Being born in a generation of baby boomers I have been very slow to embrace technology. Over the years I have acquired a very large collection of sheet music. Reading music has it’s drawbacks. Fumbling through filing cabinets looking for a particular piece of music. Trying to turn the page a quarter of the way through the song and many times back and forth through repeats and coda’s without interrupting the flow of the music is difficult at best. Struggling with poor lighting conditions. Music sheets, or books, falling off the music stand and countless other problems. For these reasons I have decide to digitize my music. I started by trying a lot of different apps and researching ways to approach this huge task. At first it was a slow process, but as I gained knowledge and experience I was seeing very pleasing results. Without going into a lot of details I discovered that the best app for me was by a large margin the app for ipad called forscore. I tried searching Microsoft apps and android apps as well, being I have both a Dell laptop and an android device. I’ve found Apple has a much larger selection.

Forscore does have a learning curve, and the first hour or so I couldn’t make any progress, but also has an online user manual that explains every detail of the program. I found myself frequently referring to it as I learned the program and I soon became a fan. I’m truly amazed at all the things I can do with this app. I can categorize my songs in many different ways. For example, I have created labels to separate the guitar music from the piano music and tags to add more detail such as songs with alternate tunings,or capo and special keys. I can also search by composer, title, or genre and assign a difficulty setting. The feature I most enjoy is called music binding. With music binding I can search my music and bind it to the sheet music so I can hear the music play while I’m reading the notes. I can also set a metronome to either pulse, click, or both, and slow the music to half or quarter speed, or vary it by increments. I can also vary the pitch by musical cents. I can crop or annotate the music and adjust the brightness and contrast. Importing songs into forscore is easily done with a scanner or by taking pictures of the music from the programs Dark Room feature. Finally, I purchased an airturn pedal and with Bluetooth I can pair the pedal to the app and turn the pages back and forth with the pedal so I don’t have to take my hands off the guitar or piano. I can also rearrange the order of the pages  making repeats and codas easier to navigate. There is a feature called set list which can be used for a gig or live playing. I can import the songs I’m doing for each set and page through them in the order I choose. Pretty amazing for a person who is technologically challenged.

Pianos are affected by changes in humidity. A majority of the piano is made out of wood, which absorbs moisture when it’s damp and becomes dry when the humidity dips below 42% . The ideal humidity for pianos is 42%-45%. The closer to that percentage you can keep the room that the piano is kept in, the better the piano will sound, and will hold the concert pitch. The concert pitch is A-440 C.P.S. This is the standard pitch that all orchestras tune to. The piano was designed to be at this pitch and it’s extremely important that it be tuned regularly to keep it there. Realizing it’s next to impossible to keep a room at or near 42%, there is a solution.

I highly recommend installing a climate control unit directly into the piano. There are two different types of units. One adds moisture to the piano when it’s dry, and one dispels moisture when it’s humid. The climate in Florida is humid most of the year, which means most pianos only require a damp chaser, which is basically an adjustable 15 watt heating rod in combination with a humidistat. A humidistat is a switch that measures humidity and controls the heating rod. Some technicians install a rod without a switch. I don’t recommend doing that because if it does get to dry in the room the piano will be absorbing to much heat which can dry out the wood and crack the soundboard and pin block.

I have installed many complete climate control units in pianos and witnessed much success, especially in schools and churches which typically experience extreme changes in temperature and humidity. The pianos with climate control units stay in tune and hold the concert pitch much better than those without.

action and harp revealed

ready to play

Magnificent Cabinet

I tuned this magnificent Hamilton Upright Grand Piano in Osprey Fl. on 5/23/2015. I was truly amazed at the condition of the piano, and it was even very close to the concert pitch! The action was a little stiff, but I’m sure I would be also if I was 115 years old LOL! This piano was built in 1900 and it could stand some T.L.C. Mostly it needed new strings, felts, and hammers. It sure was beautiful! It was made in Chicago, what craftmanship! They don’t make them like this anymore.

CHORD THEORY

As a result of playing guitar at a very young age, I learned a lot of theory related to playing by ear, guitar lends itself well for that. It’s fairly easy to learn a lot of chords and put them together in progressions. I’ve met a lot of piano players that started reading music at a very young age, and they can sight read almost anything, but take the music away from them and they can’t play. Apparently, they were never taught to play by ear. I’m posting this in order to help this type of piano player to learn by ear. I taught myself to play piano by ear using the following chord theory. I started playing piano as an adult and I found it easier and faster to play by ear. Everything on a piano is linear and chords can be constructed from the Major Scales. Chords that go together well are the Tonic, Sub-Dominant, and Dominant chords, or the 1st., 4th., and 5th. chords of the scale. Many blue songs, rock songs, and popular songs use this chord progression.

Major Chords are constructed using the 1st., the 3rd., and the 5th. notes of the scale. For example, in the key of “C”, the notes in a C Major Chord are the C, the E, and the G, or the 1st. note of a C Major Scale, the 3rd. note of a C Major Scale, and the 5th. note of a C Major Scale. This is called the Tonic chord, often called the root chord, or first chord.

The notes in a F Major Chord are the F, the A, and the C, or the 1st. note of an F Major Scale, the 3rd. note of an F Major Scale, and the 5th. note of an F Major Scale. This is called the sub-dominant Chord, often called the fourth chord, the “F” being the 4th. note of the C Major Scale.

The notes in a “G” chord are the G, the B, and the D, or the 1st. note of a G Major Scale, the 3rd. note of a G Major Scale, and the 5th. note of a G Major Scale. This is called the dominant Chord, often called the fifth chord, the “G” being the 5th. note of the C Major Scale.

Minor Chords are constructed using the 1st., the flatted 3rd., and the 5th. note of the scale. As an example, in the key of C this would consist of the C, the E flat, and G notes. This would be called the C Minor Chord.

As follows the “F” Minor Chord would contain the 1st. note of the F Scale, the flatted 3rd. note of the F scale, and the 5th. note of the F scale or the F, the A flat, and the C.

The “G” Minor Chord would be the G note, or 1st. note of the “G” Scale, the B flat, or flatted 3rd. note of the Scale, and the D, or 5th. note of the Scale.

ALTERED CHORDS

Major and Minor chords can be altered into 6th chords simply by adding the 6th tone of the scale. Major 7th chords would be played with an added 7th tone of the Major scale. To make a chord into a Dominant 7th you have to flat the 7th tone of the scale, however, this is almost never called a Dominant 7th., the Dominant is dropped, and, as an example, the chord would be called a “C7”, or “F7”, or “G7”, or “Cmin7”, “Fmin7”, and “Gmin7”. Diminished chords are flatted thirds stacked on top of one another or a C note, a E flat note, a G flat note, and an A note. Diminished chords are the only chord that can be named from every note in the chord, therefore every note is a root note. As an example the previously described diminished chord can be called a “C dim.”, a “E flat Dim.”, a “G flat dim.”, or a “A dim.” An Augmented chord has a sharped 5th note of the scale so a “C” chord would consist of a C note, a E note, and a G sharp note.

In order to play proficiently by ear all chords must be memorized in all keys. I would suggest to start either chromatically or practice the chords in the circle of fifths. Also learning to voice the notes in different order is an absolute must! By voicing the chord properly you can use a fake book and keep the melody in the higher register and fill in the harmony with chords. The left hand can be used mostly to play octaves, fifths, and occasional bass runs or arpeggios. Until you become proficient in all keys you can focus on the key of C which is the easiest key to learn because the “C” Major Scale has no sharps or flats. Speaking of scales, you must learn all Major scales backwards and forwards with both hands. It’s also advantageous to learn as many scales as possible including, but not limited to, minor scales, pentatonic scales, and blues scales.

I can’t count how many times people have asked me if antique pianos are worth a lot of money. A piano must function well as a musical instrument, have a good sound, and an action that is comfortable to play. So many so called,” antique pianos”, have cracked sounboards, cracked pin blocks, notes that don’t play due to a myriad of action problems including and not limited to worn hammers, tight action bushings, broken jacks, worn felt, and the list goes on.

Typically there are many pianos still around that are 75 to a 100 years old that have not been taken care of. It’s rare to find a piano that old that is still playable. I just went on a service call this week, it was a Chickering & Sons Quarter-Grand Circa 1901. Unfortunatly, I wasn’t able to tune this magnificent antigue piano. The bass section had many loose tuning pins and the strings sounded like rubber bands. When I tried to put tension on the strings they wouldn’t hold. This piano was totally useless as a musical instrument and wasn’t worth the $400 dollars she paid for it, what a shame!

Genarally speaking, the only antique pianos that a worth a lot of money are unusual pianos, such as square grands, all Steinways, regardless of condition, and museum pieces.

The Moral of the story is: if you are looking to buy a piano and you’re not sure what it’s worth, contact a professional, and pay him what he is worth, you’ll save a lot of money in the long run!