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There are many different questions when it comes to buying a keyboard. How much should I pay, how many keys it needs and so on. A lot of it really depends on the buyer and your own personal preference. The best way to tell if the keyboard is right for you is if it “feels” right. But, in saying that, there are a few simple guidelines that can help you out come purchase time.

One of the great things about having so many different keyboards to choose from is that you can find one at a suitable price. The first thing is you want to make sure the keyboard actually works. The problem with keyboards is that as they get older they tend to decay a bit. So be careful buying a keyboard before you’ve actually played it and checked the keys, all the buttons and so on.

The next step is looking at how many keys it has. I’m often asked “how many keys should I get?” The answer is really down to personal preference and what exactly you’re using your keyboard for. My advice is to get a keyboard with the full 88 keys. But 76 and even 61 will usually be enough. If you have the choice I think either 88 or 76 keys is best. If you were just using a small range of the keyboard and it’s more for recording interesting samples and so on, then fewer keys is fine. Most professionals will use 88 keys.

The next thing to look at is weighted keys or “synth” action. This means what the feel of the actual keys is like. This again really depends on personal taste. Weighted keys: this means that the keys on the keyboard have the same feel and weight as keys on a standard piano. A lot of trained pianists will go this route, myself included. I don’t like to use synth style keys but that’s entirely my personal taste. One of the benefits of playing on a keyboard with weighted keys is that if you never played an acoustic piano before you should easily be able to adjust quickly because your hands will be used to it. Synth style keys also have their advantages. Because they’re not weighted it’s a lot easier to play them faster.

Another important aspect is the velocity and after touch of the keyboard. Velocity refers to whether how hard you hit the keys affects how loud the sound that comes out, so that if you lightly touch the keyboard you will get a nice quite sound. Similarly if you hit down hard you will get a nice loud reaction. After touch refers to the sensitivity to the sound and touch after you hit the note and hold it down. If you play a note and you want it to ring the way an acoustic piano does, after touch is very important. Personally I believe that velocity and after touch is VERY important and any keyboard you have should really have these things catered for.

So there are a lot of things to consider when looking at keyboards. Ultimately I believe a lot of it comes down to personal taste and what your instincts tell you about the keyboard itself. Remember, you want it to be something that you can spend a lot of time on so make sure that you are completely happy with what you end up with.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ruth Searle is a pianist with years of experience behind her. Playing the piano is her passion, and she is also the drive and inspiration behind Rocket Piano – the Ultimate Piano Learning Kit, and Rocket Piano Gospel Edition. If you want to take your piano playing skills to a new level, you need the Rocket Piano Kit. You get step by step instructions complete with audio and video lessons, and you can instant access by visiting Rocket Piano’s website now.

I often have people ask me about playing a piano “by ear”. What they are referring to of course is learning and being able to play songs just by listening to them.

When I was quite young and still learning to play the piano I remember watching someone listen to a song on the radio and then quickly walk over to the piano and play what was on the radio. It was very impressive. I remember thinking how amazing that was. The thing that I’ve learned since then is that if you spend time with music, listening to it, playing it, paying attention to it, that things start to stick out. By this I mean certain chords start to become familiar, certain melodies that then go along with those chords. Probably the most important aspect of this is that chord progressions that start to stick out. These are the fundamental parts to playing by ear.

One thing that happens quite often with piano is that when someone starts their piano education they are usually taught how to read music first, then to play off sheet music. So when it comes time to play something that isn’t written down they have great trouble. I know, this was how it was for me in the beginning.

To really learn to play music by ear you need to have at least some knowledge about chords and chord progressions. Once you know a little more about chords (major and minor and what they sound like) you can start learning to play by ear. The first thing to do is find a song you really like and would like to play. The second thing is to do is make sure it’s an easy song. (You will probably find out pretty quickly how difficult it is to play!) If there are a lot of chord changes then it might be a good idea to pick another song. The thing about learning by ear, when you first start out, is that it will take a while and you will need to be patient. When I first started it took me quite some time and I had to work through quite a lot of frustrating moments but it’s much more rewarding.

Some people will be able to pick up music by ear much easier than others. This is just a fact of life. Some people’s ears are just more tuned to music than others. Quite often though, these people are the ones who listen to the most music.

The key is to experiment with playing along with music and give yourself time to learn to play by ear. You will find that the more you that, the better at it you will become, and after a while it will come naturally and you will be able to play with whatever is on the radio.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ruth Searle is a pianist with years of experience behind her. Playing the piano is her passion, and she is also the drive and inspiration behind Rocket Piano – the Ultimate Piano Learning Kit, and Rocket Piano Gospel Edition. If you want to take your piano playing skills to a new level, you need the Rocket Piano Kit. You get step by step instructions complete with audio and video lessons, and you can instant access by visiting Rocket Piano’s website now.

This is a review of Rocket Piano. I thought I’d write a Rocket Piano review because it’s the first online piano lesson package that I bought, so read on if you want to know if Rocket Piano is worth it!

When I first started out learning how to play the piano, I wasn’t sure if I was going to stick to it for long, so I surfed the Internet for information about piano lessons first. What I found in my research was that there wasn’t any compelling piano lessons online — until I discovered Rocket Piano by chance because of some comments being left about it.

So I popped over to the Rocket Piano website to check things out. I almost closed the page on Rocket Piano because it was a paid piano lesson package, but I stopped myself and decided to give Ruth and her package a chance after discovering that it was less than $40, and came with a money back guarantee.

“There’s no risk, what’s the worst — I’ll just ask for a refund,” I thought to myself. And I’m glad I gave MYSELF that chance, because Ruth’s Rocket Piano package turned out to be amazing in value. That’s Ruth’s picture, and she’s a classically trained pianist (Grade 8 in Solo Piano) and has more than 15 years experience playing the piano, with a Bachelor of Media Arts majoring in Commercial Music. She even received an Australasian Award for Composition! Classical piano is her specialty, but she also has extensive experience playing and performing Jazz, Pop, Blues, Rock, and Gospel.

I can only say that the price is more than worth it. I hope Ruth sells more, because I think she’s hoping to recover her cost in volume. With such content, Ruth really overdelivers — I would have been satisfied with just half of the stuff she puts in her Rocket Piano package.

Basically, Rocket Piano teaches you how to play the piano with step-by-step piano lessons supported by ebook, video and audio files. Rocket Piano is organized into 3 high quality books taking you on a journey from beginner to advanced in your piano playing. The Rocket Piano lessons package will teach you how to:

• Learn to play virtually any song you hear
• Train your musical ear
• Recognize chords
• Play with rhythm and with the correct techniques
• Read music
• Adapt your playing style for classical, jazz, blues, rock, pop or gospel music
• Perform the trickiest of piano skills

When you have mastered the above, you will be able to play most popular songs on the piano, or even compose your very own music.

If you are like me and are not sure if you have a talent for playing the piano, it is a good idea to try out Rocket Piano before committing to a full course of lessons with a private piano teacher or a music school.

In addition to these, the video lessons that come with Rocket Piano are amazing too. They have been professionally recorded and edited and are guaranteed to be more stylish and useful than anything you will find. There is no substitute for seeing and hearing how something is supposed to be played. You’ll discover the most effective ways to practice so that you master new material quickly, without developing bad habits. Learn to play the piano smoothly and flawlessly, while cutting your learning time in half!

I really found the videos useful, because I’m naturally very shy, and with these lessons, I could learn and try to duplicate what the teacher was doing right in the comfort of my own home, without other people watching.

You will also discover how you can train your ear to identify all the various piano notes, simply by playing the computer game that comes with Rocket Piano called “Perfect Your Pitch Pro”. Training your ear by playing “Perfect Your Pitch Pro”, is not only fun, it will fast track you to playing your favorite songs by ear!

I love Rocket Piano because it saved me hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on expensive piano lessons when I was just starting out. Through Rocket Piano, I learnt the tips and tricks of playing the piano through an experienced piano teacher in the comfort of my own home, at my own pace. You even get sounds files (AND video) so you can play along. And, unlike a piano teacher, you can repeat each song or riff over and over again until you get it correct and professional sounding. This was very important to me because I HATED the feeling of being under pressure and being afraid that the piano teacher might get impatient with me as I know I take longer to master things.

But the learning the basics is not the only thing you’ll learn with Rocket Piano because you’ll also discover how to perform the trickiest of piano skills. That’s over ten years worth of expensive and hard-won information in a simple and easy to follow format presented by Ruth - all her comprehensive knowledge at your finger tips!

Ruth also shares an advanced piano learning technique, developed by a university psychologist (originally for guitarists, and adapted successfully for pianists), for training your fingers to automatically remember all the chord shapes, in 1/3 the time. And, you’ll learn all about how your brain processes information, and how to maximise your piano practice time… (nine out of ten people are absolutely floored by this secret!)

Ruth also tells you how to decide whether you should learn to play piano on an actual piano, or whether you should use an electric keyboard. Her package includes Metronome, which will also allow you to learn how to play with exceptional speed and timing.

By the way, if you’re into Jazz, you’ll be pleased to know that you can discover how to play jazz piano, step-by-step with a specialist how to play jazz piano book! This book is part of the Rocket Piano package too, and in it you’ll gain a comprehensive grounding in jazz, including history, distinctive rhythms, underlying qualities, rhythmic movements, common jazz chords (and how to play them in different jazz arrangements), how to break jazz songs down and play them and much much more! For those of you who are particularly interested in jazz piano, this book is the best place to start!

Rocket Piano is THE BEST piano course on the market for its price. I highly recommend it, and you should definitely get it to improve your piano playing skills. This is without risk too, as Rocket Piano offers a risk-free refund policy. So if it does not live up to your expectations you can get a 100% refund.

Official Rocket Piano Website