Sheet Music

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I learnt to play keyboard as a youngster (well had lessons) and can read sheet music - just about. I've just started trying to play the keyboard again but I'm really struggling to find the kind of songs I want to play in straight keyboard music like the ones they gave you in lessons or you find it books in music shops - i.e with the left hand as notations and the right hands with chords. What's the best way forward? Use other instruments sheet music and try and transpose it? Just try and play the piano version (although I only have a 61-key keyboard so that might run into problems)

I can't just listen to the song before anyone suggests that as i don't have perfect pitch and it would take hours upon hours for me to figure out each line and even then I'd probably get it wrong.
 
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Welcome.

If you look at Ultimate Guitar site you enter the song and you will get (hopefully) a few transcriptions of the song.

You will have the lyrics and the chord above the lyrics for each song

There is nothing for the left hand but you could always play the 1, 3, 5, 3 of the chord in LH or suitable walking or appropriate bass lines.

The beauty of the Ultimate Guitar site is that the songs are free, simply screen capture and print. There is an App for iPad that you could use and play your songs reading the chords off the iPad.

Do note if the transcriptions state Capo on a specific fret since if the do you will need to amend the chords to allow for the Capo (one fret is a 1/2 tone)

Speaking of iPad there are other similar Apps and they can show the full or partial scores.

Hope I have interpreted your question correctly.
 

Rayblewit

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I want to play in straight keyboard music like the ones they gave you in lessons or you find it books in music shops

"straight keyboard music"

What do you mean by this?
With accompiament?

with the left hand as notations and the right hands with chords. What's the best way forward

Try left hand chords and right hand melody.
Ray
 
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"straight keyboard music"

What do you mean by this?
With accompiament?



Try left hand chords and right hand melody.
Ray

I mean left hand chords and right hand melody obviously.

Basically I mean sheet music like this

smd_140765_a_ha_take_on_me_web.png


rather than this
0004674-w-b-1.png
 
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Thanks for clarifying, you did say originally right hand chords which suggests playing backing rather than the melody line.

The Yamaha Notestar App lets you buy specific songs, they show the melody with the chords shown above.

There are other initially free Apps that let you view the first page of a song, try the Sheet Music app for starters, its guitar orientated but does show the melody line score with chords above.

If you search on Amazon for Keyboard Music Books for the era or genre you seek there are many to choose from, some have a Look Inside tab above the book image and if you follow the link a pop up occurs and you can see how the contents are displayed.

Certainly go to your local music stores if you can, mine certainly have plenty available and in about 14 hours time I will be in one of my local Music Stores doing just that as well as having a play on some keyboards and a bass guitar or two.
 

SeaGtGruff

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I think most online sheet music stores let you choose between the piano-guitar-vocals version and a simpler version-- that is, if multiple versions are available. Or I think they let you specify the version you're interested in before you search.

By the way, I believe the popular term for books that contain the sort of sheet music you're looking for is "fake book." If you search for "fake book" you should come up with a lot of published fake books to choose from.

As another possible alternative, you might want to look into music notation software so you can create your own versions. Several programs are available for free. For instance, one that I like, although it doesn't have all the features of fancier programs, is NCH Crescendo-- I like it because I find it to be very easy to enter and edit notes. The most feature-rich free program is probably MuseScore, but you almost need a PhD to master it (I'm just kidding-- I think).

Just about any music notation program will let you import a standard MIDI file, and you can generally find a MIDI file for just about any popular song-- most of them are for sale (naturally), but if you search thoroughly then you might find free files for a few older songs. When you open a MIDI file in notation software you'll get up to 16 different staves, one per MIDI channel, for all the different parts (drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, lead melody, etc.). You can add the names of the chords above the melody part (if you can figure them out or find them listed somewhere) and then delete all the extra staves that you don't care about.

Or, if you have the piano-guitar-vocals sheet music for a song, you could enter a simplified version of the main melody line into the notation software and add the chords above the staff.

It could end up being a bit of work, but the point is that you'd be able to build up your own library of electronic sheet music that's formatted just how you like it. Also, it's usually a very simple matter to transpose electronic sheet music to any key. However, if you've entered the names of the chords above the staff as text, they won't be transposed automatically. But if you've entered the chords in some format the program uses so it knows what the chords are, it should be able to transpose them, too.
 

Rayblewit

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Basically I mean sheet music like this
Being "Fake notes"
rather than this
Being "conventional"

With the coventional type you can still play the fake way. I just ignore the bass cleff and play the chord as it is shown usually printed on top of the treble cleff but in your example it is printed down below in between the bass cleffs. Some very old conventional sheet music doesn't show the chord. These are the ones whereby you would probably get lost. I do:eek:.

@beginnerstruggling What kind of music do you like to play? What keyboard do you have?

Cheers:)ray
 
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I think most online sheet music stores let you choose between the piano-guitar-vocals version and a simpler version-- that is, if multiple versions are available. Or I think they let you specify the version you're interested in before you search.

By the way, I believe the popular term for books that contain the sort of sheet music you're looking for is "fake book." If you search for "fake book" you should come up with a lot of published fake books to choose from.

As another possible alternative, you might want to look into music notation software so you can create your own versions. Several programs are available for free. For instance, one that I like, although it doesn't have all the features of fancier programs, is NCH Crescendo-- I like it because I find it to be very easy to enter and edit notes. The most feature-rich free program is probably MuseScore, but you almost need a PhD to master it (I'm just kidding-- I think).

Just about any music notation program will let you import a standard MIDI file, and you can generally find a MIDI file for just about any popular song-- most of them are for sale (naturally), but if you search thoroughly then you might find free files for a few older songs. When you open a MIDI file in notation software you'll get up to 16 different staves, one per MIDI channel, for all the different parts (drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, lead melody, etc.). You can add the names of the chords above the melody part (if you can figure them out or find them listed somewhere) and then delete all the extra staves that you don't care about.

Or, if you have the piano-guitar-vocals sheet music for a song, you could enter a simplified version of the main melody line into the notation software and add the chords above the staff.

It could end up being a bit of work, but the point is that you'd be able to build up your own library of electronic sheet music that's formatted just how you like it. Also, it's usually a very simple matter to transpose electronic sheet music to any key. However, if you've entered the names of the chords above the staff as text, they won't be transposed automatically. But if you've entered the chords in some format the program uses so it knows what the chords are, it should be able to transpose them, too.
Being "Fake notes"

Being "conventional"

With the coventional type you can still play the fake way. I just ignore the bass cleff and play the chord as it is shown usually printed on top of the treble cleff but in your example it is printed down below in between the bass cleffs. Some very old conventional sheet music doesn't show the chord. These are the ones whereby you would probably get lost. I do:eek:.

@beginnerstruggling What kind of music do you like to play? What keyboard do you have?

Cheers:)ray

Just want to thank you both for explaining the difference between "fake notes" and conventional notes". I think this might be more an issue of looking at the conventional music and being seriously intimidated by all the extra stuff on it compared to the keyboard music books I'm used to playing. Thanks Ray for the suggestion of playing the conventional music like fake notes - so obvious yet it hadn't occurred to me.

The suggestion of reformatting using notation software seems a good one as well when I've got more time on my hands. I'll have a look into it. As for the keyboard it's a Yamaha PSRF50 61 key.
 
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Apologies for the repeating novicery on display here; but if their is two treble cleffs do you play the top treble cleff or the bottom treble cleff?
 
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Hi again.

The top trebble Clef is the melody line.

The trebble Clef below it is the accompanying line, if you look closely you will see that many of the notes are the same as the melody line but there are many more which provide embelishment to the melody.

I suggest you start simply playing the melody line and as your ability progresses then move over to the Accompanyment track, in part only, then build up to play more.

As your ability improves you will be able to play Accompanyment standard of play even if you only have the melody line.

Take it slowly and practice little and often.
 
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Have a look on Amazon at the Rolling Stone, 500 greatest songs of all time.

Plenty of books in the series and all classic songs.
 

SeaGtGruff

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That's an interesting question, and I hope you'll bear with me while I try to answer it. :)

Normally, if music is written with two or more staves, it's understood that each staff represents a different part-- i.e., different instruments (e.g., violin vs. trumpet), or perhaps different people playing the same type of instrument (e.g., 1st violin vs. 2nd violin).

When the music is for two or more different parts, the staves for the parts are joined together on the left with a straight line-- "|"-- so it's understood that they're meant to be played together at the same time.

In contrast, when the music has multiple staves that aren't joined together by a straight line, it's understood that they're played at different times-- normally one following the other, in sequence, like reading lines of text on a page. (However, special symbols or abbreviations might be used to indicate where they're to be played in some other order-- e.g., a repeated passage with two or more different endings, or that jumps to a coda the last time through, etc.

The first version you posted of "Take On Me" is an example of this-- there are multiple staves on the page, but none of them are joined together on the left by a straight line, so they represent the lines of a single part and are played one after the other in sequence.

On the other hand, if two staves are joined together on the left by a pointy bracket-- "{"-- it's understood that they represent a single part or instrument rather than two different parts. Usually the part is for a piano or other keyboard instrument that has a range of notes too wide to be comfortably written using just one staff. And usually (but not always) each staff represents a part played by a different hand-- i.e., the lower staff is for the left hand, and the upper staff is for the right hand. In that case the left-hand part is usually written with a bass clef, and the right-hand part with a treble clef, but this depends on the notes themselves. Sometimes a bass clef will appear in the right-hand part, or a treble clef in the left-hand part. And sometimes which hands are used to play the notes has nothing to do with the upper and lower staves per se-- e.g., if there's a run of notes that begins at the far left and goes up the keyboard to end at the far right, then the notes will probably have to be played by alternating hands-- left, right, left, right, etc.-- such that some of the notes in the lower staff must be played with the right hand, and some in the upper staff with the left hand.

The second version of "Take On Me" is an example of a more complex arrangement-- there are multiple staves on the page, but some of them are grouped together by a straight line, with multiple groupings on the page. So each grouping of staves represents parts played together at the same time, and each new occurrence of grouped staves indicates a continuation from the line immediately above. And to complicate matters, two of the three staves in each grouping are joined together by a pointy bracket. So even though there are three staves in each grouping, there are actually only two parts-- probably a keyboard part and a bass guitar part (judging by the clefs used). Of course, there are also chord names written between the lower staff of the keyboard part and the staff for the bass part, so you could say that the chord names are for a third part-- namely, the guitar. And there are also lyrics, which represent a vocal part. But the three staves in each group represent two parts, not three.

Whew! To get back to your question... Wait, what was your question again? (Just kidding!) When there are multiple staves, but either one person isn't meant to play all of them, or else you want to play the keyboard part but don't want to play both staves of that part, then you can decide which staff or staves you do want to play-- unless you're playing with other people, in which case each person will be assigned which staff or staves they're expected to play. But assuming you're playing by yourself, and are trying to decide which staff to play with your right hand (while your left hand plays chords), you might want to play the part that goes with the lyrics or main melody. That's assuming you aren't singing the lyrics while you play, because if you are singing then you might want to play some other part with your right hand. Unfortunately, sheet music like the second version of "Take On Me" can make that more complicated, because the upper staff of the keyboard part includes an instrumental part (e.g., the first three-and-a-half measures) mixed in with a vocal part, so what are you supposed to do then? In that case, you can play the introductory instrumental part, then jump to a different clef of your choice for your right hand while you sing the main melody-- e.g., maybe you could play chords with your right hand and play the bass guitar line with your left hand, or something like that. Basically, you're the performer, so you get to choose. :)

EDIT: I think Biggles answered while I was working on my "dissertation." ;)
 
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Rayblewit

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When I started to play keyboard, I shopped around for sheet music desperate to play some favourite tunes. The music shops and book shops had/have sheet music books which cost dearly. I bought many. Then I discovered op shops, thrift shops, second hand book shops and garage sales and market stalls selling used sheet music for low low prices. I have picked up some original sheets for just 50 cents with original price tickets stating $30 or $40.
Before I knew it I was addicted' to collecting music and it became a compulsive obsessive past time (and still is).
All of my music would stack up to be over 2 metres high.
Over the years I have given a lot away and I have sold some on ebay.
Some of it is complete albums (say The Beatles Let it Be) of which I might only want one or two songs from the album. So I would scan just the pages I want and print adding these to my play list folders. So the original remains gathering dust.
Anyway, I am prepared to share my music with my forum friends here and offer it to you. Any piece you may be seeking, I may have it. Ask me. I will happily send it to you for free in the mail. Just need to cover the postage cost is all I ask. Or I could email a scan of the pages. I really don't need any of it anymore since I have my play lists.
Most of my music is 30's through to 70's pop, rock, jazz, blues, swing and musicals. Post 80's music mostly does not exist in my lot.
Wife wants me to down size:eek:
Yeah right! . .still collecting lol :D:D:D
Ray.
 
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When I started to play keyboard, I shopped around for sheet music desperate to play some favourite tunes. The music shops and book shops had/have sheet music books which cost dearly. I bought many. Then I discovered op shops, thrift shops, second hand book shops and garage sales and market stalls selling used sheet music for low low prices. I have picked up some original sheets for just 50 cents with original price tickets stating $30 or $40.
Before I knew it I was addicted' to collecting music and it became a compulsive obsessive past time (and still is).
All of my music would stack up to be over 2 metres high.
Over the years I have given a lot away and I have sold some on ebay.
Some of it is complete albums (say The Beatles Let it Be) of which I might only want one or two songs from the album. So I would scan just the pages I want and print adding these to my play list folders. So the original remains gathering dust.
Anyway, I am prepared to share my music with my forum friends here and offer it to you. Any piece you may be seeking, I may have it. Ask me. I will happily send it to you for free in the mail. Just need to cover the postage cost is all I ask. Or I could email a scan of the pages. I really don't need any of it anymore since I have my play lists.
Most of my music is 30's through to 70's pop, rock, jazz, blues, swing and musicals. Post 80's music mostly does not exist in my lot.
Wife wants me to down size:eek:
Yeah right! . .still collecting lol :D:D:D
Ray.
Very generous Ray.

Wife wants you to downsize, ....... if my Wife starts to comment on my music collection I just smile and pick up one of her 3000 books.
;)
 
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The term “fake book” originally came from hand transcribed melodies and chords from jazz and dance band music. Each musician would come to a gig with a binder full of leaflet charts. This was called a “fake” book because the charts would only had the bare essentials: chords and melody, and then they would “fake” (improvise) everything else, as opposed to a conventional score, where all the individual notes and rhythms were laid out.

Buncha cats at Berklee combined all their classic charts into one compendium, called the Real Book (as a joke), and it was distributed freely (via xerox). Eventually, demand for the book became big enough to sell, but rights needed to be acquired, some of which couldn’t be, ans we’re dropped, and now it’s a multi-volume archive spanning many genres and styles. My jazz piano teacher when I was a kid had an original first gen, and I spent an afternoon down at the local copy shop snatching that shit. Still have it around, it’s worth more than gold.
 
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The separate volumes, however, didn’t come around until it was monetized and made legit. Prior to that it was just one big book (like about 2.5 inches thick, single-sided), with many different tunes. The original version was all jazz standards, no rock or pop, maybe a bit of 70s fusion, though it contained a few obscure things from the era it was made (Paul Winter’s “Icarus” appears here and nowhere else, one of my favorites growing up).

From what I could tell of the legit version is that it chose to incorporate some popular rock ballads that have crept into the gigging repertoire, a few Beatles tunes, probably some Simon & Garfunkel I would imagine. This does make some sense, as they’re likely popular requests.
 

happyrat1

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Well at the moment I am currently sucking up their bandwidth downloading the entire set :D :D :D

And the Beatles stole all their music from turn of the century love songs whose copyrights at the time had expired under old copyright laws.

At least that's the way I've heard it. I Wanna Hold Your Hand. Dear Prudence. Octopuses Garden. etc... All pilfered from unknown late 19th and early 20th century songwriters. :)

Gary ;)
 

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