My piano attemps at…
…Utopia by Kyle Ward, No.13 by Beethoven, Canon-D by Pachelbel
Some background info
I like playing piano since the time I was able to hear and see my older sister play the piano. I used to watch her play and learn the same plays she was given by her teacher. This way I learned for example the whole Fur Elise by ear when I was not even ready for 1st grade. When I reached the age for first grade I entered music school and took all the lessons I needed. But I hated the teachers and all the unnecessary lessons like where they taught me how to read notes and how to name them etc. I did not see any point in that at that time. I was fine with my sheep and graveyards and memorizing everything not playing from the sheet music.
I left the school soon after I started. But I still played alone at home, mostly stuff my sister had difficulties with and I could play it with ease. Later on I decided deliberately to start playing the piano once again.
I skipped to the fourth grade and finished the first cycle and began the second one.
I still don’t understand how I managed to get so far because I never had any sense for rhythm. In our music class lesson I was getting bad marks for reproducing rhythm and I also had difficulties with all the other notes than 8th notes. Not to mention that playing Chopin’s nocturnes was a real nightmare. (suteki da ne by Nobue Uematsu is also a good example of sheet music I have REAL TROUBLE).
I also had no idea how fast I should be playing or I could not even play steadily. Probably for that I was given Moonlight Sonata 1st and 2nd movement and I was supposed to play it perfectly which I actually was able to do.
My teacher was proud of me and wanted me to play at concerts and such but I said no as I feared the worst. I could play perfectly what I was given by the teacher and what I learned but whenever I tried to play something on my own I lost my patience. That’s probably why it never sounded good or anything and I most of the time never finished what I started (never learned it whole or completely).
Now after I started playing music games I realized many things. My sense of rhythm got better, my hands got stronger and I’m finally able to distinguish different types of notes. But the most important thing is probably the fact that I should be playing separately with each hand not together. (not sure if you see what I mean). I should have probably discovered this during the first cycle but I did not.
I wish I could play the piano and get better, because now I feel I could get better with all that I learned from playing IIDX. But I have one major problem. I don’t have a piano in my flat and the keyboard I own is not good at all for playing. Good for some slow and easy stuff but playing Debussy, Beethoven or Bach or whoever else is IMPOSSIBLE on it and that’s why I gave up on playing the piano.
Utopia
After seeing/hearing Lin Nan play DDR/ITG/IIDX songs on the piano I decided to try it as well.
I’m not capable of playing anything by ear so I need sheet music. I was looking for Utopia sheet music for quite some time and found one somewhere on some forums. It wasn’t really what I wanted as there are parts that are completely missing in it. But still I would never be able to play them probably (as I also lack patience).
Anyway I printed the sheet music and tried playing it. After the first try I realized that there is something completely wrong with my version. So I tried few more times and realized that the rhythm is completely off (me being completely off) and that I can’t even recognize the song. So I listened to Utopia many times and finally found the notes in the sound track. I was lucky to distinguish them so now the harder part began….I needed to play them at, at least, the right rhythm (so that you could at least think “hey, that’s utopia!”).
A nightmare has began as for me it is impossible to play two different rhythms at once and patterns that don’t really fit into one beat. Anyway after five hours of trying my best I’ve come to this. Don’t expect anything special, it’s rather bad…and as usual it’s not even finished! =>
No.13
Two years later I played IIDX and had difficulties with surviving No.13 on light7. I said “darn it, let’s see the real version”. This was at a time that I haven’t touched the piano for those two years and I had no idea if I still can play anything on it.
Anyway, I found the sheet music easily and opened it in pdf viewer. Took my electronic keyboard (that stands in a corner of my room) and plugged it into my PC.
I managed to torture my neighbors with No.13 for three hours. At first I also had difficulties distinguishing No.13 in what I played but later it actually started to sound like it bit by bit. I got to that point where I could link all the parts with the notes in the IIDX chart which was a good sign^_^
Three hours time was not sufficient for me to learn this but as my patience ran out I decided to record my try so that I would at least keep memory of even trying to play that^_~.
The result is here =>
No. 13 played by STsung
Canon D
My friend plays Canon D whenever we go to play Pump it up and that’s why I decided to record some version of Canon D for him. I found several sheet music for piano and I did not really like the fact that it was in major D. Anyway after some time playing few versions I decided not to really care about it and I just memorized the chords and played whatever I felt was ok. Pachelbel wouldn’t really be happy I guess^_^. And well….I never played this in its entirety-_- (I skipped the beginning and the end….cool). Why??? *sniff*
For recording this I went to my parents house to play on their piano. Because I think I would not have the patience to play on the el. keyboard.
