Piano Guidance
Piano Guidance
Photo: Pixabay
Contraltos Check these ladies out. Contraltos are arguably the rarest of female voice types and they possess a tone so dark they often give the men a run for their money. If mezzos are like clarinets, contraltos are more like bass clarinets.
Studies show that practicing more than four hours a day is just way too much. Additional time doesn't make any difference in your progress, even...
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A very obvious yet often overlooked warm-up for pianists is also one of the simplest. Run warm water over your hands or, if possible, immerse your...
Read More »You might think that when it comes to voice types, everything depends on vocal range. Yet the actual notes a person can sing are only a small part of what determines their vocal category. A huge deciding factor is a concept known as timbre, or tonal quality. Timbre is entirely different from a musical note: A note (or pitch) refers to the place a single sound falls on a scale, while timbre is the phenomenon of the specific color or texture of a voice. Right about now, you’re thinking, “Color? Texture? How can those ideas apply to sound? I can’t see a voice and I certainly can’t touch one.” And you’re right–––you can’t. Voices are subtle and invisible things. Even the experts agree there is very little “science” involved when deciding what makes one voice so different from the next. It’s almost like asking someone to explain how one cloud differs from another; that is, it’s nearly impossible. So what do vocal professionals do when they have to describe something as seemingly indescribable as the human voice? They call on their other senses for help. Singers, voice teachers, and other vocal scholars like to fall back on sight, touch, and taste when discussing specific voices. Vocal professionals will often “borrow” words associated with these senses so they can expand the vocabulary used to define the qualities that make a voice special and unique. This is where phrases like “color” and “texture” come in. For example: Want to tell a friend about an extraordinarily deep voice but can’t find the right words? Try these metaphors on for size:
If cleaning in the sink, use a mild soap. If putting it in the dishwasher, put it on the top rack and use little or no detergent. If you remove the...
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The founder of what is now considered the standard music staff was Guido d'Arezzo, an Italian Benedictine monk who lived from about 991 until after...
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Pianoforall is one of the most popular online piano courses online and has helped over 450,000 students around the world achieve their dream of playing beautiful piano for over a decade.
Learn More »The longest same-pitch vocal note in a song that made the US Billboard Hot 100 chart was “Dim All the Lights”, from Donna Summer's (US) seventh studio album Bad Girls, which contains a note lasting 16 seconds.
The longest same-pitch vocal note in a song that made the US Billboard Hot 100 chart was “Dim All the Lights”, from Donna Summer’s (US) seventh studio album Bad Girls, which contains a note lasting 16 seconds. The disco track peaked at No.2 on 10-17 November 1979. Summer’s enduring note begins 46 seconds into the track, on the word “up”. It beats a note in another Summer classic, which, remarkably, hovered just below “Dim All the Lights” in the Hot 100 Top 10 on 10-17 November 1979: “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)”, featuring the queen of long-held vocal notes, Barbra Streisand, contains a 14-second lung-buster on the word “tear”, from 1 minute 43 seconds. By 24 November 1979, “No More Tears” had risen to the top of the chart – the longest-held vocal note in a US No.1 single (female artist), beating Streisand’s “Woman in Love” (11 seconds) in 1980. Melba Moore’s 36-second note at the end of “The Other Side of the Rainbow”, the title track of her 1982 studio album, is the longest studio-recorded note by a female singer and the longest-held single note on an album track, but it was never a Hot 100 hit in the US. “Dim All the Lights” stalled at No.2 behind the Eagles’ “Heartache Tonight” on 10 November 1979 and “Still” by the Commodores on 17 November.
Pianists typically start memorising a piece by learning the musical periods and then breaking down the major parts to the number of bars that they...
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The Piano Sonata No. 14 in C# Minor is one of Ludwig van Beethoven's most famous compositions, and arguably his single most well-known work for...
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The Best Instruments for Beginners Piano and Keyboard. Pianos and keyboards are part of their own category and a favorite for beginner musicians...
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Shift+F11 keys minimizes an ICA session window for fixed windows and published desktops. Some applications might use this key combination to...
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