Boy this is quick for me another post and another tutorial for you to enjoy.
I had a lovely request on my youtube page from someone from Romania (yes Romania!!) who loved my other videos and was very complimentary about how fantastic I was etc (that always gets my attention LOL) who was desperate for a tutorial on Endless Love by Lionel Richie and Diana Ross. Tutorials on songs are a double edged sword for me as I have to sing (and most of you already know I can’t) along!!
I much prefer my noodling ones (and I need to do a few more of those I know)
Anyway without further ado…
Endless Love First Part (part 1):
Endless Love First Part (part 2):
Enjoy and have fun
Lee
P.S.
Don’t forget you can figure this stuff out all by yourself, by ear, if you join Mike at pianomagic.com just like I did (It’ll save you watching all my tutorials and listening to my awful singing!!! Ha Ha!!
After a request over at youtube to show how to play an Affair To Remember I have become a little obsessed with this beautiful song.
This is a rarity for me recording a video in a key other than C so it’s got a few bloopers (oh yeah and the singing is horrific so just ignore it Ha Ha!)
After asking for help and advice in a thread over at pianoworld.com I have finally manged to put together my first piano tutorial.
The feeling I got from the thread at pianoworld is that friends of mine would be happy to pay (and offended if I didn’t charge them) so, I have set the price at only $4.95 for the first 250 customers so, that should cover all of you (if the first 250 are sold and you are a regular reader of this blog then please email me at seasidelee@seasidelee.com and let me know and I will ensure you get it for $4.95)
The tutorial is to learn to Play I Dreamed A Dream sung by Susan Boyle on Britain’s Got Talent (I am sure many of you will have seen the video and would love to play that song for family and friends)
I received an email the other day from “Steve” who is also a member at pianoworldand in it he gave me some great advice on how to get a better angle for you.
here’s what he said:
“Pull the piano far enough away from anything so that you can put the tripod on the other side of the piano and point down for the overhead angle showing the keyboard and your hands. With the camera in front of you and the piano your head won’t be in the way of the video. Your video WILL be upside down however after shooting but with just one more step that is easy to take care of.
All you have to do when it is complete is to bring it in to Windows Movie Maker or the cheapest video editing software to finish the process.
Once the video is loaded in to the video editing software and looks like it did in the camera (upside down), using Windows Movie Maker or even the most inexpensive software you can flip the video 180 degrees and turn it over.”
Duh!! why didn’t I think of that?
So without further ado here is a little test video:
please let me know if that works better for you or not?
Over the years this blog has grown quite big!! yikes!!
So I’m trying to make it a little easier for visitors to find stuff
At the bottom of most posts I have now added a category link so, lets say for instance that you wanted to read all the posts with video lessons in them then quite simply when you get to the bottom of a post with a video in it you will see I have placed a category for “Video Piano Lessons” or maybe you would like to bring up all the posts with .mp3′s of my playing in them again when you find a post with an .mp3 in it that should now have a category link at the bottom saying “piano music”.
If you click on the category it should pull up all posts that I have placed in that category, hope that makes sense?
Let me know if you like this new feature and if it makes finding stuff easier or, if you have any suggestions for categories that would be most helpful too.
Edit to add:
You should also now see the categories available in the right hand column to help you even more, you can click on those as well if you so wish, give it a try
Further to a comment Lenny has made on the “Unchained Melody” videos (at my old blog site) I realize that many of you want help from me with your lead sheet playing. Unfortunately, I’m not an expert on playing from lead sheets. I can play from them but don’t very often as I just prefer to play by ear.
However, a great resource you can use is Scott “The Piano Guy” Houston I have just written my thoughts in a small write up about him (with some useful links) [click here]
Hope that helps
Lee
Edit to add: I have now posted Lenny’s comments and my reply to him in the comment section of this post
Well we finally made it we are now on a hosted site, we can have more fun, I’ve got lots of ideas to make our piano journeys together more fun (and… ahem… I may even make some money out of you if I really like something and recommend it to you ha ha!)
Thanks for sticking with me over the years its been different but, I hope it has inspired you in your practise and playing to keep going. I’ve come a long way (I feel) and I hope your piano playing is improving in leaps and bounds too. Hopefully you will all visit pianoworld forums they are a great bunch of folks over there.
So, I’ve spent days working out how to create my header and give the page some colour, please feel free to let me know your thoughts on my design, I really hope you like it
Hopefully many of you will have been keeping up with a bit of noodling everyday and are getting more competent at it
So, today I’m gonna expand your thinking a little this is the first of 3 videos coming your way and is an introduction in to doodling in D minor :
Okay this is the next part which is for more, erm…advanced noodlers (its a technical term LOL)
Here we go this is ultimately where I’m wanting to take you, so you can just have fun making stuff up and having fun. Sure still carry on with all your regular lessons but, I want you to lose track of time in piano la la land like I do
I’m really hoping you are going to get a thrill out of doing this kind of stuff and its going to help you to have more fun at your keyboard/piano
Please be sure to post comments here and on my youtube page to let me know if you want more lessons on this sort of stuff or not?
Lee
At this point I’d like to say a big thank you to Mike at pianomagic.com for showing me the way to get to this level of fun in my playing! Mike I owe you so much my friend I can never ever put into words how much you’ve helped me realize so many of my dreams or probably ever repay you for the joy you have brought in to my life, Without pianomagic this past year I would surely have cracked up! (and I mean that from the bottom of my heart thank you so much)
He’s called Joe and he’s just bought a new Yamaha YP-635 which looks very nice and from what I can tell is a great choice and he’s thrilled and excited so, excited in fact that he has demonstrated how he is playing “Oh when the saints…” from Alfreds piano book in a youtube video [click to watch] from the get -go! I noticed he already has a nice sense of rhythm and timing so he should do fine.
I tried to make the point that sticking with these early days eventually leaves to much more creativity and fun.
with this post:-
“BTW Oh when the saints is a great tune to expand on…the fun comes in later down the road when you can think beyond the notes. Stick with it there’s lots of fun to be had with that new toy of yours (I love new toys :D )”
With this in mind and trying to keep Joe enthused about his new piano (or heck maybe totally turn him off if this is bad? LOL) I then offered to record a video for him and wondered if he’d be cool with that (and he was) so here is video number 1
Here’s video 2:
and here is video 3:
I hope Joe gets something out of them if only inspiration to carry on and that you do too
thanks for watching
Don’t forget to comment because its always nice to know someone enjoyed them makes it more worthwhile
Lee
Edit to add:
Further to this video a member at pianoworld called “JazzpianoEducator” added a rather kool tutorial in response at his Online Piano Lessons for Joe and of course for all of us showing his take on “Oh when the saints…” Take a look I think its just fab
Further edit:
Following on from these videos one of the members over at pianoworld called “Rickster” recorded his version of “Oh when the saints…”
Kinda cool if you ask me
Wish I could sing like him (and I guess y’all do too!! LOL)
I know a number of you reading this have followed my PianoforAll recommendation and bought yourself a copy and seeing as I’ve recommended it I’m really hoping you are going to get something out of it and like it as much as I do
I would really appreciate it if you could add your comments in this thread just as soon as you have evaluated the package. I am very keen to hear your thoughts about it and am kinda waiting with bated breath to hear how you are getting along (I’m so hoping y’all like it)
So please let me know how you are getting along with it as soon as you can
