Piano Guidance
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How does music affect the brain?

It provides a total brain workout. Research has shown that listening to music can reduce anxiety, blood pressure, and pain as well as improve sleep quality, mood, mental alertness, and memory.

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Why do online courses fail?

Students who expect to breeze through their online class or think doing the work on their own schedule means devoting little time to their studies...

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Is it OK to chew on cardboard?

Longer answer: Cardboard is not toxic, but it's also not particularly digestible.

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Keep Your Brain Young with Music

If you want to firm up your body, head to the gym. If you want to exercise your brain, listen to music. There are few things that stimulate the brain the way music does. If you want to keep your brain engaged throughout the aging process, listening to or playing music is a great tool. It provides a total brain workout. Research has shown that listening to music can reduce anxiety, blood pressure, and pain as well as improve sleep quality, mood, mental alertness, and memory. The Brain-Music Connection Experts are trying to understand how our brains can hear and play music. A stereo system puts out vibrations that travel through the air and somehow get inside the ear canal. These vibrations tickle the eardrum and are transmitted into an electrical signal that travels through the auditory nerve to the brain stem, where it is reassembled into something we perceive as music. Johns Hopkins researchers have had dozens of jazz performers and rappers improvise music while lying down inside an fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) machine to watch and see which areas of their brains light up. Music is structural, mathematical and architectural. It’s based on relationships between one note and the next. You may not be aware of it, but your brain has to do a lot of computing to make sense of it. Try It Learn an Instrument When 13 older adults took piano lessons, their attention, memory and problem-solving abilities improved, along with their moods and quality of life. You don’t have to become a pro, just take a few lessons. Everyday Brain Boosts from Music The power of music isn’t limited to interesting research. Try these methods of bringing more music—and brain benefits—into your life. Jump-start your creativity. Listen to what your kids or grandkids listen to, experts suggest. Often we continue to listen to the same songs and genre of music that we did during our teens and 20s, and we generally avoid hearing anything that’s not from that era. New music challenges the brain in a way that old music doesn’t. It might not feel pleasurable at first, but that unfamiliarity forces the brain to struggle to understand the new sound. Recall a memory from long ago. Reach for familiar music, especially if it stems from the same time period that you are trying to recall. Listening to the Beatles might bring you back to the first moment you laid eyes on your spouse, for instance. Listen to your body. Pay attention to how you react to different forms of music, and pick the kind that works for you. What helps one person concentrate might be distracting to someone else, and what helps one person unwind might make another person jumpy.

Is E# the same as F?
Is E# the same as F?

E# And F DON'T Share The Same Staff Position So, while F might sound like E# when played and the former used to substitute the latter for ordinary...

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Can a pianist play the organ?
Can a pianist play the organ?

Yes, you can play organ music on the piano quite easily. What makes it easier to do is that the piano has more octaves, and can capture all the...

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What are some open ended questions about music?

What kind of music is your favorite to listen to? What kind of music is your favorite to perform? How will what you are practicing now be different than what you practice next year?

What kind of music is your favorite to listen to?

What kind of music is your favorite to perform?

How will what you are practicing now be different than what you practice next year?

What are your musical goals? (Playing, writing, recording etc)

What are your non-musical goals? (career, lifestyle, relationships etc)

What are the characteristics of great music? Groundbreaking music?

What do you value more, creativity, or perfect execution?

What makes you a great musician?

What do you need to work on most musically?

Would you prefer to play every night with someone else’s band, or once a month with your own band?

What types of satisfaction do you get from music? (artistic, egotistic, self-identity etc)

What is the most appealing thing about pursuing a music career?

Could you achieve that satisfaction if you did something else for a living and just played music on the side? Why or why not?

What makes you special as a performer and player?

What do you bring to someone elses band?

How organized are you on a scale of 1-10?

What are your specific challenges on your instrument?

Why is it important to study older music?

Where would you like to be in 10 years?

Whats more important to you, fame or credibility?

Who or what has been your most influential teacher? Why?

Think about these. Return to them often. This type of soul-searching will help you on your journey

Peace, Love and Music

How do you arrange a grand piano in a living room?
How do you arrange a grand piano in a living room?

It's best to arrange the grand piano so the straight edge sits against a wall allowing the bass side, low-frequency sounds, to reflect against the...

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What are the basic keyboard skills?
What are the basic keyboard skills?

Keyboarding Technique Eyes on copy; correct finger reaches (striking key with correct finger); continuity and accuracy; body, hand, finger, wrist,...

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Is Sherlock good at violin?

In A Study in Scarlet, Dr. Watson describes Holmes's skill on the violin as “very remarkable, but as eccentric as all his other accomplishments....

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