1 2 3 Piano Notes

[Aleshia Ducharme]

In piano music how does one indicate that sequential notes in the bass clef are to be sustained with the fingers, not using the sustain pedal? For example, suppose I have the three sequential quarter notes C, E, G defining a C chord in 3/4 time in the bass and I want each note to be held to the end of the measure after it is struck, but I don't want to use the sustain pedal because I don't want the other notes in the treble clef to "blend" together. Is there a special kind of slur or other notation to indicate this? I know that one way to do this would be to break the three notes into three parts (i.e. use a dotted half note for the low C and then above this a quarter rest and half note of E, and above this a half rest and quarter note of G) but this seems like a far too complicated way of indicating what is a common style of playing a sustained "broken" chord note sequence. I also don't want to use arpeggio notation (wavy line) because I have a melodic line in the treble that interfaces precisely with the base notes. Can anyone help?

My answer is ultimately similar to Bob Broadley's, but has one difference that can make for much more readable scores in slightly more complex situations. This is the standard notation for broken held chords like the one you describe, as recommended by Kurt Stone and Gardner Read:

The difference here is that you don't rewrite any of the held notes until the chord is complete. For your specific relatively simple case, I don't think it's much better than Bob's. However, in an even slightly more complex situation:

the readability can be greatly enhanced. One of the things I like most about this notation is that it's fairly clear, even when the pianist hasn't seen it before. I use this notation in a lot of my piano music, and most pianists don't even bat an eye because they've seen it before. The few that haven't still immediately guess the meaning. The notation you describe in your question will eventually be figured out, but looks so much more complicated than the actual method of performance that it can be annoying. Same thing, albeit to a lesser extent, if you rewrite each tied note with each new note entrance. In more complex situations it can become difficult on first glance to ascertain which notes are new and which are being held-over.

Sometimes it will be obvious to a performer that you need to sustain notes that together outline one particular harmony (a single triad, for instance). If you want to make this explicit, though, you could use notation such as the following:

I'm not sure that this is used that much in piano music, probably because the pedal will produce the required effect (although I understand why you don't want to ask for pedal use here). However, it is a common way to show exact note durations in arpeggiated guitar music.

Lisa Witthas been teaching piano for more than 20 years and in that time has helped hundreds of students learn to play the songs they love. Lisa received classical piano training through the Royal Conservatory of Music, but she has since embraced popular music and playing by ear in order to accompany herself and others. Learn more about Lisa.

Use your computer keyboard or click the piano keys to play the piano. The keyboard's top row of letters corresponds to the white keys, and the row of numbers corresponds to the black keys. You can play multiple notes simultaneously.

Click "Hide note names" above the piano to hide the note names. Click "Mark" to mark notes on the piano. Play the marked notes by clicking the "Play" button (only visible after notes have been marked) or pressing the spacebar on your keyboard.

Try our free piano exercises and learn to play notes, intervals, chords, and scales on the piano. You'll also find a variety of other exercises that will expand your musical understanding and help you become better at playing the piano.

I think you wrote your event handler code for the key press wrong. You appear to be writing new functions for what has to happen when the mouse button is pressed down and for when it is released. You have already written these functions. You just need to call them.

I found this project a bit messy! I felt like the wording was pretty hard to get through the project. I also expected the piano keys to actually function. By the end I felt disconnected to the project, which might have had an impact on the outcome.

I'm trying to find some piano sound bank -for my childish experiments with sound - the most desired form is of course a number of .wav files, each one corresponding to a piano key - being a record of a real piano key sound.Is it possible to find such a thing? Preferably without any copyright issues.

Note that most SoundFonts bend each sample a few notes each way to cover the entire keyboard. If you want one .WAV for each note on the piano, the Fruity Loops Studio demo allows you to make the files by just opening the piano roll, making the note then saving it in whatever format you like.

Here's some midi and mp3 files for individual notes. from a3-a6,inclusive. So, for a generative art class, I've had a project thatrequired me to get some individual notes for a program to play. Isearched for decent samples all over, but failed to find anything(free) that was in any way useful. I took it upon myself to make myown (which was a pain). The notes included go from a3 to a6,inclusive. Sharps are denoted via a hyphen, ie a4 = a, 4th octave, a-4= a sharp, 4th octave.

I've just created a paper piano with an Arduino Uno (similar to this DIY Piano with Arduino - YouTube), but the sound of the keys is so horrible. Is it possible to make my paper piano sound like a real piano? I understand that I will probably need extra software and hardware...

If you look at a note with an oscilloscope, you can envision its envelope. Notes will have an Attack curve, some Hold time, a Release shape, and then Decay or fadeout shape.
What you can do is combine an external Multiplying DAC that you control with Arduino to control the gain of an Tone that Arduino generates to start making a more complex note.
To get a piano sound tho, the frequency is a lot more than a simple square wave that you perhaps filter and then control the shape of. You really need a Midi Sound module; you can send it Midi notes to play from an Arduino.
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This one has very good piano sound for example. My wife used this with a very good keyboard controller (Fatar SL880, keyboard only, no sound output, very good piano feel) until she decided she needed even better piano keyboard feel and we picked up an older babygrand piano that she plays now.

Get the guaranteed best price on MIDI Keyboard Controllers like the Studiologic SL-880 PRO 88-Key Hammer-Action MIDI Controller at Musician's Friend. Get a low price and free shipping on thousands of...

You can get better sounds that don't just "beep", but they won't sound like a piano. They will sound like the tones from one of those wall Christmas clocks that play a song every hour. They have a nicer waveform than a square wave, and they have better attack/decay so it doesn't just cut off abruptly. Not great, but much more pleasing than just beeps. Also, they sound quieter unless you get an amplified speaker since they produce sounds differently than just toggling a pin at the right pitch.

Not trivial programming, so I'd suggest you search for arduino synth and see what software is out there. Search the audio forum for posts. I have a couple posts where I mention some software modified.

The problem with a piano sound is that every note has a different mix of harmonics and harmonic envelopes so you really need a sample for each note. You can just about get away with stretching one sample over an octave but that is it.
I would, and have on many occasions, use a MIDI sound module. My favorite is the Yamaha MU10, long since obsolete but still available on eBay. You feed MIDI signals directly into it which the Arduino can generate. It also does other great sounds.

Failing an external MIDI sound module many computers have software sound generators. Garage band on the Mac has lots of sound you can trigger in this way. You need a helper application called Hairless ( it is free ) to convert the normal serial connection from an Arduino into MIDI.

I made a program sort of like that, allowing any number of tones to be played together. I hooked it up to another program that read midi notes and it would play converted midi files. I liked it, but my wife and daughter thought it sounded awful, so I went back to using some synth software I found. Back to the Christmas clock sound.

I'd like to listen to the port having my midi output device (a piano) with my RPi, running on Debian. I've looked into pygame.midi, I managed to listen to the port, but somehow can not extract all midi information. Please find code below [edited code snippet]

The beat dictates the rhythm of a song and works with notes to create unique sound sequences. Eighth notes are a half-beat, quarter notes are one beat, half notes hold for two beats, and whole notes last four beats.

To identify and play chords, you also need to understand spacing. Between each key is a measurement of a half-step. For example, the space between a white key and the nearest black key is a half-step.

To an untrained individual, music sounds fluid and intuitive. Behind the beautiful sounds, however, is a precise mathematical structure. Understanding that design will enable you to make beautiful sounds too!

The 1-4-5 chord progression consists of the movement of chords from the first degree to the fourth degree, then to the first degree. The numbers 1, 4, and 5 outlines the movement of the root note of the chords.

Solution 2: set the right-hand staff to channel 1 (everything's channel 1 by default) and the left-hand staff to channel 2. Notes that you want to go into the right-hand staff should remain in channel 1, notes that you want to go into the left-hand staff should be edited to channel 2.

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