Also, do you have any advice for what gear I should buy? Something not too expensive (I'm short on money), something with which I could play with headphones (I have neighbors and I want to play at 3AM), something I can easily carry.

Sorry for sounding like a complete noob (because I am). Hope I didn't ask anything stupid.

I can handle that, if it gets me where I want to go.

And HOURS...you gotta put in the hours. Ant instrument that needs to be learned (ie: not derived from natural ability) needs repetition. Muscle memory.

Remember he old joke?

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

Practice, practice, practice.

Somewhere there is a study that says if you want to be proficient at something (anything?) you need something like 10,000 hrs put into it.

Try not to get frustrated with your progress if you're not playing like Keith Emerson after a year. That's not really how it works.

Good luck !

Get a reasonable midi keyboard ... they are getting cheaper these days and the 48 key ones are not spendy ... from there you plug it into the computer then you go looking for VST's for piano ... and many of them are free, and voila ... you have a piano available to you.

They say that practice makes perfect, and then you find many a musician, that is an individualist and disdains any kind of teaching ... and it goes as far as folks like Keith Jarrett trashing education for not teaching you anything except what is dead and wasted after so many years of repetitions!

To me, and I am a writer, the "muscle memory" is only necessary when you are mechanical in your playing. If you are a person that plays off colors and visionary material, it only has to do with your familiarity with what each note sounds like, and you would never worry about any teaching or chords and a teacher that is not an artist ... he/she is a musician ... massive difference.

If you have a good FEEL for the notes on the keys, musical theory won't enter the equation ... because you are following your own feel for what the notes speak to you personally, which has nothing to do with theory at all ... and you better realize that before you take it up ... because that is the first brick in your head ... you want to play something you can't find ... ditch it ... instead visualize a scene and put your fingers around the keys for it ... 

For a weird/bizarre idea, if you read well check out the folks that are really special in their creativity, and notice how they are not into the chords and notes ... they are into the quality of their feeling via this note and then that note .. has nothing to do with theory whatsoever. And the best joke of all is the one that musicians hate the most ... in the Robert Wyatt book there is a story about Syd Barrett in one of the sessions for his album ... and a guitarist asks Robert what key Syd is in. Robert's reply? "He don't know the chords or the notes. He just plays!" ... a perfect example of the memory of "knowing" what it sounds like when you do this, or that ... and that's what you need to create "music" ... the rest is all notes!

Hi,

I would like to add a wee touch here ... for fun and something different, that will help in the end.

If you spend an hour on the Alfred books, and they are very good, do yourself a favor ... put away the book for an hour and just explore each key on the piano, and FEEL it, and even ADD a color to it (as Hiromi will tell you!) ... and study that "sound" a bit ... eventually, it teaches you to blend various sounds and keys on their own without a book, and you learn some intuitive bits ... for example, you like this particular touch and sound, and like to follow it up with this and that ... without worrying about the notes ... only to find that tomorrow, you can duplicate that almost the same, which tells you that you remembered the sound that you felt.

I think it is fine to put a "name" on it ... note this or that or chord this or that ... although I find it more beneficial to me, as a writer though, not to have any idea what it is, or what it was "supposed to be" (the worst thing about music!!!) ... thus making more freedom as to where you take it next as opposed to being tied to a chord this or that.

The history of music is about the "freedom" that folks found off what was next to them, and the 20th century broke the mold on that idea to pieces ... and the only thing that bothers me is that we're still stuck on "learning" something that is too old, and is what is being "retired" from the annals of music as everything ends up digital.

The value of this "freedom" is something that is hard to explain, and is something that most musicians are afraid to try ... because it takes them out of their comfy knowledge of three chords and 2 more notes on their guitar or on the counting by the drummer, who has no feel for the music at all since the drumming never changes!

Good luck ... I've done really well in theater with actors, working with "nothing" as well as I have with writing ... but musicians, for the most part, are afraid ... to consider anything but what they know. 

I started playing guitar in 1972, initially practicing at least 4 hours/day. 52 years later I'm still unable to perform Al Di Meola's Mediterranean Sundance, despite many attempts. Nowadays I enjoy keyboard, piano, bass and flute, but none of them well enough to let me say that I'm a musician. 

My suggestion: Even if it doesn't take you where you want, it can be an amazing journey. I'll never be able to play Emerson on piano, but I still enjoy pressing black and white keys to get some chords. 

If you enjoy it, don't care about anything else. Just enjoy it.

HI,

Time out ... 

Who says you can not create the Octopus-4 Mediterranean Sundance on the roof with the Riviera Sun?

Comparisons, are tough, and they kinda hurt your seeing where to take your own intuition, which seems to think that others got right and you can't.

Your intuition is the "creator" and the Emerson, and the Di Meola, are NOT because of what they did ... it's a tough thing to recreate the past, and one of the worst teaching tools about any instrument ... all teachers can tell you this and that and this and that ... but none of them can even consider asking, or helping you find your own "note" ... that's sick ... it's like you are doomed to be inferior, regardless.  Everyone else has the "note" and "song" and you won't? What kind of positive lesson is that for a student?

Go listen to Keith Jarrett talk about teachers ... and many musicians that went their own way when they were young, and many are worth the story .. Eno, Wyatt, Hammill, Vander, Emerson (you gotta hear his stuff played on piano first by Rachel Flowers!!!) and many other "originals" that made a serious difference.

Hi,

In other words, it's about you finding a "note" that sounds right to you, and you follow it up with this note, and then this other note here ... without worrying about what it is, or isn't, supposed to be, or sound like, because a lot of music teaching says that this must follow this and that!

It's about you coloring your inner mind, and view ... and if you say/think that you do not have anything like that inside your head when you play, even better ... go primitive/intuitive, and I guarantee that out of that you will find something special ... a touch, or flow ... that no one can teach you, but you can learn to "follow" by yourself ... because in the end, that is YOU ... not anything else, called music or otherwise!

Who inspired you is an illusion, that defines something that you like ... and it does not, necessarily, mean that it is something for you to do. Sometimes a combination of notes feels like this or that ... and all you end up saying is that you have no inner life, and can't find three or 4 notes, that .... ARE YOU ... not someone else. You just have to bang at it ... until each note SPEAKS for you ... not represents someone else!

Find yourself through the music ... telling us that this or that is your inspiration only states that you are not quite interested in yourself, and think you are a lesser person for it! That's not a good idea, if you want to play and get better ... and you have to make a decision on that!

Are you arguing with yourself?!  Are you alright? 

Hi,

I felt one more statement was needed to clear up the previous bits.

It's tough trying to help someone with something that is, essentially, totally intuitive, and very internal, and the sad fact is that all the comments are about something that is less about the INNER MUSIC that you and I have, than it is some idea of what "music" is about via its physical design. And for some reason, folks don't seem to notice that every new generation of new music, dismantled, and changed/added something new to the story of "music" ... which suggests that too many folks are in it to grab some money or a star studded idea of what it is like on the stage. And worse ... people teaching theory, when the history of music is a lot less about the theory and its changes!

Kinda strange in a very strange world that thinks knowing your ABC's and 123's is the answer. What's left? ... not a whole lot for the individual trying to find himself/herself ... and worse, the criticism by folks that don't see that!

I agree mostly with your philosophy. When I first started out making my own music, I tried emulating songs or sections of songs that I thought were interesting. What I ended up finding out, and it's mostly due to lack of musical training, is that I never ended up with a piece of music that sounded like the songs I was trying to copy. In other words, I was already unknowingly applying my inner mind to these pieces of music. Initially I dismissed some of these as failures because I wanted them to sound like what I was copying, but over time I looked back on them and saw that I was subconsciously (for a lack of a better word) applying my own creativity to them. 

Initially the creativity seemed to focus on certain aspects of a piece music and I failed to look at the whole piece. So my drum bits were lazily programmed. Admittedly I did not have the software I needed back then to envision my dream but over time I began to focus my creativity on these lazier areas I ignored and now I feel like I'm doing what I always wanted to do. I don't care about chords anymore. I don't care what key I'm in anymore. I don't care what time signature I'm in. I just do what feels right to me. I'm not out to please any listener but myself. I love to experiment.

As for keyboards, if this means anything to anybody, I use an Alesis V49 USB MIDI keyboard that is plugged into a PC running the Reaper DAW. I have dozens of software synths, plus drum, bass, and electric guitar software. I can play all of this software by hand using this MIDI keyboard. Sometimes I play four or five software instruments at the same time on this keyboard by arming all the tracks in Reaper. I know that sounds nuts, but it works for me. And that's really all that matters. Plus having fun doing it.

Hi,

Nice. Enjoyed reading this. 

Being, for the most part a writer, this is my "style", more or less. In general, I never worry about "meaning" or "ideas" and it's like dreams, when you can see them ... they just flow and go and don't give a damn about what you think! They have their own logic.

I have been, for many years, simply writing, "out of the blue" and never have I sat down and thought ... something like ... I want to do this, or that ... because you (or I) thinking that you are doing that is an illusion that you made up to justify your thoughts. In essence, I simply write what shows up in my "inner movie" (as I call it) and where it goes, it goes ... and I don't know where it is, or is going, until the time when it's "over" and I stop ... and then read it back ... and that is the time when you realize how much your mind wishes to "control things" ... and having an exercise that disdains that, is valuable in showing many potential threads, that your imagination can not find, or ever see.

Many seem to write for "meaning", and honestly, I couldn't careless for "meaning" since in the end, everyone has different ideas and opinions to what it says or doesn't, and agreements are mostly impossible.

This is better seen, and experienced with exercises that are done in VERY ADVANCED acting classes for theater, if a professor is so inclined, instead of some other ideas. You will find that you can extend an improvisation, and the 2nd hour is different, and the 3rd hour is even further different, and they really have no relationship, other than the fact that you are the common denominator ... and this is a very tough issue for a lot of musicians that are stuck in "processes" that define how any music should be ... and thus, the ability to find "new music" is pretty much relegated to "new old music" with the same instruments and the same designs.

Again, comes the joke about Syd Barrett from Robert Wyatt's book ... (Different EVery Time) ... when some guy asked him what key Syd was on during a recording, and Robert's answer? He don't know the keys or the chords ... he just plays.

AND, sadly, no musician that I have ever met, or found, has ever wondered how he could have done that? And the reason why he was eventually taken out ... .because the other folks could not stay with him anymore. Before they found a way to be together, and somewhere along the way, it had become what note and chord it was ... and Syd could not explain or help ... which, of course, the drugs did not help! Very sad altogether, that no one had the foresight to get him immediate help, not that it would make a difference, which is the part we can not guess about.

But there are some I did meet, that had it ... internally. Daevid Allen of GONG was impossible to keep up with in terms of being nuts, crazy and fun ... total fun ... and very with it ... so was Gilly for that matter. Others I find worth reading and studying a bit, would be ENO, although I have to re-read his book, because I did not find him opening up and discussing his breaking down of music, like he does in various bits and pieces in the tube. His "style" is also a complete breakdown to its simplest form, one bit at a time, and  his changes of it along the way, and in many cases, no changes at all. In the end, this is completely anti the design and what makes for the definition of "music" as we know it ... and I'm not sure that many of us realize that, when we hear it. 

Wonderful to hear you describe things ... that is so rare here, and something, that (in my book) is not quite understood or respected, in favor of the commercial ideal and numbers. 

It's lovely, and exciting to find another member of the club so to speak.

Hi,

Here's food for thought!

A poet creates words as he goes along and it is not exactly something he/she has written at all, and it's liveliness is from the rendition and has nothing to do with anything else.

Painting, is (generally) a horribly static art ... my own younger sister, who has done many shows all over Europe for many years, spends an incredible amount of time on one piece or another, and making this detail ... like this, instead of like that. 

Here in Vancouver, I met and worked with someone that could draw some incredible pictures, and they started with fast "scratches" that somehow became some amazing pictures, many of which she considered were "angels" ... but sadly her family did not wish her to continue, and she had to go back to whatever it was, mostly arts and crafts of which she was a master. But the speed with which one of these pictures came alive, was something my sister did not like, or understood, for example, probably as she might have thought that it did not come off right, or needed this or that. In the "angel's" artist, it didn't matter ... many of the pictures had such an incredible liveliness in them that it was difficult to think that they were not "finished" or "perfect" in their own way ... but in essence, for my taste, she was the best artist I have ever met and seen, and her capability, was, sadly, cut short.

(This experience, which I helped her develop also involved my knowledge of having worked with actors in improvisation, and in her case I requested that she explain what she saw and drew, so I could also see it. This she developed incredibly well.)

Writing, is the same for me. I write what I see, is how I describe it, and what I see is just like a dream, and somehow it continues the next night like nothing was missing. It has its own logic and continuity and I am more concerned with the story "living" than I am with any thoughts or ideas of what it might mean, or be. I don't really care what they are or mean ... I care more for the fact I can "see them", and then be able to write it down ... fastttttt and faster ... so I can keep up!

If I ever got to the stage again, I doubt I would ever do the same thing twice, and it would be just like the stories from Jodorowsky's theater work (that got busted for sex on stage in Mexico city!) ... or from "The Living Theater" (Beck and Molina) which created live theater that was not ever the same.

It is possible in this commercial age, that a lot of this might not exactly be appreciated, but then that would mean a lot of experimental artists that never quit, are silly or crazy ... and yeah ... I don't think I would be worried about an audience, and probably do a show as if it were a podcast ... and I bet that some folks are going to love it ... 

Lots of ways to get around the social/commercial thing that has a tendency to intimidate us, and us think that even our family will not like it ... but in the end, you have to decide if you want to live your art, or you are just not going to bother with the ideas and then you get a job and go home to nothing.

Much of my work, might get published once I'm gone. Not because I don't want to be exposed for this or that, but mostly because sometimes my experiments, as you can tell by these writings, are something that many folks can not relate to in their daily lives of 40 hours and then home, and maybe a day off here and there for a chance to go to the beach! 

But if I had to, I would start doing my thing, and I might still do a podcast of some of my poetry "live" while experimenting with my synthesizer and various VST's ... sounds that gave me words, that created a feeling that I could continue on ... but will I be able to redo them on stage somewhere else? NEVER, and neither would I even try that! On that stage will be a new piece, and I might ask a child in the audience to come over to the synthesizer and move all kinds of knobs and sliders as much as they want, and what is there is what I start with ... there is no fear there for me ... it's all about you coloring your vision and how it gets to you, and sound is one thing that wakes me up fast.

Hi,

I think the books are good to learn some basic things about "MUSIC". But the problem is, as I SEE IT (!!!), that it involves you learning, and memorizing some things that are all about current music theory, and while helpful so you can remember/replay the same thing, in the end, one of the bad sides of that kind of instruction is ... it does not exactly help you SEE INTO YOURSELF so you can LEARN TO PUT A SOUND TO WHAT YOU hear and see ... which is what real artists do, within their own specific ability. They clarify their own inner vision ... and that is what we hear ... not a song that someone else created and we don't even know how to interpret it, and think an imaginary idea is the song.

Remember one important thing. A child knows no theory, and yet he/she can sit and create all kinds of sounds, that we don't consider important because it is not ordered and formatted in the way that we want ... which in the end, is what hurts the learning of almost anything ... the more you can relate it to your inner side, the better player you will become. It has nothing to do with theory and a book ... and we need to get a hold of that thought a bit more. However, this does not mean that you can't learn from the book how to become good ... you WON'T. You will learn some mechanics instead. But taking that part into the next step is where most people stop and fail. The learning/teaching did not exactly translate to what you hoped to find and see. However, if you were able to find that portion of the inner side from the studies, you might just make it through the 20 dragons and portals (Bardo joke!!!) to get to the top of the mountain.

Hi, I'm reading now your reply. 

I don't mean that I want to be an Al di Meola or a Keith Emerson. Just that I still enjoy playing after 50 years even if it didn't lead me to any "success". I play and write music, I put the stuff on Bandcamp mainly to have a backup more than for selling anything. It's only a hobby like another, but whenever I become able to play something more difficult than my usual, the satisfaction is enormous.

I agree with you about putting the book away sometimes. Whoever has developed the music theory has just given names and standards to the things that he/she experienced while making music.

Of course the techniques are a different thing. I'm perfectly aware of the fact that I'll never be able to play a flute correctly if I don't get a proper teacher at least for some beginner's lessons. 

This is another suggestion that I can provide: get 4 or 5 lessons just to learn how to put your hands on your instrument in an effective way, how to minimize the movements when passing from a note or a chord to another.  It's like turning the motor on, then the wheels start moving.

About the instruments: I have a Korg X5 as synth and a Korg electric piano

The first is very old and I don't know how much a similar device can cost today, probabli not more than the mentioned 700$. The piano is a beginners instrument but with all its 88 keys and for me it's enough. It's quite cheap for the brand: I think I have spent about 300€ for it (around 350$, probably).

Hi,

Nice. Enjoyed reading this!

Finger placement and such ... even that is a funny thing ... do you ever ask how Hiromi says that she learned by associating colors with the sounds/notes/chords ... and then played? I always wondered even about guitarists ... Jeff Beck was very different in how he approached the strings and played. Mike Oldfield as well. And many others, to the point that it makes one think that ... you have to find how to use your fingers in a manner that helps express your manner and self. Just recently, listening to that one guy talk about Keith Emerson, and how "he had to have big hands to be able to play that many notes!!!" ... and the whole time we saw him in concert we never thought that but the music (and notes!!!) was there!

And then, one of my favorites ... how does a blind person process it all ... and has a memory that is to die for? We're not answering that ... and in some ways, I think that ability to "tune in" is way more valuable than ... many ideas ... it's down right insane watching Rachel Flowers, or even Stevie Wonder ... or Ray Charles ... and many others ... and somehow, they have inside something about the "music" that Berkley can't teach, and a book is not good enough to help ... and these are the areas (FOR ME) where improvisation has come alive with many actors and artists ... in the end, it felt like it was all about the discovery that you had something else that helps ... all of a sudden the actors were "tuned" to the performance where before you KNEW they were trying hard to make sure they knew the words and the paces to move.

My favorite example, btw, is from a book by Peter Brook, a theater director that did a lot of experiments with actors (See a film called THE TIGHTROPE -- a perfect example, and something you will likely enjoy!) and the play King Lear with Keith Michell that he did several hundred performances ... and in one part, there is a repetition of words during the soliloquy, and PB says that Keith never once said it the same way, and each time it was outstanding, and totally tuned in! That ought to send many guitarists into heck for thinking it wasn't perfect!