy at (602) 371-0094. We're in the north central area and are always happy to consider a new student as long as we have an available time slot. Email me at rick_potvin@yahoo.com if you have a question. In the meantime, enjoy this website

PianoLessonsEtc. is a year old!!

Bruce Hornsby - Just the way it is

[Chords with lyrics]

[Sheet music]

[PDF]

cool Midi graphic

To do real instruction on a blog/forum like this is very tricky-- but it should be possible.

My original aim was with this site was to be able to do instruction online for piano playing. I've gone through several thinking phases on this issue in 2011 and have recently updated this site to comply with what I think will work best. I continue to try to come up with an analog 'online piano lesson" that outclasses anything else you find on the google searches.

Jimmy Webb doesn't sing good but he plays great... Witchita Lineman.

I added Witchita Lineman to my list of songs. I saw the songwriter Jimmy Web do it on Jerry Lewis Telethon this year... and was amazed Webb's performance... terrible singing with great piano playing but Webb has been prolific as a songwriter... [Watch him perform it here]

Chords [Print these out for your piano music rack or binder]

I'll look at chords soon.

Cliff's pontifications and "little known facts"-- the song includes a diminished chord.

Everyone knew Cliff's name at Cheers

Cliff's theory on how to keep warm in winter.


"Wouldn't you like to get away" has very song-unique chords that need analysis... listen.


Did you hear the 3 chords to "wouldn't you like to get away"? Listen again. I've looked for the correct chords online here but nobody has them. There is a m7 b5 in there somewhere. Here's a piano version. It's not my upload. Listen for the part that matches "wouldn't you like to get away". You can hear the player flub it but it's more correct that the chords given online on various sites.



The history of the song is quite interesting. See the wiki article here. [+]

Here's the sheet music and on the first page, which is free, you can see the chords as they were written by the song writer Gary Portney! [+]

So what are those chords (for "wouldn't you like to get away?") You can see we're in Bb so the chord immediatly predecing the "wouldn't" is Ab which in this key is your bVII. Then "like" is a G7 with a #5. I thought there was a m7 with a b5 so I was wrong. G is vi normally in Bb. Here it's alterned to a regular 7th chord with an augmented 5th. So you have VI7#5. That's a nice alteration of vi that I don't recall seeing anywhere, ever. That's why songwriters are songwriters and it's what made the theme become popular and get awards. It resolves to a ii with a 9 for ii9. That's altered but more common. The surprise is that VI7#5 which is like a "new invention" that even Bach and Beethoven would have found profound. It's as if Portney discovered a new element in chemistry or a new species of animal in zoology. He discovered a new chord in music! All other chords in the song are more common, but still interesting.

This is something that Cliff would have told you about if you had visited Cheers yourself. I'm pretty sure.

[Discussion]

Elton John singer songwriter performs "I guess that's why the call it the blues"

Watch Elton John do it, first

Now watch a YOutube poster play straight piano


Here's a player/vocalist in a bar performing it.


Now check this version out.


Here's a completely different sounding female voice. She's chord playing only which is fine