Piano

Yesterday, in Keyboard Skills Elective, we did this.

(beep) - What’s happening here might not be exactly what you think.

There are vocalists out there that will never ever give you a good performance in headphones, but even seasoned vocalists sometimes have a hard time matching the vibe and the performance of a relaxed studio environment with the monitors on.

Here are 10 chords for you to chew on, centered around the key of C until you’re ready to join a beat kitchen class.

Sometimes stereo is like an added byproduct of what you get when you use multiple microphones.

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(piano notes) You don’t need to know anything to get better at ear draining, and you can know a lot.

The color tones in a chord tend to be the ones that create a little friction.

How many musical keys are there?

As a sound source gets closer to any directional microphone, it doesn’t just get louder.

Do you think there’s a difference between a hook and a chorus?

This cable goes one way.

So why can’t you use a guitar tuner on a piano?

I would argue that sampling has changed our modern conception of harmony and here’s why.

Hey everyone, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.

Is there a difference between a Bb and an A#?

They’re going to tell you that this is not a minor chord.

Some people don’t like getting syrup on their bacon.

Major, minor, or diminished.

I’m going to show you a really rare chord progression.

It doesn’t matter what your jam is, even if you’re in a math rock, what moves you isn’t numbers, it’s music.

Let me simplify chords for you a little bit by telling you that on the piano there are only four augmented chords.

Today I’m gonna tune this monster.

If this is a fifth, what’s so perfect about it anyway?

Another useful chord progression to put under your fingers — a common keyboard trope built on the 6/3 church resolution.

I favor chord thinking over key thinking, and here’s what I mean.

The most valuable piano voicing you can learn — a 6/4 inversion straight out of Miles Davis that exerts maximum force for minimum energy.

We see both experienced and beginner producers at Bee Kitchen.

Thoughts on playing wide intervals on piano, plus a couple exercises from physical therapy for extending your reach.

Getting comfortable with keyboard chords means getting comfortable with inversions.

This is the simplest of riffs, but if you put it under your fingers on a little teeny tiny keyboard, it will be more useful than you can possibly imagine.

This may sound boring, but this sounds a lot more exciting.

You may have heard of the four chord progression, but think of it more like a family of chord conversions, one of which you may actually know really, really well.

When you’re playing on all white keys and you skip a note, you’re playing a third.

If you’re unfamiliar with the keyboard, this is about to be the best and the worst lesson you’ll ever get.

How do you actually know what key something’s in?

Easiest way to start to understand tuning is to begin with the idea of a unison.

Do you ever get confused about major or minor chords?

If you’re starting to make your own music, there will come a time when you find yourself scratching your head looking at a bunch of notes and asking what chord is this?

We think of scales as being linear, but a scale exists within the boundary of an octave, at which point it just repeats.

So one breakthrough that I had when I was learning how to do all of this, I think it’s very easy to forget about velocity when you’re putting stuff into a piano roll.

There are 12 keys. Does it matter which one you pick? As musicians, we’re taught early and often that we should be proficient in all keys and while that’s true,…

Is the circle of fifths overrated?

No matter what your beliefs, the way the universe sometimes lines up is so mind-bogglingly inspiring.

Real piano. Sample piano. Oh boy. Gone are the days when piano in a can sounded like this. There are lots of great options these days and if you’re expecting…

If you’re starting to make your own music, there will come a time when you find yourself scratching your head looking at a bunch of notes and asking what chord is this?

Coming up with a good chord progression can be challenging, but it doesn’t really have to be.

Three steps to identifying a chord.

Reverb. I am brimming with things that I want to say about reverb. There’s no way I can put this into 60 seconds, but effects mixing and synthesis starts next…

It doesn’t matter what your jam is, even if you’re in a math rock, what moves you isn’t numbers, it’s music.

The topics in this 10-minute video include the harmonic series and the physical nature of sound.

There’s nothing more fun than walking our students through the songs they love.

With or without an audio degree, you wouldn’t be the first musician to come to me, never having been told what key tracking is and what it’s for.

These two passages are indeed different and then stumped my ear training group in gym.

This old relic, this is your grandma’s motorized fader.

Michael Jackson’s Rock with You.

Sometimes the name of a thing will tell you what’s inside of it.

Do someone the great kindness of putting this little riff under their fingers.

After attempting loads of mouthcam videos, it was suggested to me that Jacob Collier is shooting keyboard videos wearing a hoodie turned around with the camera in the hood.

So basically the way our classes work, we try and get you in and out of a DAW class as soon as humanly possible because we want to get to the fun stuff, the interesting stuff.

What do I need to tune my own piano?

The relationship between cents and hertz — how to convert between them and why pitch works logarithmically.

Learn essential chord progressions: A minor, E7, and B half diminished. Master the flat nine color tone and efficient chord transitions using minimal finger movement for better harmony.

How many chords do you know?

Today I got diagnosed with something called "dupertrans disease".

Learn the difference between sharps and flats in music theory. Understand how accidentals work, key signatures, and why A# and Bb are functionally different in musical context.

Complete guide to recording grand pianos: from the 'missionary position' to ORTF arrays, boundary mics, and advanced multi-mic techniques for capturing the perfect piano sound.

Complete guide to recording upright pianos: microphone placement techniques, removing panels for better access, dealing with player noise, and miking from behind the instrument.

I’ve gotten some interesting questions people asking me to clarify what do I mean by an arrangement?

Unison, temperament, stretch.

So here’s the riff. What we’re seeing here is this shape, which is a weird chord because it’s kind of like an A, like a 2, but I’m playing this…

I shared a toolkit with you yesterday.

If you’re writing lyrics and melodies and having trouble setting them to chords, this video is for you.

Whoever told you you can sample five seconds of a song and not have to get clearance is conflating that with one of two legal concepts the first being fair use and the second being incidental use Incident use is easy if I’m doing a documentary and that guy drives by blasting a song out of his window I don’t have to pay for it.

Three steps to identifying a chord.

So the challenge is to make something every day and not worry how it comes out.

Creative vocal recording techniques for Jill Cunniff's 'Eye Candy': blending vintage and modern mics, piano cavity recording, and unique processing for otherworldly vocal textures.

What’s your first upgrade or purchase once you’ve set up the bare bones minimum for your studio?