Piano lessons for adults

Everyone can compose sheet music! You have to start where you are and anyone can do that. You can create your own compositions for piano! Let’s see why you should!
Where can you start?
Maybe you find it difficult to notate sheet music. Well, you don’t have to notate your music. You can record the things you do with a digital recording equipment, maybe your computer or a tape recorder.
But if you want to use sheet music? What can you do?
Let me suggest that you start by writing for piano beginners. Sheet music for piano beginners have to be very simple. Few notes and very easy rhythms. This is the place where you fit in!
If you start to write piano sheet music for beginners in progressive order you will also learn to write sheet music in progressive order. Smart idea, isn’t it!
But…, what benefits are there in writing and composing piano sheet music for your own piano playing?
Here are some of my own thoughts:
1. You own endeavors to create piano compositions will make you more aware of other composers music. Questions will arise in your mind on how to notate the things in your mind and how to arrange and so on. These questions will be in your mind and make you more aware of how other composers have written and notated their music.
You will probably look at other composers musical notation with fresh eyes trying to learn how professional composers write.
2. As you compose you will become more and more sensitive to intrinsic musical subtleties in your own music as well as in other composers music.
3. Gradually you will start to think and feel more like a composer. This will help you become a better performer as well. You will respect other composers music more, trying to convey their hearts intent to your public.
4. As you train your creative muscles by composing they will also help you as you perform piano music. Both performing and composing are creative processes requiring your heart.
5. You will become a better sight reader by composing piano sheet music. Many years ago I had an assignment to write sheet music to a musical. I encountered not a few notational problems. Problems I had not as yet solved for myself.
Afterwards I started to play piano sheet music again. To my astonishment I realized I had developed as a sight reader.
My own conclusion was that my concentrated efforts to notate my piano compositions also was a course in sight reading.
I realized I had experienced a reversed sight reading exercise by composing music with my fingers on the piano keyboard and then trying to notate the music on manuscript paper.
Do you have to buy manuscript paper?
Well, no! To notate sheet music does not need to be expensive. You can use an ordinary pencil and ordinary white paper. Sometimes I use this equipment when I have nothing else at hand. I write five lines, one bar at a time, as I compose. It works!
The musical ideas I jot down this way I can easily work more with in my notational software program on my computer later on.
To compose and write piano sheet music can be a part of your daily piano practice. Spending half an hour with piano composing, making your own piano exercices and more can increase your awareness of music and help you become a better pianist and musician.

In this lesson you will learn to play the melody to a popular Christmas song without the use of sheet music. You will also learn to play three easy chords together with the melody. Let us start!
O Christmas Tree is a Christmas carol of German origin. O Tannenbaum is its original name in German.
A Tannenbaum is German for a fir tree or Christmas tree. The melody to this Christmas song is an old folk tune and the best known lyrics comes from a Leipzig organist and teacher named Ernst Anschutz in 1824.
Here is the first verse in the English version:
O Christmas Tree O, Christmas Tree
Your branches green delight us!
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree
Your branches green delight us!
They’re green when summer days are bright
They’re green when winter snow is white
O, Christmas Tree, O, Christmas Tree
Your branches green delight us!
The first thing we will do is to locate the middle C on your keyboard. On an ordinary piano keyboard it is located in the middle of the keyboard sometimes near the keyhole if there is one.
On a common piano keyboard you will find that the notes C-B are repeated along the keys. One such row of notes are called an octave and since the middle C is located in the fourth octave on an piano it is sometimes called C4.
Even if your keyboard is smaller with less octaves middle C is still called C4.
We will now take a look at the melody to O Christmas Tree and the chords you can play with your left hand. We will begin with the melody together with the lyrics:
O (F)Christmas Tree O, Christmas Tree
C4 (F)F4 F4 F4 G4 G4 G4 G4
The (F) in the lyrics and melody indicate that you shall play an F-major chord with your left hand together with the note after the chord. How then do you play an F-major chord?
There are many ways to play an F chord but here is an easy example for your left hand:
F: C3 F3 A3
C3 means that you play a C in the octave to the left of the C4. Play the three notes in the chord together as you play the following right hand note.
Time for the next line:
Your (C7)branches green de(F)light us
A4 (C7)G4 A4 Bb4 E4 (C)G4 F4
The note Bb is the black key immediately to the left of B.
As you can see it is time for a new chord, C7. Here is a suggestion for that piano chord:
C7: C3 E3 Bb3
Now you have to repeat the previous lines before we proceed with the next part:
They’re (F)green when summer (C7)days are bright
C5 (F)C5 A4 D5 C5 (C7)C5 Bb4 Bb4
C5 is the C in the octave to the right of C4.
Time for the next line:
They’re (C7)green when winter (F)snow is white
Bb4 (C7)Bb4 G4 C5 Bb4 (F)Bb4 A4 A4
Now we only have to repeat the first two lines and we are done!
O (F)Christmas Tree O, Christmas Tree
C4 (F)F4 F4 F4 G4 G4 G4 G4
Your (C7)branches green de(F)light us
A4 (C7)G4 A4 Bb4 E4 (C)G4 F4
I suggest that you learn this little song by heart one line at a time. Practice every line first with your right hand melody until you master it. Then it is time to add your left hand chords. When you know a line by heart with melody and chords it is time to proceed with the next line.
Before you know it you have completed the song and can contribute to the Christmas spirit in a new setting!

Rocket Piano was created by Ruth Searle, and is designed to be the easiest way ever to learn the piano. You can order it via mail and get seven piano books and a number of DVDs and CDs, or you can buy the downloadable ebook version.

The DVDs contain video demonstrations, teaching you to use the hand positions, piano fingering system and reading sheet music.

Before you buy, you can get a FREE sample of the lessons.

• You Will Learn To Play Extremely Well In A Very Short Amount Of Time!• 100% Money Back Satisfaction Guarantee. Try It For Free For 60 Days!• 218 Step By Step Lessons. • 57 Video Lessons. Just Like Having Your Own Private Piano Teacher.• 133 Audio Files To Help You Learn By Listening.• Perfect For Those Who Use A Piano Or A Keyboard.• Free Bonus Software Including “Perfect Your Pitch Pro” For Ear Training.

• 100% Money Back Guarantee. • Learn To Play From Piano Playing Master Ron Worthy!• Customer Testimonials So You Know It Will Work For You.• Lifetime Membership To Digital Sheet Music. • Includes Video Lessons And A 36 Chapter Piano Playing Guide.• Free Bonus: Karaoke Piano. The Keys You Should Play Light Up!

• Practice Only 10 Minutes A Day Using A “Special Trick.”• The “Special Trick” Can Have Y ou Sounding Better Than 99% Of Players.• 100% Money Back Guarantee. If It Doesn’t Work For You. Get A Full Refund.• Learn How To Solo Like A Piano Master.• Learn How To Play Any Genre Of Music.• Learn How To Become A Master Improvisional Pianist.• Free Bonuses Including “Secrets To Explosiving Songwriting!”

The abiltity to improvise is within the reach of everyone who wants to develop this skill. You can start to improvise in a way that will give you and others the benefits from this art. Let’s see what good improvisational skills involve!
What is improvisation?
Many people have the notion that improvisation is the ability to create something out of nothing. Well, you can improvise in a kitchen too. Creating a fantastic dinner out of the things you can find around.
However, note that there has to be some sort of material to use, like a potato or a carrot hanging around. I haven’t heard of a chief creating a dinner out of nothing yet.
Let’s apply this principle in your piano playing! Here are the two ingredients that will create and make your improvisations into something worth listening too, in other words, music:
1. Your ability to find the notes you want to play on your piano.
2. Phrases, scales and fragments of melodies that you have memorized in your mind or in your fingers that can be reused and changed to create new music.
3. The ability to compose music out of the before mentioned assets.
I would like to start with the third asset. The ability to compose music out of the material you have at your disposal is the most important skill. You can actually use just a few notes in order to create something musically worthwhile.
Some pianists or other instrumentalists can have the ability to play a lot of patterns, scales and licks at a tremendous speed but this doesn’t secure that they can create music from this material.
I think that it is a good thing to only use a sparse amount of notes in order to develop the skill to actually compose music as you improvise. Like some good blues guitarists do. Take B.B. King for example, messing around with just one note at times!
Here is a first example for you to use as a beginning of your improvisational endeavors.
You will play a C-major chord in your left hand. It can consist of three keys pressed down as you probably already know:
C-major: C3 E3 G3
The numbers indicate that you play the notes in the third octave, that is, the octave to the left of middle C. Now I will give you a sparse amount of notes to use to create a “dinner” worth eating, that is, worth listening to.
Notes to use: C4 D4 E4
Now it’s time to improvise, or rather, compose!
Press down the C-major chord with your left hand and try to come up with nice melodies just using the three melody notes in your right hand. What can you do to create variation with just these three notes?
1. Vary the order of the notes.
2. Vary the length of the notes.
3. Vary how hard you press down the notes.
4. Use other means that you will find out as you play.
You can develop this exercise by moving the chord and melody notes up one step resulting in a new chord and new notes to improvise upon:
D-minor: D3 F3 G3 Notes to use: D4 E4 F4
I will give you one more position one step up:
E-minor: E3 G3 B3 Notes to use: E4 F4 G4
You can try playing these three chords improvising a while on each step with the following order of the chords:
C Dm Em Dm C
Yes, this is a kind of Genesis for your improvisational skills as this easy exercise will force you to actually compose music and not only rely on flashy complicated scales, patterns or licks that might hide the lack of music in the improvisational efforts.
I would suggest that you work both on learning scales, patterns and licks and on the even more important art of composing music out of very easy melody fragments so that you will develop into a better musician.

A fake book can be a source of many inspiring piano exercises. It contains a lot of melodies written in a concise format that includes only the melody and chord names. Let us take a look at how you can use these melodies to become a better pianist!
First of all we will take a look at how melodies are notated in a fake book. Usually you will find the melody of a song in sheet music notation together with chord suggestions above the notes. This economical way of notating makes it possible to fill a fake book with a lot of melodies.
The advantage of this way of notating melodies is that you can have a fake book as a reference book with a lot of melodies at your disposal.
The drawback is that you do not have a written out arrangement of the song for piano. You have to figure out how to play the song by yourself. Actually this can be an advantage that will help you develop as a pianist letting you interpret the song’s performance as you feel is appropriate.
One little melody in a fake book can give you many exercises in different areas of your piano playing and help you in your development as a musician. Here are a few examples:
1. Learn to play chords together with a melody. For example, play chords with your left hand and melody with your right hand, play bass notes with your left hand and combine melody and chord notes with your right hand, play various combinations of bass notes, chord notes and melody notes with both hands.
2. Learn to find the right chords to use when playing a melody. In a fake book you will find chord suggestions that can easily be supplemented with more chords making the voicings and chord progressions more exciting.
3. Learn to improvise by using the melody as a starting point. This is often called melodic improvisation. You can also use the chords or the fitting scales as a foundation for your improvisation. This is called chordal improvisation and scale improvisation.
4. Learn to play the songs in the piano fake book in different keys thus developing your ability to play by ear and understand the piano keyboard by transposing songs you have learned.
Actually you can use a song in a fake book as the basis for your development as a pianist if your goal is to be a good piano player in the area of improvised piano music.
Let us take an example from a fake book. You have a song of your choice in front of you with melody, chord suggestions and nothing more. What can you do to use this song as a starting point for a piano practice session?
We suppose that the song starts with the chord C-major and then in the next bar you will find the chord F-major. Here are some suggestions on what to practice drawn from these two bars of music.
1. Work on chord voicings. Practice playing C-major triads with your left hand in the three inversions. That means that you play the chord C-major with the three notes involved, C, E and G, in three combinations, that is, CEG, EGC or GCE. Do the same with the chord F-major. Practice also to move from C to F in various combinations.
2. Work on playing the melody in different ways. Single right hand notes, playing right hand octaves, playing the melody with your left hand and chords with your right hand and more.
3. Work on adding more chords. For example, taking the C-chord to F could go via Gm7 and C7 thus creating the following chord sequence, C, Gm7, C7, F. Much can be done to spice the song by adding more chords to the ones in the fake book.
4. Add notes to the chords you use in your song. A C-major chord can easily be substituted with a Cmaj7 chord or a Cmaj9 and you can find more interesting chords if you focus on one chord at a time. Of course you can work on playing these new chords in different combinations and inversions too.
5. Use the song as a foundation for improvisation. Learn a melody passage by heart. Play this passage over and over again with small changes in the melody thus practicing melodic improvisation. Or use the chords. The chord C-major suggests two major scales to use when improvising. You can use a C-major scale or a C-major pentatonic scale for example.
To sum up you can use one single song in a fake book as the basis for piano exercises in many areas of your development as a pianist and at the same time you build up a repertoire with popular melodies for your own benefit and the enjoyment of other people.

Can your practice to become a better performer? What then can be practiced? Let us see what you can do to feel at ease when someone asks you to play the piano!
How to practice performing
In order to learn to play the piano in front of an audience it is a good thing to practice the different aspects of making a successful piano performance. A piano performance consists of playing a piece of music in a musical way without mistakes, and if mistakes occur to minimize the effects of these mistakes. It also concists of meeting an audience and enjoying the experience of seeing real people looking at you and hearing you play.
1. A musical performance. In order to perform a piece of piano music in a musical way it is a good thing to practice this way in the initial steps of the learning process. Probably you will need to practice a difficult piano piece step by step. Let all these musical passages be played and repeated the same musical way you want them to be performed once you have mastered the piano piece.
2. Avoiding mistakes. Of course you want to play the music you practice without mistakes when you will end up playing in front of an audience. I strongly urge you to play the passages of the musical piece you practice with much concentration, focusing on small segments of the piece at a time and very slowly at first avoiding to make mistakes. The more mistakes you make as you practice a piece of music, the more mistakes you tend to make as you perform.
3. Minimize the effects of a mistake. In order to feel confident once you are on stage you need to know that you can handle a mistake. This makes for another way of practicing that is aimed at making you prepared to perform. This way of practicing consists of playing a piece of music from beginning to end as you would perform it in front of an audience. This could be a good way to end a practice session as you play throught the passages you have mastered.
4. Practice performing. In order to minimize stage fright and feeling inadequate when it comes to the actual performance in front of an audience you can do much to simulate the various aspects of a piano performance. If you know how to handle the steps of a performance beforehand you can better concentrate on making a musical performance.
If you do not want to involve too many people you can anyway practice the art of performing in the comfort of your own home. You might as well enter the room where you are going to play your piano the way you would enter a stage in front of an audience thinking about your facial expressions and your relaxation. Practice the way you will react seeing the people, hearing the applauses and cheerings. Learn to relax, smile, bow in front of the public and sit down at the piano and then concentrate completely on giving the audience a great musical experience.
As you start to play the piece of music, try to focus entirely on creating great music. If you make a mistake, try to keep up the tempo and play on with no facial expression revealing the mistake and enforcing the effects of it. You could play for an audience consisting of one person, a teddy bear or some sort of recording equipment to create an inspiring and a challenging environment. As you have completed your performance you can practice meeting the audience, smiling, bowing, showing gratitude for their reactions and finally leave the room in a appropriate manner.
The important thing with these exercises is that you can simulate the actual situation of playing in front of real people and have a feeling that you know how to react to the challenge of meeting real people.

Have you ever thought about practicing in order to prepare to play in front of other people. What would you practice if you knew that you would play piano to an audience? Let us take a look at the people oriented way of practicing on your piano!
What will constitute a pleasant and musical experience when you hear a pianist play? The outcome probably depends on the person you ask but personally I think that these things at least influence my feelings:
1. The musical content of the performance. The way the pianist conveys the composer’s and his own feelings in the piece of music.
2. The agility of the performer. Is the pianist playing with ease showing that he or she has mastered the piece of music and can convey self confidence that makes me feel at ease.
3. The facial expression of the performer. Is he happy, tense, enjoying his playing?
4. Is the performer relaxed? If he is tense I will probably not be able to relax and will not be enjoying the performance the way I could have.
If you want to become a pianist that performs piano music in a musical way, that plays with agility and self confidence, that can smile or express feelings with facial expressions and relax while performing at peak level you also know how to practice.
Here are some tips to help you become a better piano performer:
Build a small or big repertoire with piano pieces that you are prepared to play in front of other people. The amount of pieces in your repertoire depends on the practice time at your disposal. The important thing is to really commit the pieces you choose to your long term memory.
As you practice the musical passages of a piece of music remember to practice the way you would like to play the piece in front of an audience. This means:
1. Create music as you practice. To convey the composers musical ideas in your playing is not something that should be spared until you perform the piece in front of an audience. As you practice the various musical passages that will eventually become a piece of music that you have mastered it is a good thing to practice both to play the notes accurately but also to practice the musical interpretation. Everything you practice or not practice will have an impact on your actual public performance.
2. Relax as you play. It is not easy to relax in front of other people as you are trying to play a piece of music if you have not practiced the piano composition in this manner. The art of relaxing your body is something you also can practice away from the piano. When you practice your piece of piano music at the initial stages it is important to play slowly enough to have control of the tension level in your hands, arms and the rest of your body.
3. Enjoy you playing and let your face enforce the music. Hopefully you have positive feelings towards the music you play, otherwise it might be a good idea to choose other music to play, if you have the option, that will give you a fair chance to play with a positive attitude. In a performing situation your facial expressions will influence the listening experience for the audience. This makes for involving you facial expressions in your piano practicing sessions as well.
The conclusion is that things connected with your piano practicing probably will be evoked as you play in front of an audience. You can use your piano practice sessions to practice joy, self confidence, relaxation and a happy face at the same time as you practice becoming a great pianist!

Performing your piano music can actually be a great way to develop as a pianist. By uplifting others by your music you will at the same time make your practice sessions more effective! You will also allow yourself to play at your peak level!
Many pianists will experience this scenario:
Somebody comes to you at a party or at some other occasion with a lot of people, knowing that you are a pianist, asking you to play something nice for the people around. At this point you feel uncomfortable because you do not have anything to play or the music you possibly could have played will not show you at your peak level. This does not mean that you are a poor player. It just means that you at the present time do not have anything you feel proud to play for other people.
At this point you will excuse yourself and say that you maybe will play some other time. At the same time you feel bad because you actually could have contributed to the party if you only had focused on performing as you practiced at home.
You maybe have practiced on many various things, using scales, chords, messing around on the piano and playing pieces you have practiced before. But, you forgot to actually focus on the people out there waiting for your music to be heard.
The problem is as follows:
1. Nothing to play when people want to hear you play.
2. You are losing motivation to practice because you never use what you practice among people.
3. Your piano practice sessions are unfocused as you do not know what to practice and how to use what you learn.
One solution is to focus your piano practicing sessions on a repertoire with piano music you yourself like to play and see to it that you always are prepared to play at your peak level. Seeing that other people are actually enjoying your playing will increase your motivation to practice and help you master your musical homework.
Let us see what you can do:
1. Building a repertoire. Decide which ones of the piano pieces you have practiced that deserve to be included in your piano repertoire of piano music that you will take time to keep fresh by regular practice and repetition. I think it is not wrong to be a bit affable in this area. Try to include the piano pieces that many people want to hear and learn to play them the way they should be played, that is, correctly and in a musical way. Do not think it is like playing to the gallery as long as you have decided that the music is worth listening to and that you play the music with feeling and concentration.
2. Compose a program with piano music that you will play if someone asks you to play. This program can consist of three pieces of music or more that you want to focus on. Pieces you know people usually enjoy listening to and that you enjoy playing. You can start this program with a piece of music that do not put too much demand on your finger dexterity as you will not have time to practice warm up exercises if someone asks you to play. This way of creating a program is in line with the slogan to always be prepared.
It is a satisfying feeling to really be prepared to play when someone asks you and also knowing that you can play something that you have practiced well enough to be able to play at the top of your ability. Peoples opinion of you as a pianist will be more positive as they only will hear you play like any serious artist would, the things you know you have mastered.
3. As you practice these pieces of piano music you will undoubtly come across musical passages that are so difficult to play that you need to make a decision. Either you will skip this piece of music entirely for the time being and choose a piece of music that are at your present technical level or else you have to work on your technique in order to play the music correctly.
In this case you have to focus on the exact problem you have with the musical passage and decide which area of your technique that has to be improved in order for you to play the passage correctly and with confidence. This way of practicing technical exercises will feel meaningful as they are connected with your repertoire. You know why you use these exercices and you will be able to measure the effectiveness of them by the way they help you improve the performance of the musical passages that motivated you to use these exercises and work on your technique in the first place.

How can you create and keep your motivation to play the piano? In other words, how can you increase and keep the joy of playing the piano? The cause that made you start playing in the first place!

1. Before setting goals

Sometimes the reason why we don’t keep our piano playing goals is that we haven’t been honest with ourselves when we set the goals. Before setting the your goals you have to decide why you want to play piano. Make an honest survey of your assets and wishes in the area of piano playing.

2. Setting goals

In order to set goals that you will actually work towards you have to be honest with yourself. Do I really want to accomplish these goals. Will I really feel good when I reach my goals?

3. Having a repertoire

One common reason for starting to play the piano is to be able to play the pieces of music you like. This means that as you learn to play piano, a goal might be to learn a number of piano pieces, let’s say five melodies, by heart so you can play them in any setting.

These five pieces of piano music is to be learned so well that you don’t have to worry if you are asked to play.

One reason for having a repertoire with piano pieces throughoutly rehearsed is that you can feel that you perform at the top of your ability.

4. Always perform

One great way to create motivation to practice on your piano is to always perform in front of other people in different ways. A way to creating momentum to practise your piano repertoire is to set up an informal concert with a couple of pieces in the setting of your own home.

Your family will be your public. There are many occasions for having someone performing music in the home and maybe you will stimulate others in your family or among your friends to play on their instruments in such a setting. Of course you have to plan ahead in order to suggest a performance and in order to prepare yourself.

5. But if you don’t like to perform?

You can actually practice the art of performing on your piano without people present. One way is to use your imagination and pretend that you perform in front of others. If you want to help your imagination a bit you can put empty chairs in front of you representing the audience.

On such an occasion you have to exercise self discipline and play those pieces in your actual program from beginning to end. If you would make a mistake in front of a public, what would you do? Probably you would want to minimize the effect of this mistake and just play on. This is what you have to practice even in this setting.

This will create self confidence in your ability to handle mistakes and will also help you find weaknesses you can improve upon in your playing.

This is also an excellent time to record your performance for later evaluation. The act of recording is like having a critic in the public.

6. Listen to piano music

You have to look upwards in order to climb to a higher level in your piano playing and this will be accomplished by listening to piano players on an higher artistic level than yourself.

At last a piano playing qoute from an unknown author:

“One man gets nothing but discord out of a piano; another gets harmony. No one claims the piano is at fault. Life is about the same. The discord is there, and the harmony is there. Study to play it correctly, and it will give forth the beauty; play it falsely, and it will give forth the ugliness. Life is not at fault.”

How can you decide what to practice among all available choices? Is it possible to find a balance between playing by ear, learning sheet music, finger dexterity and other aspects of piano playing? Let us take a closer look at the art of piano practicing!
I have piano playing friends with diverse musical backgrounds. Some of my friends do not know how to play one note of sheet music and have relied entirely on their well developed ability to play by ear.
To have a good ear is a great asset but not being able to read sheet music or at least be able to read lead sheets with chords can make things unnecessary complicated when confronted with the task of playing other peoples music.
Let us take a look at a music composing scenario!
Suppose you have an assignment to write the music to a musical. The musicians involved do not know how to read sheet music and consequently they have to learn the songs by listening to recordings or by listening to your instructions.
It will surely take some time to get things right!
Let us also suppose that you get some ideas for a new song and how to create some additional music backgrounds in the musical. How much time do you want to use instructing your musicians? Maybe the outcome will be that you feel restrained not to complicate the music too much as you will have the delicate job to instruct your musicians how to play.
Let us take another scenario!
You have musicians at your disposal that can sight read sheet music without any hesitation and you can write whatever sheet music you want and be confident that they will understand the intentions you write down in your sheet music. If you want to add or change music in your musical score you know that your musicians will be able to play your intentions without you having to talk to them all the time.
Instead you will be able to use your valuable time to compose music and arrange the music the way you want it performed. You can with confidence leave the production to others and start writing music to your next musical!
If you had the choice between having to rely on musicians that only play by ear and musicians that can both play by ear and can sight read you might prefer the latter players supposing that they are nice, gentle, humble and are able to collaborate.
If you as a musician want to be the choice of a composer or somebody else that needs musicians you will have a great advantage if you know both how to sight read sheet music and also how to play chords from a lead sheet.
What has this to do with your practicing time? Well, I think that you will benefit from having a balance between exercises that has to do with improvisation, chord playing and sheet music.
I think that you will benefit from sight reading exercises, memorizing classical piano pieces, improvising in different keys, learning scales and chord voicings and how to play jazz standards! There is no contradiction between playing by ear and mastering sheet music notation!