Tips for Choosing Music to Play on Piano

Music works for a powerful emotional connection between you and the instrument you wish to learn or play. Each different type and style of music provokes different specific emotions within the player and creates a unique connection between player and his audience. Playing an instrument like piano is no different and thus to create that amazing real feeling, you must use music or tracks that has that real exciting thing. You can find various types of music in the form of books of songs or sheets from the music stores or over the internet but all of that music may not be the suitable one for your level.

So, here are some tips that would aid you in choosing the right music for you to play on piano:

Make Your Own:

Begin with making up your own small pieces to get your hands over piano. Slowly and gradually you will improvise over this on the spot playing and enjoying your own self.

Get Songbooks / Sheets:

To aid the process of learning, you will need some sheets and songbooks. These sheets and song books can be found online or can be bought from a store. Your tip here is to carefully and thoroughly examine these materials before buying. Getting a song or sheet music online is easy but usually the online free stuff is not as good as the one you buy. Online sheets are usually a sample of what the music would be like and it is because the companies do not want that material to be copied online. You will either be given choice of mail or download as you buy those sheets.

Explore a Library of Music:

Music is now readily available over many small and large scale music libraries where you can search for music from particular composers. You can visit these music libraries and filter search based on what interests you and what level of a piano player you are. These libraries even enable you to search music based on some particular criteria such as genres, scores, density, mood etc.

Consider your Segmented Market:

Speak the language your audiences understand in true terms. When you are choosing music to play for a particular audience, look for the demographics, culture and select something that would broadly appeal your target market. Play something that would make its way straight to their hearts.

Get Help from a Skilled Teacher:

Finding it difficult to choose a right set of songs for your skill level, seek help of a professional teacher. A teacher can actually be a great help in picking your repertoire. Only you and your teacher knows your skill level and if you are not sure, the second best person to refine and ease up the process of identifying music for you could be no other than your teacher. Learning a piece above your level would truly be an arduous process. If you take pieces above your level, you may take months to learn, practice and play. The right approach should rather be to learn many pieces of your level and then gradually building the level of your skill. 

Tips for Getting Right Songbooks: Selecting right songbooks is important. Here are some quick tips on how you can select some that you will be able to use for learning piano:

• Sharps/Flats in Songs: Explore the songbook to carefully examine songs. Look for sharps or flats in the songs. If a songbook has many black keys, it might have songs that are too difficult for your beginner level. If you have just started learning, you may want to avoid those sharps. Many beginners often find flat keys more manageable than sharp keys. So, keep that in mind.
• Chords: Next thing would be to look at the difficulty of chords. Simple triads are good to begin with but if the song book has many notes clustered in the form of chords on both hand sides; it may need a bit of more effort in order for you to learn it.
• Rhythms: Rhythms that are a combination of too many different values or dotted notes combined together would again be something that would take more time and effort for you to learn. Some simple note values are good to begin with and offers you more chances of success and motivation for playing this instrument. 

Additional Tips:

• Do not stockpile sheets or books with the idea that someday you will be able to play all of those as you practice and become a pro.Rather get the music material that you can use right away.
• Make sure the music you choose is the one you like too. If a piece lacks your interest and you don’t love it, your practice or performance would lack that passion and you may probably find it more difficult to play than it actually would be.
• Choose music that you can artistically relate too. If you can’t feel the music that you are playing, your practice/performance would sound impersonal and enforced.
• Playing safe is fine but in order to improve and display your skills, you should challenge yourself by trying to play pieces from different genres.
• Let the creative one within you to show-up and begin having fun with piano music. 

Conclusion:

No matter what kind of music you like or choose to play, the main idea is to push yourself and progress as a pianist. Each time try adding a new piece of music to your repertoire. These new challenges would not only make you a versatile pro pianist but would also keep the factor of enjoyment and excitement alive in your path of learning to play this instrument. You would and should wish to advance in playing piano but make sure that extended practicing and learning of complex music is at a level that you can handle without ending up being frustrated.