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- Piano Palette
- Way easier to grok than guitar.
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- You Are Here ---> •
- The guitar was invented a bit earlier than the piano. So was the harpsichord.
- In fact, stringed instruments have been around since before the dawn of
- written history. Pianos and harpsichords were invented to make it easier for
- "those lacking the subtle dexterity of Olympians," to play music. And they do.
- Far, far easier. In fact, no instrument comes closer to the quintessence of
- 12-tone music than the piano. You might say it is the Mac OS of music.
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- Sure, we love stringed instruments for all they're nuance and direct feel. And
- lest we come to disdain the piano, remember: It too is a stringed instrument.
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- Colorful Keys
- Your basic piano is colored ebony and ivory which fit together in perfect
- harmony side-by-side. Colors are added to show which notes belong to your
- chord. Green keys indicate the root of the Current Chord.
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- The Layman's Layout
- The white keys on a piano are all natural notes in the key of C / Am. (The
- black keys all belong to the F# / Ebm pentatonic scale.) The relationship
- between keys and - well - keys follows the circle of fifths:
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- C has no black keys. Moving clockwise, G gains a black key (F#). Next, D
- gains C#. This progress continues until we get to B when all the black keys
- are used. Then F# and C# have all the black keys but different white keys.
- Beginning with Ab we begin to lose black keys again until we get back around
- to C.
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- You can demonstrate this effect by using the Transpose Button. First fill up
- the C scale with the Scale Button. Next use the Transpose Button and
- click-drag up and down the Scale Palette.
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- Tickling the Ivories
- • Click a piano key to hear a note. You can drag too.
- • Double-click to toggle a note in your chord.
- • Triple-click to add a triad to the chord.
- • <OPTION>-triple-click to remove a triad from the chord.
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