After The Storm Piano Sheet Music

[Ophelia Gurin]

Myfriend, who used to play piano, taught me to hold the pedal down when there is an arc in either the treble or bass. So basically I'm holding the pedal down whenever there's an arc anywhere, and my foot is off the pedal when there is no arc.

I feel like I am doing the pedal wrong. In the above link it says that the arc only indicates legato and doesn't have anything to do with the pedal. But isn't legato implied everywhere since staccato is indicated by notes with a dot?

Your digital piano is equipped with a damper, or "sustain" pedal. When depressed, notes will continue to ring until the pedal is released or they fade away on their own. Without the pedal, notes will only ring as long as you hold down the key.

If we had 88 fingers, we wouldn't need the sustain pedal because we could control each note's sustain individually with the key. [Yes, I know this is an oversimplification.] However, music is often written such that certain notes or passages (more than we have fingers for at one time) should ring out until we reach a point; usually a chord change.

To learn when the notes SHOULD sustain, your suspicion about the Ped. and * symbols are correct: 'Ped.' signifies you should press and hold the pedal, and '*' signifies it should be released. You may also see an upwards-facing bracket underneath the bottom staff with upside-down 'V's along it, signifying that the pedal should be quickly released and repedaled at those points.

You will eventually use your musical intuition in addition to notation to figure this out. Take Debussy's Arabesque No. 1, for example. This piece is typically bathed in pedal, but the edition will generally not explicitly define it.

Say you had some [bigchord]s, one after another, all different. You need to lift your hands from the keys of the first [bigchord] to set up for the next [bigchord], but doing so would cause the sound to stop while your hands are off the keys, and you want these [bigchord]s to connect (perhaps they are under a slur or legato 'arc'). You would depress the pedal in time to hit the first [bigchord], lift your hands to set up for the next [bigchord] (while the first is still ringing under the pedal), then release the pedal right as you play the next [bigchord], with your hands; repedaling before you release the hands from the keyboard to play the next [bigchord]. This sequence of resetting the pedal at the press of each chord is quite common.

On a real piano, each repetition of this would be lowering the dampers to the strings briefly, in effect "canceling" the set of harmonies that was ringing from the previous chord in time to play the next chord. If you had just held down the pedal through the entire sequence, each subsequent chord would add dissonance to the notes of the first chord that are still sustaining. Notes of different chords typically clash with one another in a typical tonal context.

Not playing staccato does not imply legato. Staccato simply asks for space by shortening the note in question. A note with neither an arc or dot is just a note of its full rhythmic value. Notes under an arc, legato, are specifically meant to be connected. In a single line, this may mean each note blends into the last one before it is released. With chords, this typically requires use of a pedal to sustain the sound before each articulation.

On a real piano, every string has a damper resting on it, muting it until it is played. When you strike a key, the damper lifts from the string before the hammer strikes the string. Then the damper remains lifted until you release the key, so the note continues to sound. When you release the key, the damper returns to its resting position, normally ending the note.

When you hold down the sustain pedal all the dampers are lifted away from the strings. Now when you play a note, it sustains for as long as the string has energy. When you release the pedal, any notes that you're not still holding on the keyboard, end.

Holding down the sustain pedal also has the effect that every string on the piano will resonate with other sounds in the room, or notes played on the piano itself. This is why a pedal "adds power to a chord". Play a middle C with the sustain pedal held down, and every other C, or harmonic thereof, on the piano will resonate.

A pianist doesn't have these options. He must strive to create the same sense of continuity between notes while actually playing separate notes. It's subtle, involving precise timing and control of dynamics. However it doesn't normally involve the sustain pedal.

It's important to note that in the absence of a slur, it's not always necessary to sound a note for its full length. A composer will often write a crotchet rather than clutter the score with a dotted quaver followed by a semiquaver rest. Musical scoring is not precise, and you have the creative freedom to release a note whenever you like. The slur mark is a hint that you should run it into the next note.

I am in general agreement with the other answers. The principal purpose of the pedal is to not mute notes, so they can be connected more easily. This should be done as directed by the music (either through notation, or the implied structure). Slurs between two notes should generally be played legato with the hands, but can be helped by the pedal. Phrasing slurs (i.e., slurs encompassing many notes, beats, or measures) should almost never be played "pedal down the whole time". They are instead meant to imply melodic structure to the performer, who interprets the music and uses the pedal as needed.

When I hear a cool piano song, I buy the sheet music and learn it. But after perfecting it for days, it sounds boring and it gets annoying to play. It gets less interesting, and doesn't sound as good as I would like because I played it so many times.

Get yourself so much better at sightreading that you can pick up the sheet music, and play it perfectly first time - not kidding - many players do this. That will alleviate the boredom that sets in when one has to play the same piece hudreds of times to perfect it.

Once you can play it really well, there are several options. You could extemporise over the chords, jazzing it up, if you like, making new melodies that fit with the chords. You could even incorporate that into your renditions of the piece.

You are probably aware that sheet music often isn't (and doesn't have to be) accurate to a recording. Find an original, and find where you could play more faithfully to that, using the sheet as a template, a start point.

You could play it in a different key - or even change major to minor, and vice versa. You could re-voice the accompaniment - same chords, but change the arrangement, even. Change some of the harmonies, you may even find ones you like better! The list goes on - and on!

You could try the piece in different tempos, different styles, different time signatures. That's a favourite of mine - I can't honestly say I know a piece inside out till I can play it in a different time signature - 4/4 into 3/4 or 5/4.

A lot of sheet music arrangements put chord symbols above the musical staff making it easy to know the chords. (Sometimes those symbols are needlessly complex, technically trying to account for non-chord tones in the melody, but let's skip that detail for now.) If chord symbols are not given, you should analyze the music to figure out the chord changes.

When the song is reduced to a melody with chord symbols, you essential have a lead sheet. From the lead sheet you then play the song, not literally as notated, because the lead sheet doesn't provide full notation, but according to different styles of accompaniment and harmonization. A typical approach is to play the melody literally, or maybe with some embellishments or a bit of doubled notes, in the right hand, while the left hand accompanies the melody playing rhythmic patterns based on the chord changes.

The simplest accompaniment is just "block" chords in the left hand, in close position, on beat one of each bar. Other accompaniments might be waltz style with bass notes in the low range on beat one, chords in the mid range on beats after one. You could also arpeggiate the chords in the left hand. If you arpeggiate with open voiced chords in the piano low to mid range, it creates a very resonant sound.

You build relationships with pieces. Just like a woman is not going to appreciate you taking her out just to ignore her. You spend a lot of time getting pieces to a concert level. If practice is boring for you then this may not be the hobby for you. It is how musicians pay there dues and learn there artistic skill. There is no escaping practice.

I see it as when you write or read or even speak a word so many times it looses meaning, try rearranging or adding a few extra notes to make it sound cool, like a few grace notes here and there or try a different chord in the left hand, play around with it. One of the points in jazz I have learned is that it doesn't have to look exactly like the sheet music. Or you could try finding a new variation or arrangement of the same piece, I also like trying to mix songs sometimes (but I'm not very good at it so I listen to it instead)

But the problem comes due to the fact that this thing obviously did not exist on my old keyboard so I had to play all my music without it, but now that I have it and the sheets don't exactly label when to step and when to let go, and if I step on it the entire way through the bass gets REALLY messy after just a few lines.

Now if I suddenly let go at random time, the "echo" halts almost too abruptly, making a "whoa, what the hell" kind of situation for listeners and myself. And if play the entire music without stepping on the sustain pedal the music sounds REALLY dry.

Timing is all. Press the pedal AFTER you play a note/chord, and release your hand while the pedal's still down. When the next note is ready to be played, press that note, let pedal go, and press pedal again before lifting finger.This probably sounds quite complex. To an extent it is, but once you get the timing, your playing will be a lot less muddy. Try this all very slowly, and you'll hear the smooth transition between notes/chords, with no bleeding between each.

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