fbpx

West Troiano

Easy Piano: 10 Easy Minor Pieces

Categories Classical Music Music in General Music Practice Piano

There are lots of articles out there claiming to contain “easy” piano pieces; some of them are good, others not so much, and many try to grab you with big famous piece names like “Claire de lune” or “Für Elise,” even though neither of these pieces are anywhere close to easy…    Here at Liberty Park Music we decided to put together an article series showing off satisfying, well-constructed repertoire and arrangements that actually fall into the “easy” category for different difficulty levels. Many of these pieces may not be familiar to you, but they’ve been hand-picked for being fun … Read more

How to Read Music – Part 2

Categories Music in General Music Practice Piano Theory

Section 1: Rests and Ties In Part 1 of this article series we learned how to decipher music notation in time (horizontally) and in pitch (vertically). This duet of understanding makes up the bulk of reading music.  That said, there are still some basic key elements of music notation that are worthwhile  to add to your understanding. We may know what notes to play and the counts of the notes that need to be played, we still don’t really know anything about how they should be played: how loud, how short or long, etc. We also could benefit from a … Read more

How to Read Music – Part 1

Categories Music in General Music Practice Piano Theory

Have you ever wanted to learn to play an instrument, but hesitated at the thought of learning to read music? All those dots and lines and funny little symbols…. it can seem like an alien language, accessible only to the gifted few.  While it’s true that the ability to read music notation (which we’ll refer to simply as “reading music” from now on) can take years of study to master, the basics of reading music aren’t actually that complicated. There are only a few key elements to consider when reading basic music notation, and once you’ve become familiar with those, … Read more

Reading Chord Symbols: A Pianist’s Guide

Categories Classical Music Music in General Music Practice Piano Theory

The piano is a “harmony” instrument, meaning that we can play many notes at once. Certain combinations of notes give us harmonies that we call chords, and the ability to play chords is an important skill, no matter what style of music you’re playing. One of the most efficient routes to knowing which chords to play is by having the ability to read chord symbols. In this article, we’re going to teach you how to read chart-style chord symbols. Along the way we’re going to reinforce our understanding of what chords are and how they’re built. As a bonus, we … Read more