# Trying to learn notation - Your advise, tips, recommended books?



## Suganthan (Jan 17, 2016)

Hi! I have a good amount of knowledge of basic elementary music theory and fair amount of harmony knowledge. Its only a month ago I decided to learn music notation to analyse classical scores, compositions, etc. 

Now I am realizing its hard than I thought it would be. After one month of unguided learning, I am becoming comfortable with the treble clef. Still it feels terrible to read a random score from the internet since most of them are not for the beginners. I cannot find a proper way to practise from here. You guys suggest any books/scores/articles/blogs/youtube channels I can progress with?


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## wcreed51 (Jan 17, 2016)

Learn to play the piano...


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## Morodiene (Jan 17, 2016)

Playing piano will help tremendously (if you study a classical approach). 

Another way you can get better is to drill yourself all the time, in many different ways. Websites like musictheory.net and teoria.com are good places where you can be drilled and told if you're right or wrong (kind of like flash cards). There is also a melodic dictation portion on the teoria website that is really good. They have one line of music, and then two-parts.

Also, copy music on staff paper. Pick something a bit simpler to start, and just note-for-note copy it down. Maybe start with Anna Magdalena Bach notebook stuff. 

Do you play an instrument? Trying to pick a piece that is simple, listen to a recording of that being played, and then write it down. Then compare that to the score and see how you did.


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## Suganthan (Jan 17, 2016)

Thanks for the reply. Those websites are helpful. I play piano on an elementary level, learnt from jamming with friends, etc. never had a formal education.

I now realize I have to go back and learn both of them in parallel through proper way. Right now I am trying out a trial from pianomarvel.com

Btw, when you guys consider you can play an instrument(piano) well? I am realizing this as a very amateur question.


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## Pasticcio (Jan 17, 2016)

As said above, Transcribe. Get some sheet paper and a score you like. Try to play what you hear and then notate it(this will take time, its ok). Then check the score and compare. 

I feel you learn 10x faster by writing yourself than just reading.

You shouldnt need a book imo, just practice. What you can do is looking up all the clefs, what they look like and how to read them. A simple wikipedia search could give this info.


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## Ariel s (Jan 17, 2016)

Suganthan said:


> Thanks for the reply. Those websites are helpful. I play piano on an elementary level, learnt from jamming with friends, etc. never had a formal education.
> 
> I now realize I have to go back and learn both of them in parallel through proper way. Right now I am trying out a trial from pianomarvel.com
> 
> Btw, when you guys consider you can play an instrument(piano) well? I am realizing this as a very amateur question.


As some who learned notation as a grownup the thing that helped me the most was doing solfeg every day dutifully. The beginning was hard, but after about 6 months I was able to sing along individual lines of scores while the music was playing etc. it teaches you scales, rhythm and everything else you need to know and most importantly- it's an active way of doing it, and you learn through being involved and performing fine music.


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## AlexandreSafi (Jan 18, 2016)

Suganthan said:


> Thanks for the reply.
> Btw, when you guys consider you can play an instrument(piano) well? I am realizing this as a very amateur question.



Absolutely no worries,  I have long struggled with this question myself, but it's a vague one understandably because it's "musician's ideals"-based... 
In my own updated definition, which is in two parts, mastering piano means:
*1. My own Classical Piano Top 5. Must-Plays 
2. Jazz Improvisation*

*1. *Start with this book: Elementary Training for Musicians (Paul Hindemith) 

Past the beginner's stage, I have a personal top 5, of mastering a very solid foundation in classical piano and sight-reading, which is:
1) Bach: The Well-Tempered Klavier
2) Beethoven: 32 Sonatas
3) Chopin: 24 Etudes
4) Debussy or Ravel: Piano Collection/Masterpieces
5) Mozart: 19 Piano Sonatas

But it's really from Bach (First Lessons in Bach...) up to Stravinsky (2 Early Ballets) that should get you going, long-term...

Here's usually where i think it gets blurred, 
It's really about "sight-reading", so... writing exercises & sight-reading softwares are good advice, yet in my opinion, playing a new bulk of unseen music everyday at the piano, as opposed to repeating one piece over and over (muscle memory...), is exactly what will benefit you long-term, it's a pragmatic orchestral polyphonic instrument for the composer, and you will start developing an eye-ear-finger connection with the page, that you will recruit everyday on. Then after hundreds of hours, reading an orchestral score will usually feel like an easier reduction of a difficult piano piece in its own weird way... The thing is with classical piano, i feel we put too much added pressure on getting "the" piece right with your fingers, before improving the general skill of reading overall. It's like reciting poetry or doing a choreography giving "the illusion" of being a poet or dancer/fighter, anybody can learn words by heart or learn a dance choreography, but can you really think poetry or can you really dance on a subconscious level, so the real mastering comes when you can feel comfortable and can adapt to most unknown situations, so put in your several hundreds of hours reading imperfectly at the piano. Also don't worry if the list I mentioned sounds like way too difficult to tackle, some of it is, but i simply suggest that after easy pieces, the way to learn to swim is to just dive in, in unknown, yet specific, territory that these works represent...
Your brain will eventually adapt...
Hard but fast!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*2.* Jazz Improvisation in my opinion, is where you take all your, as it says, "classically" practiced knowledge that you've accumulated so far up to the next level, where you not only transform the way you approach music theory, into a form of reading, writing, playing music that starts with your ears first, but also an expansion of new harmonies and scales in all 12 keys that ironically teach you to drop the page in the service of a new form of expression, improvisation...
Ear Training-Transcribing-Jazz Theory-Improvising in all 12 keys are the next barrier which can really allow you to learn absorb and understand new music in combination with your own natural form of playing and expressing yourself...

Although improvisation didn't really come from Jazz, i feel that by applying the sum of Jazz methods, you will best acquire and develop new musical language while making it into your own not only at the piano in a split second, which is just an amplifier of you (you are your own instrument...), but also fundamentally change for the best how you hear, play, write down the music...
For specific sources, I recommend:
- Mark Levine - The Jazz Theory Book
- The Real Book Of Jazz (5th Edition)
- http://www.jazzadvice.com/
- Earmaster Software
- Ron Gorow - Hearing & Writing Music
& Listening/Transcribing Recordings (Linearly from easy to complex music)!

Learn both worlds intimately, 
they're both great oxygen 
for both sides of the musician's brain! 
It's really about performance first, this simple little idea takes years...
Sorry for what is maybe too complete an answer to your question! 
I'm just way too obsessed with this "complete musician" idea...

-A.-


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## Morodiene (Jan 18, 2016)

Suganthan said:


> Btw, when you guys consider you can play an instrument(piano) well? I am realizing this as a very amateur question.


When you can do what you need to do with ease. This will differ greatly form person to person. So perhaps there was a time that your elementary piano education was sufficient for you to play in a band, but because you didn't get far with it, your theory is lacking. While you do learn a lot of theory in piano, unless you really want to get better at playing in order to have more control over your recording, I don't recommend you go back to piano lessons. 

Instead, investing in the time it will take to read fluently and work on ear training and dictation/transcribing is going to be the best use of your time. You may want to keep an eye out for free online courses like Coursera.com. It looks like there is a music theory course, but I don't see any classes being offered currently. But you can create an account and put it on your watch list and perhaps when there's enough interest they'll get a class going. (I'm not really sure what criteria they have for offering classes).


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## tonaliszt (Jan 18, 2016)

Get some music note flash cards (not online games, actually order them.) : 
Drill every day many times until you get it. If you want to start with only one clef, that's fine. Go through them and see what you know. Take the ones you don't know immediately (really be able to say the note name instantly) and put them in a separate pile. Then drill the ones you don't know until you know some of them instantly. Then you just repeat until you know them all mostly instantly. It might take you a minute and a half at first to get through them all at first, but you can eventually get it down to 20-25 seconds. 

Next step. Put the flash cards on the piano (or midi controller). As you read through the notes, say the note name, and play the note. Bass clef with left hand, Treble with right hand. Again, it will be slow at first, but you can do it very fast eventually. 

Another thing, all notes are not created equal in sheet music. From lowest, Low C(below the bass clef), bottom line g(bottom line of the bass clef),bass C (2cd space in bass clef), line 4 F (see how the two dots in bass clef surround this note), middle c, line 2 G (see how the treble clef spiral ends here), Treble C (third space treble clef), top line f, and high C. If you know these notes like the back of your hand, you can spell, to the other notes. For example, lets say you have third space in bass clef, then you can just spell down a step from line 4 f, so you know its E. The great thing if you know these notes really well, is that at most you only have to spell up/down a fourth. 

Hope this helps. 
I am really realizing how much people (like myself) who had classical training from a young age, take for granted in their abilities.


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## ModalRealist (Jan 19, 2016)

Go and grab a kiddies piano book or two (e.g. John Thompson's Easiest Piano Course books). Learn it like you were five. Only instead of a month you'll do it _in a day_. Those books are designed to make people internalise the absolute basics of what marks on manuscript mean musically. That and get yourself some decent clef mnemonics: Every Good Boy Deserves Footballs, after all. Nothing will make you internalise what manuscript marks mean more than having to actualise them at a piano.


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## Morodiene (Jan 19, 2016)

ModalRealist said:


> Go and grab a kiddies piano book or two (e.g. John Thompson's Easiest Piano Course books). Learn it like you were five. Only instead of a month you'll do it _in a day_. Those books are designed to make people internalise the absolute basics of what marks on manuscript mean musically. That and get yourself some decent clef mnemonics: Every Good Boy Deserves Footballs, after all. Nothing will make you internalise what manuscript marks mean more than having to actualise them at a piano.


With all due respect, these books are awful. Method books have come a long way, and going through a child's method book as an adult isn't the best. Adults learn differently from children, and it's more than just pacing. However, one could get an adult method book like Hal Leonard, Adult Piano Adventures, or Alfred's Adult method. This is assuming the OP wants to learn to play piano better, though.

I say this because I know of many students who can play and don't know how to read, and don't know a lick of theory, yet they had piano lessons and even had method books. It's just that these books have minimal theory, because it's just not practical. Theory is something you _do_ - a lot. Method books will introduce concepts with minimal exercises to practice them, but they can be a part of your daily regimen. 

A good theory book series I use is Keith Snell's Fundamentals of Piano Theory. There's 10 or 11 levels and tons of exercises to really drive home a concept. Start at the primer level, even if it's all review, because it will be helpful to get you going. Do a unit each day, and supplement with flash cards, websites, sight reading, etc. You've got a lot of good information here to get going, and it will take time.


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## ModalRealist (Jan 23, 2016)

@Morodiene: but "with all due respect," the OP doesn't want to learn to play piano, or to learn music theory (which they say they already know). Their request was how to bolster their practical familiarity with reading notation. It's utterly ridiculous to say that the OP needs to use flash cards, theory books, or anything else, to learn to read notation. They just need a keyboard - or heck, any instrument at all that they know how to play - and some very simple music that they can sight-read for a bit. It's not as if reading notation is either hard or complicated.


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## Sunny Kumar Dallas TX (Jan 9, 2022)

AlexandreSafi said:


> Learn both worlds intimately,
> they're both great oxygen
> for both sides of the musician's brain!
> It's really about performance first, this simple little idea takes years...
> ...


What a great piece of guidance for aspiring young composers. I am reading this 5 plus years later. Threads like this are gold and don't age. TY Alexandresafi!


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## AlexandreSafi (Jan 9, 2022)

Sunny Kumar Dallas TX said:


> What a great piece of guidance for aapiring young composers. I am reading this 5 plus years later. Threads like this are gold and don age. TY Alexandresafi!


You are very welcome Sunny! Very kind!... 5+ Years indeed, I realize it feels actually quite intimidating seeing someone respond positively to something a “6 years old younger version of me“ wrote... 😅

If I may then add something to hopefully ’’refine/update my thinking’’ (if not contradict it slightly if my views changed a bit), but hopefully “simplify” it even more, I would say: Learning/Making Music, and that includes of course Notation (beyond learning the initial basics of symbols), should always be about using/training your “ears”...

In fact, I would say this is really the greatest practice you will ever do... Whether you learn Classical, Jazz, or Contemporary Music, etc...
Read, Practice, Play, with your inner ear first and always...

There’s a book which had an absolutely profound influence on me which was co-written by a Pianist & his Teacher called ”Piano Technique” by Walter Giesking & Karl Leimer, which applies, I feel, as much to Pianists as to Composers, in which both authors state that the foundation of Learning Piano in the quickest way to Perfection is “the Training of the Inner Ear...“ It’s probably also the very method my favorite pianist, Glenn Gould, would give you — You want to have the ability to carry a piece of music of the level that you aspire to: in your head, by heart... Being a great pianist, a great composer, a great writer, or even a great painter, should be first about having an “inner world“ of repertoire of works/inspirations memorized... All imagination comes from memory, so feed that memory with sounds, notes, pieces, works... Whereby, every note of a piece can be sung, heard by your inner ear, like a tape recorder... Though this method, you learn recordings/sheets/scores best by “visualizing“ aurally, visually, photographically, theoretically a piece of music... You repeat it over and over to perfection in your head, away from the instrument, and eyes even looking up and away from the score as soon as possible, and memorize it at the same time as you’re learning it (fingering, melodic language, counterpoint, rhythm)... It should be a slight challenge, a piece realistic to your current level of your inner ear/memory/vivid imagination... As you develop your reading-memorizing skills, the order of development and fluidity usually goes best like this: 1) melodically (you train your ear to respond fluidly to the intervals of the melodic language) - 2)countrapuntally (start with a two-voice fugue after you can read the melodic language fluidly) - 3)harmonically (if you can hear a two-three-four-voice fugue, you will have no problem hearing 3-4-note chords) 4) rhythmically (rhythm is always the final element once you can read-hear-play all the notes fluidly, even after you read a single voice, it obviously comes “second”, instead of “fourth” here if you consider counterpoint and harmony obviously...)

The higher the complexity, the longer the time you risk spending on learning a piece, if you’re not already close to the level... But one of the greatest advice in that book is that the more seriously you study and stay with a piece, mastering every detail of it using your ear, the quicker you’re ready afterwards to start studying another piece of an already higher level of complexity, intead of studying a thousand pieces imperfectly, this is really about ingraning the skill... And there is an incredibly lot about a composer and his language in a single piece... The mass absorption can come later, or you can of course add more pieces if you prefer a bit of variety, there are no rules, but I prefer having only 1-2 pieces as an ultimate compass, and test of where I’m at, skill-wise... Precisely, a great skill a composer should develop is “comparing pieces: noticing by himself which pieces are harder/easier, simply by how it looks on a score”. That will really help you in selecting for yourself what you feel you’re ready to tackle, or not...

So, you hear every note, ’’auralize’’ the sound/eventually groups of notes, the language, you see within...the instrument (say a keyboard...), your hands playing that inner keyboard pushing the keys with very precise feeling of which finger (1-2-3-4-5) of the left/right hand is playing which note...
You make it a habit to take note of which numbered measure you are practicing so that you can start from anywhere you like in your photographic memory of the score... The Aural, Visual (Photographic), Keyboard/Physical and Theoretical Memory all inform each other... When you start practicing it all at once, it simply becomes a habit...
Except maybe “theoretical memory” (music theory I feel is best learned “after” you can read larger scores in your inner ear, as most music textbooks show “score excerpts” usually to be played at the piano or helped by a teacher, though I feel again, playing these theoretical concepts immediately as sounds in your inner ear is how you best memorize these concepts since they are simply “descriptions of an auditory experience” — the sound/the music)... I feel most people actually “rush” going to learn music theory, thinking that’s how you “understand” the music... where the reverse simply couldn’t be more true... As a child, you wouldn’t have gotten a clue about “studying the syntax, and grammar” if your “ears” weren’t already trained since you were a baby in memorizing-speaking fluidly your native language in a very primal, imitative, intuitive way..., in other words, if you didn’t have an ’’ear’’ for it! Music is completely the same, there‘s an entire world of ’’intuitive understanding’’ I feel we need to reach before ’’intellectualizing it’’ with fancy words... And that should be a relief for the developing musician... It starts with the heart and making music straight away...
Yet also, the “physical“ instrument itself is an illusion, you are the instrument, your brain, your body and soul is... The ears... It’s what I would advise to develop first... For some reason, like the head is drawn to theory before we intuitively understand the language, we are also always too drawn to the physical, outside world of “touching-playing instrument/samples”... which is natural of course, but those impulses are given too much credit, and instead I feel we should better just learn the simplest basics of an instrument so we can use those basics for our own visualization of the instrument... It’s about creating a powerful link between sound, sight (notation) & playing, through the power of imagination, as soon as possible... Otherwise, if you rely on your instrument too much as a crutch, you will be using your “hand memory“ which is unreliable over time... You need to dedicate hours, through months to train your fingers to obey your brain first, and your eyes, if there’s a score in front of you, to dictate what you hear....and that is best done by working in silence, in the “abstract world of mind and the inner imagination”, rather than the world of the “physical, matter of a piano...“ — Technique is in the brain, not in the hands...

—————


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## AlexandreSafi (Jan 9, 2022)

—————

Part 2:

The best way to know your ear and “measure your progress” is by using these 3 tools:
1) Language
2) Line
3) Tempo

1) The Language: Which composer are your reading as you practice the score in your head, is it Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Messiaen, Ligeti, Kapustin?
Usually the more modern the language of the repertoire, the more “sophisticated“ the melodic, countrapuntal, harmonic & rhythmic language it is... Intuitively notice what makes a style different from another when you “visually” look at different scores and compare different composers. Notice how more modern composers write “freer” music with larger intervals, larger amount of notes maybe, vertical/harmonic relationships of the notes. Notice the dynamics, key or time signature or “absence of it“ (if you read very modern repertoire)... Look at the Rhythm especially... Basically, feel how the ”look” of a score translates to the “sophistication/unsophistication” sound that you hear... There is one undeniable fact when it comes to almost every great composers who are born after and “follow the previous ones historically”: they improve the inner ear... For example, Beethoven wrote melodically/harmonically/rhythmically more sophisticated than Bach and even Mozart, not because he was a more “genius” composer than them, but because from a purely technical point of view, he had the added bonus of the passing of Time which allowed him to simply gain more knowledge, perspective, more reflection on “a larger-longer Past” than they had when they were living in their time... Every decade gives a younger composer more and more opportunity for higher/deeper level of knowledge, styles and merging of more and more influences in his/her own music...

2) The Line: How many lines of music can you hear/read comfortably in that certain language? Is it one, two-three-four-five voices, etc...? Start with a musical language that you love, are inspired by, and start reading with your inner ear: just a single line, so you train your ears to intuitively, emotionally understand the “melodic” language that you want to instinctively know in your head... Then as you get comfortable, add more lines, adding to your ability to read larger and larger scores in your head... I really recommend learning fugues as one of the best ways to train your ears to hear music purposely written with distinct voices... It will really help everything you hear, read, compose afterwards...

3) The Tempo: The “Skill of Time“ is the ultimate test for a Musician - How well can you read that language, and a given amount of lines in a certain tempo? Again, away from any instrument, test your ears, your aural reflexes by using a metronome (eventually “mentally hear“ selected BPM’s of your liking, like 45 ; 60 ; 90 ; 120 ; 144 ; 178 bpm, etc...). Do the Trill Test: How slow can you alternate the two notes of trill in your head... How fast (in Bpm) can you hear 4 Sixteenth-Notes in a given Beat...? Really take note of the tempo written in the score of the piece you want to learn. How well, how fast can you hear the piece, in silence, with one line, two lines, three lines, etc... Think horizontally first, and then add more polyphony as your skill increases... 
This will really tell you when you read and repeat many times for example a specific piece you want to get better at, how much you‘re improving over time...
Again, the best way to measure that is simply: your speed level (BPM)...
Eventually you will realize that the greater your Aural Speed, the greater your physical Speed (Hands) will follow, proving again that ”technique is in the brain, not in the hands...”. Each month, each year, with consistency, your ears will get faster and faster, and they will be your lasting technique as a musician...

Finally, if you can, take a great recording of the piece that you love, as a great test to see how well you can follow every note, beat, measure, page, with and without the score...
you want to mimic the player, conductor as best as you can...
What you hear on the outside (CD/Recording), or see in the score is exactly what you want to have developed in your vivid memory/imagination...

It’s then the same with Jazz, if you don’t have a score, or notation, you transcribe it either on paper yourself (which should become easy by itself if you can already read-memorize great works of the repertoire), or/and visualize/memorize the piece directly in your head little by little, exactly as described here... and once you have the piece vividly memorized, aurally transpose it to all 12 keys, to rely on using your ears even more... before you develop, vary, improvise the language learned, in a new direction that you want... You can do that with Classical, Contemporary pieces as well of course...

They say music is a universal language, and it’s absolutely true, but in this case even more pertinently, music IS a “language...”. And so, a language is best developed over months and months of being in a country, breathing, absorbing letters, words, sentences more clearly everyday through the simple process of: “Imitation, Assimilation, Innovation...”, so... Learn from the music you love directly, that’s the best form of so-called “ear-training“, and by doing this practice you will have that, and simultaneously develop absolutely great “memorization and sight-reading skills“ as well... Focus on the skill of “moving sound in your head”, by studying scores of different level/sizes, and by learning from the masters. That’s the greatest reward you‘ll give yourself, and will make almost any other skills you learn as a musician, like playing an actual instrument, music theory, notating, transcribing, memorizing, improvising, composing, so much faster...

I mentioned Fugues, so I can recommend:
- Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier (1722 ; 1742)
- Kapustin’s 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 82 (1997)
They both complement each other really beautifully, and by learning them simultaneously in a progressive and intelligent way through my own “3-tools measurement” method of the inner ear I proposed earlier, you get to learn both the Fundamentals of the “old“ & “new” tradition of great Keyboard Playing up to today... Especially for a composer, they are both a profound summation for developing a sense of melody, harmony, counterpoint, rhythm, musicality, piano technique, and merging styles... Kapustin’s work here is I feel one of the greatest preparation to Ligeti’s Etudes...

for more advanced contemporary techniques, I recommend:
Ligeti’s 18 Etudes pour Piano (1985-2001)
Unsuk Chin’s 6 Etudes (1995-2003)
James Dillon’s The Book of Elements (1997-2002)
Xenakis’s Mists (1980)
Richard Barrett’s Tract (1984-1996)

And of course, allow yourself time to grow, it will take a lot of Repetition, Self-Honesty, Passion and Self-Belief: Your Love basically...
Those ears are like shaping a diamond




, or building a house



, you need to lay each brick very humbly and meticulously, according to your own level...

I feel it’s that simple, the musician’s practice should always be about using/developing those ears. They are with you everywhere you go, and they‘ll give back exactly what you give them...
Good Luck, and Happy Journey to you Sunny Kumasi Dallas TX!







-A.S.-


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## Gingerbread (Jan 9, 2022)

From my experience, learning to read music fairly quickly requires a two-pronged approach that activates two separate parts of the brain:

1._ Reading_ music

2._ Writing_ music (on paper!).

Yes, _writing_ music notation is essential to solidify the notes in your brain. Merely reading it is a passive activity, and you won't learn (quickly) only from that. Your brain won't absorb it. You must _write_ too. You will be amazed at how comfortable you'll become with reading music, if you regularly write it as well as reading it. Both treble and bass clefs.

A great sight-reading website with infinite examples is www.sightreadingfactory.com

And print out some staff pages and write notes, humming what you're writing.


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## Jackdnp121 (Jan 9, 2022)

+1 for getting into classical piano 

try sightread alot ... easy piece to start with 

and finally to understand that it takes times ... i'm talking about years ... 

good luck !


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## Sunny Kumar Dallas TX (Jan 9, 2022)

AlexandreSafi said:


> I feel it’s that simple, the musician’s practice should always be about using/developing those ears. They are with you everywhere you go, and they‘ll give back exactly what you give them...
> Good Luck, and Happy Journey to you Sunny


@AlexandreSafi, thank you for some more great insights. This forum is so alive and vibrant. I did not expect any response to my digging up a 5+ year old post. Speaks well to the commitment and staying power of the passion its members bring to the community.


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## Paulogic (Jan 9, 2022)

Suganthan said:


> Thanks for the reply. Those websites are helpful. I play piano on an elementary level, learnt from jamming with friends, etc. never had a formal education.
> 
> I now realize I have to go back and learn both of them in parallel through proper way. Right now I am trying out a trial from pianomarvel.com
> 
> Btw, when you guys consider you can play an instrument(piano) well? I am realizing this as a very amateur question.


Is this site any good? I cannot find a pricing...


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