Piano Guidance
Piano Guidance
Photo: Karolina Grabowska
Music is an art, mathematics a science. Music poses no problems, mathematics thrives on them. Music has no practical use, mathematics often does. Music is sensuous, mathematics abstract.
However, the average cost comes out to be around a $200-600 per board. But don't worry if this price scares you, it is possible to build a...
Read More »
HashSet is faster than TreeSet. HashSet is Implemented using a hash table. TreeSet takes O(Log n) for search, insert and delete which is higher...
Read More »As a number, the ratio might seem unattractive (it is equal to (-5 -1) / 2). But it can be rewritten in a quite remarkable way, as a fraction composed entirely of 1's layered in an infinite series. Seen in that way, the number becomes a sort of arithmetic ''image'' of the geometric property of the ratio - it is represented endlessly within itself. As the illustration on the front page shows, for example, if a square formed by one side of a golden rectangle is cut off, a golden rectangle remains. If squares are continually removed, there is an infinite spiral of golden rectangles contained within each other. But dramatically enough, if a curve is drawn based upon the golden rectangle, it is precisely the shape of a chambered nautilus shell. It is a ''logarithmic'' curve of ''continuous growth.'' Any two segments of the curve are the same shape; they are just different sizes. As a snail grows, it produces shell material in the same formation, only in larger quantities. Similar curves lie in the center of a sunflower, in the shape of a fir cone and in other natural forms that contain the golden ratio. The golden ratio provides some insight into the ways in which mathematics works in general. Nature might provide the original model for speculation about the ratio. From observation of a pine cone, a snail's shell, a sunflower, certain similarities are noted and an abstraction is made. This abstraction - a proportion, in this case - is itself studied, revealing other properties. Underlying principles are then recognized in different realms - the golden rectangle, the properties of number, the arts; related structures are found at the foundation of seemingly disparate systems. Mathematical thought processes, of course, are vastly more complex, but they are quite similar in essence. Music also involves this type of analytical thinking. It too begins in the natural world - with physical laws and bodily rhythms. Music, like mathematics, then creates abstract systems, like tonality, for its activities. Within such a system, a musical ''element,'' a theme, may be explored, transformed, revealed in different musical contexts. Its rhythm may be isolated. Its intervallic structure may be considered, its harmonic implications examined. When, for example, at the end of a Bach fugue, the theme enters in a cadence, it carries meanings it did not have when first heard. Like a mathematical object, that theme has been explored in various combinations; it has been inverted, expanded, viewed in differing contexts, dissected. A sort of musical knowledge has been achieved. There is a similar sense in Beethoven's piano sonatas that a concentrated exploration of musical elements is taking place before one's ears; when a theme returns in a recapitulation, it is no longer heard as it was in the beginning. In this manipulation of abstract material, which reveals new relations and structures, math and music may have their common formal ground.
Also, it is possible to skip Practical Piano Grades 1-4 without any repercussions; however, according to the ABRSM guidelines, the Grade 5 theory...
Read More »
Yamaha Portable digital pianos, as well as our two Stage Pianos (the CP73 and CP88) combine portability with weighted keyboards. Yamaha ARIUS...
Read More »But these processes in math and music also suggest an esthetic that has been central in the West and implicit in the golden ratio. This concept of beauty involves proportion between various elements and a relation between parts and whole - a reproduction of macrocosm in microcosm. In music, to give an unusual example, Bartok's interest in such ideas was so strong that he literally reproduced the golden ratio in his compositions. In ''Bela Bartok; An Analysis of his Music,'' the Hungarian musicologist Erno Lendvai demonstrates that in Bartok's music, crucial musical events mark divisions and subdivisions of the work into golden sections. Bartok's unusual harmonic system, Mr. Lendvai argues, is also related to the golden ratio.
Grade 5 truly is bordering the intermediate to advanced level of piano playing and reaching this level is a massive triumph so you should take a...
Read More »
Is being musical attractive? In this study, the researchers found that descriptions which stated that a person played an instrument or could sing...
Read More »
61 keys How Many Keys on a 60% Keyboard. A typical 60% ANSI-derived (American National Standards Institute) layout keyboard has 61 keys on 5 rows....
Read More »
Dan, on the other hand, is the quintessential angry gimp. Yet my students looked deeper into the film and found various positives. They noticed...
Read More »
Promotion
Promotion
Promotion
Promotion