Category: Free Inquiry

While I was originally planning to upload this second part as more than one measure, the process of learning this measure took me around three hours to finally memorize. This experience put into perspective just how much effort it takes to learn a short segment on the piano. That said, it is very rewarding once finished. Here is the video I made to document the process:

I have edited the recording of my first attempt to learn the Naruto song on the piano. It was both challenging and frustrating, yet rewarding. It was my first time learning piano from sheet music since in the past I only ever watched YouTube tutorials and memorized the movements. I am so happy that I now know what each piano key represents in music notes. In this video, I learned the first three measures of the song and showcased my learning process. Here is my video:

I asked a few classmates about some strategies I could use to prepare myself to learn piano songs from sheet music. One of my classmates mentioned that writing music note letters above the note helped them to learn songs faster. So, before touching the piano, I wrote the music letters above each note in pen. We’ve been practicing this in our music class, so it was fairly familiar to me. That said, I had yet to learn bass clef notation, but it is simpler than it seems. I used this image to help me with my notations:

Here is the page of the sheet music that I made notations for:

I am very glad that my classmate gave me this advice because I would be so lost at the piano without it.

I also learned the E minor scale because my classmates advised me to. In hindsight, I am glad that I learned it because it provided me with more understanding of piano music theory, but while I was working on it I honestly did not see a point to it. I used this YouTube video to learn the scale:

Here is the very good and very professional video of my learning that I created:

This week I have been solidifying the information I’ve learned about reading music. I’ve done this by reviewing my worksheets and discussing music theory with some of my more experienced classmates. I’ve been using a few tricks such as FACE to remember which music notes are placed where on a sheet. To showcase some of my learning, I thought it would be a great idea to animate a video that illustrated the memory acronyms. I was inspired to do this from our class with Rich McCue, where we learned about video making and digital presentations. Here’s the video that I created:

This was something for me to review and to experiment with the software. I hope to create more digital pieces that will help me in the future.

These past two weeks I have been growing more familiar with sheet music. In our music class, we were introduced to the music note alphabet which consists of the letters A, B, C, D, E, F and G. We completed a few worksheets where we were tasked with writing the letter underneath the music note. I found it challenging to try and memorize all the letters, so I made a visual legend to look back on each time I needed help:

I find these notes very confusing, and I was struggling to find a method to remember them until my classmates mentioned a few acronyms, such as Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge. This refers to each line on sheet music, starting from the bottom and rising up. For the gaps, I can use the acronym FACE which starts from the bottom and rises up. As for the ones outside of the lines, I am confused and I need to ask around for some help. I know of one acronym, All Cows Eat Grass, but I am confused still.

I am beginning to think about how I can begin making sense of the sheet music that I have for my ending song. I asked a few of my classmates who have experience in piano playing and they told me that I could write down the music note letters on the sheet music to make the learning process a bit easier. I will still need to understand which notes on the piano are which, but this small step will make it a smoother process. I may end up also writing the beats down, although by now I feel very comfortable with the beat system and enjoy counting them. By the end of this, I hope to be able to play the song without the music note letters written down.

For my free inquiry project, I’ve decided to learn how to play the piano. This will be a process in which I first learn how to read music, identify keys on the piano and then from there I can learn a song. To start myself off, I’ve studied basic music notes and am beginning to familiarize myself with timing. Here is an indicator of what I have been looking at:

I’ve wanted to learn how to read music since I was sixteen years old but I never took it upon myself to do so. Instead, I preferred memorizing how to play piano songs by muscle memory. That seemed like less work at the time, but was a very confusing and frustrating process. I have two playlists on Spotify that are full of piano songs that I enjoy listening to and that I want to learn. From these songs, I’ve decided that my end goal will be to play Sadness and Sorrow from the Naruto soundtrack. I feel quite anxious about learning how to read music, but I also look forward to the freedom it will give me when I am finally capable of learning in a way that makes sense.

My classmate Gina* told me to use my strengths to help me through this process. She said that I can use my knowledge of tech to design visual indicators that can help me to remember which key is which. I could also try video editing to reflect on the chords and suchlike. I don’t own a piano, but there are some in the music room at UVIC and a keyboard in the school’s library that I can practice on. I am very much a learn-while-doing type of learner, but I also can get emotional when I struggle to understand concepts. Throughout this process, I need to remember to keep calm and enjoy myself.

*Gina is a fake name that I am using in place of my classmate’s first name. As we learned from our internet safety talk last class, it is best to maintain others’ privacy as much as possible.