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FREE PIANO LESSONS ONLINE |
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‘MARIAAN’ Piano Solo Playing a melody plus its own full, satisfying chord accompaniment is THE benchmark achievement for the modern-styles keyboard player. ‘Mariaan’ builds just such a performance, step by step – and with no-one left behind! Guaranteed to expand your creative horizons every time you sit down to work at it! |
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Here’s ‘Mariaan’ on YouTube.
The ‘Mariaan’ digital home study pack builds your performance of this lovely solo with written music and audio and virtual-keyboard performance files for every step along the way. Everything you need to get a complete performance into your repertoire – and pave the way for future hours of creative keyboard pleasure!
For more extended‘riff approach to music theory’ work-books, check out the Musicarta Key Chords, canon Project and Pyramids Variations ‘Find out more’ links in the right hand column, and read the descriptions below.
Musicarta Key Chords Volume 1
The third Musicarta keyboard creativity home study download – Musicarta Key Chords Volume 1 is now available.
‘Key Chords’ aims to make playing chords as easy and natural for the keyboard player as it is for the popular styles guitarist. It tells you which chords go together, and why – the six chords you can make out of the notes of a major scale. It tells you which of these chords you should learn first – the ‘Big Three’ (I, IV and V) major chords plus your ‘first choice’ minor vi (Six) chord, and it shows you the best way to learn them – step by step, in respectably groovy practice riffs!
The download consists of a 150-page illustration-rich PDF, all accompanying audio and MIDI files, the MidiPiano virtual keyboard app (Windows version) to play the MIDI files, drum backing tracks and a folder of relevant flashcards.
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Buy the
KEY CHORDS digital download NOW for only $14.95! 
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Click through to the Musicarta Key Chords Volume 1 home page to learn more, and check out the Mister Musicarta YouTube channel for relevant videos.
The Musicarta Canon Project
Pachelbel’s Canon in D major is the ideal place to start learning about chords and how to play a chord sequence - and a great introduction to the Musicarta way of doing things! The Canon's simple key chords repeat predictably under melodic figures, providing ideal material for learning about harmony, melody writing and improvisation.
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“Thanks for a great site! I've been working through the Canon project at my own pace. The material is superb and I appreciate the obvious time and skill that you've brought to it.”
David Goodwin, Ardross, Australia.
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Familiar and delightful, the Canon chord sequence forms the basis of numerous other pieces of popular music, and you will be able to apply the keyboard skills and theory learnt in this series of lessons to lots of other chord sequences going forward.
Studying the Canon also provides a good opportunity to develop your musical ear. Module material coaches your recognition of the Canon chords, and, with practice, you will find yourself being able to tell just by listening what chords are being used in lots of mainstream popular music.
...with MIDI support!
Like most Musicarta material, the Canon Project comes with full MIDI support. All the musical examples in the Canon Project have accompanying MIDI files as well as audio, so if you download MidiPiano, you can see-and-hear what to play and learn even if you can't read music AT ALL!
Here's a demo:
Of course, there's no delay waiting for the MIDI file to load or buffer! MIDI files are tiny - and so is MidiPiano. Learn more about MidiPiano on the Musicarta MidiPiano page - it's totally free!
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“Just wanted to thank you for this rich and beautiful website! It was so hard for me to find good, accessible online help and the place that you have created here is, in my opinion, simple and perfect. Thank you!”
Norbert, Warsaw, Poland
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The Enya mini-series
Enya's easy piano style and haunting Celtic melodies are a gift to the 'New Age' piano soloist. Her standard keyboard texture is simplicity itself. Click through to the Enya one-page mini-series here to catch up on it and watch the MisterMusicarta YouTube videos – you can’t fail to master these sweet, winning gems in no time at all!
Blues and 12-bar piano styles
The 12-bar blues form, in all its many guises, is one of music’s best-loved meeting places. It has practically universal appeal, and there’s hardly a pop/rock/jazz musician who can’t play along, or doesn’t wish they could!
The ’12-bar’, with its simplicity of form and driving rhythm, is an ideal musical training ground and a great warm-up for any combo music-making. The Musicarta Blues Piano Lessons series kicks off with an irresistible and familiar riff – click right through and see if you don’t recognise it straight away!
Stay tuned!
In a hurry? Stay up to date with Musicarta’s ongoing roll-out by bookmarking the Musicarta blog page now and checking in regularly, or get the RSS feed (orange button, below the navbar, left) for no-hassle updates. (Not sure about RSS? Click here for a short explanation.)
You can also search the site (there’s an index on the Search page as well), or listen to the sample audio files in the Musicarta audio Table of Contents and see if there’s something there you’d like to play.
Now with MIDI support!
As well as audio clips of the performances and thousands of helpful diagrams, you can also download free MIDI files of the Musicarta learning material and play them on MidiPiano, Musicarta's recommended 'virtual keyboard' (or similar MIDI application).
MidiPiano gives you a visual display of the music as it plays with a ‘piano roll’ representation and lighting-up keys on a virtual keyboard - watch the video demonstration above.
Full instructions for downloading and using MidiPiano and Musicarta MIDI files are available on Musicarta’s
You can download Musicarta MIDI files via the
MIDI support is currently available for:
- The Pyramids Variations, Lessons One to Nine,
- The Musicarta Canon Project,
- The Canon Project Transposing mini-series,
- The Seventh Chords drill.
- The Yann Tierseen Comptine improvisation mini-series, and
- The Enya mini-series
- The Moving Pair 12-bar blues riff.
See the relevant sections below for details and links. Bookmark and visit the Musicarta home page regularly for roll-out updates.
The Pyramids Variations
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"I started learning the piano about a year ago. I started three courses. The first one was an internet course, but playing "Rain, Rain, Go Away" is no fun for a man of 65. The second one made my right shoulder ache (it still does sometime). The third one was good but practicing was still boring. Your Pyramids Variations is different. I can practice until I’m tired and still enjoy it, and I hum it all day instead of old rock'n'roll tunes. So – thank you!"
Gideon, Netanya, Israel
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And don’t despair if you’re a complete keyboard beginner. All Musicarta material is explained in words and diagrams, audio and MIDI clips as well as written-out music manuscript .
The Pyramids Variations actually coaches you, step by step, all the way to an impressive ‘concert performance’, so you don’t actually have to read music to make real progress.
...with MIDI support!
The Pyramids Variations now has accompanying MIDI clips for download so you can actually see all the musical examples playing on MidiPiano or your favourite MIDI application.
...and there's more!
The audio performance files of a third 'Variations' section of the Pyramids Variations are now available. Develop your keyboard and improvisation skills by giving the familiar Pyramids chord sequence a number of different treatments.
Listen to these audio files on the Pyramids Variations 'Continuation Page', and see if you can rise to the challenge of 'playing it by ear'!
Chords, Chords, Chords!
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"Thank you for your excellent website. Actually I hate music theory because it’s boring and hard and I don’t have enough time. I found your website good for me and other people that music theory scares. It has increased my self-confidence and now I use sheet music - a thing that always scared me."
Mohammad, Tehran, Iran
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...and Seventh Chords too...
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“Thanks! I have made the three copies of your ‘Visual Glossary of Major and Minor Triads and Inversions’ for our organ and piano players to play chords with me when I play my guitar for service in church.”
Keith, Owosso, United States
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Pentatonic Scales
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"I’m a one-year beginner and at 56 I'd rather play Pink Floyd than Bach. I’ve been looking for some scale fingering information for pentatonic scales for days and found your site this morning. I'm quite impressed. Thank you for making music education accessible – and free!"
John, Montreal, Canada
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Beat and Rhythm
“It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing!” Well-developed beat and rhythm skills are an essential qualification for the modern keyboard player. Syncopated hand and finger patterning generates great riffs from even the simplest material. Get started right away with the step-by-step Syncopation and Anticipation exercises. And don’t leave the development of your natural rhythm skills to chance. Musicarta’s series of graded tapping exercises will put your inner drummer on a body-building diet and deliver speedy benefits.
| Click through here to the Beat and Rhythm home page to access these vital sessions. | Click here to listen to a simple exercise for learning essentials of playing off the beat. |
Yann Tiersen's Comptine
Jann Tiersen’s ‘Comptine’ has become a much-loved classic of its type. It’s within most players’ reach and offers many opportunities for variation and improvisation. Musicarta’s ‘Comptine’ improvisation mini-series shows you how to practice and master this little gem, which should have a permanent place in your repertoire.
| Click through here to get started with Musicarta’s free ‘Comptine’ improvisation mini-series. | Click here to listen to some of the audio clips which will coach you to performance perfection. |
...now with MIDI support!
Musicarta's Comptine improvisation mini-series now has accompanying MIDI clips for you to download. Now you can see-and-hear the musical examples and improvisations playing on MidiPiano or your favourite MIDI application, and double your progress.
Musical Modes
The modes offer the modern popular musician an easy-to-handle alternative to conventional major/minor harmony. Some truly classic popular music chord sequences are drawn from the modal chord families. The Musicarta Musical Modes series puts compelling modal chord changes under your fingertips in minutes. An optional theoretical background module opens the series – but you can skip straight through to the riffs if you want.
| Click through here to start getting to know your musical modes. | Click here to listen to a selection of the riffs you’ll learn in Modes series keyboard riffs. |
Sounds - TOC
‘Sounds’ is Musicarta’s audio table of contents. Here, you can easily get a flavour of the various sections and hear the performances the individual lessons build up to. The ideal way to pick your entry level! Click through here.
Sources
‘Sources’ is Musicarta’s ultra-selective links page. It hosts links through to other musical glossaries - for further research; to similar online piano lessons sites – in case you’re not finding what you need at Musicarta; to legitimate sources of piano sheet music, and to a small but growing selection of digital music resources. Click through here.
Site Map
If you know where on the site you want to be, the site map offers the conventional collection of direct page links.
So, welcome to Musicarta! Please stay and browse the pages via the links at the end of each explanation paragraph or using the navbar tabs on the left. Bookmark us and come back regularly to see what's new - you're sure to find something among the many free piano lessons on offer to get your creative juices flowing!
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Get an overview of Musicarta in manageable monthly slices – and keep up to date with new postings.
Read all about it on the Musicarta Newsletter page. The Musicarta News - regular encouragement to learn and progress! Or – get the Musicarta RSS feed. [What’s that?] |
Thanks for visiting MUSICARTA! Come again soon!
PUBLICATIONS Exciting digital
home study packs!
‘MARIAAN’
Piano Solo
