it depends on what you want to become, and whether you're going into classical world, or others.

if you're into classical world, whatever you're going to do, you have to teach to survive, income wise. so classical musicians will benefit from certs and degrees, and master is pretty much a base requirement to be able to teach full time in universities.

besides teaching, as a classical musicians, solo recital is rare and hard to attract the public, unless you're superstar. even top orchestra like MPO also expecting to have half full hall often.

specific instrument wise, in the piano world, accompianist is one of field with quite a lot of demands, many other instrument like flute, violin, cello, clarinet, they all need piano accompaniment, for recitals or for exams. there're exceptional musicians with special talents like Loo Bang Hean who can sight read music almost like machine, best suited to become accompanist (on top of it, Mr. Loo has got impressive piano skill!). time is money, nobody can afford to give you many session of practice and rehearsal before going up on stage. so 2 to 3 rehearsals and up on stage is pretty common.

sorry i don't have more informations about classical piano world. unless you want to know more about contemporary music (pop jazz rock etc).

How about contemporary?

performance:
1. regular gigs, usually at hotel or pub/bistro.
2. event and function gigs, usually high pay and mostly just 2~3 session of 45mins each.
3. concert touring for artists if you're good enough.

production:
1. session pianist, doing recording for albums etc.
2. being able to do arrangement, usually fully midi nowadays, rarely people still use pencil and paper. slow and lots of effort.
3. soundtrack composing which is somewhat closely related to arrangement.

education:
same as classical
mind you, contemporary music world is everybit as difficult as there're always intense competition (as in competing market) between colleagues. like classical world, you just have to be competitive and good.

Little ice, do you happen to know how to be a performer at hotels? i mean, who to ask? where to start? what songs pianist usually do? how bout the rate?

phone to them or email to them. seems awkward, but that's how it works. not sure about rate, usually more than RM100 per night, and i think under it's RM200. not exactly a good pay for full time, but if you're hardworking you can do other things during day time to make it  more $$$$.

? you mean should do other things during the day instead of playing piano at hotels?

he meant, play piano somewhere else during the day for extra money...  because most hotel event usually occur at night only.

Can anyone give me some tips on how to play by ear?
I'm already an 8th grader and have been playing piano for almost 10 years, but still am suck at "play by ear". Such a shame.

you dont have to sit exactly in the middle, just suit yourself and make sure you're comfortable

how bout sit fuerther from your piano, you can bend or twist your body sideways or higher lower a lil to adjust the comfortableness of your wrist.

The bending of the hand like this is called adduction and it can indeed lead to injuries. You can move your body more to the right to reduce stress.

Obviously i have not seen you play and cant comment, but i think one of the reason could be that you are trying too hard to follow the "proper" way of keeping the fingers curled and hand parallel to the keyboard as taught to beginners. Remember to aim for comfort more than anything, you are after all playing for fun.

The other possible reason could be that you might be hesitant to "move into" the keys and thus have to over extent when trying to play with your fifth finger.

all that said, none of us here have seen u actually play, so best u get someone who knows to look and guide you.

Any suggestion on how should I proceed ?

Hi bros,

I just purchase yamaha e333 keyboard yesterday.
Plan to do self learning.
I learn some very basic piano and organ 20 years ago.
I can read piano sheet
I can play my sister grad 1 piano sheet at her piano well.
Any suggestion on how should I proceed ?
My ultimate target is to able to play games(to zanakard), movie(he is a pirate), animation song(full metel alchemist .....).
Now i learning from youtube for those song. Progressing but slow due to hard to synchronize left and right.
Any idea or any easier sheet i can start with ? Dont want to start with kids song.

Thanks and appreciate any suggestion.

Wow so this is the piano clan, mind if i tag along? is it ok to share contemporary music here? i just finished arranging and recording this song, "Pretty Boy" by M2M and uploaded it on youtube, using Yamaha P140 (discontinued, i guess). i hope you guys like it as well as the piano tone!



of course, any comments & criticism are welcomed. thank you

You cannot just browse the net and learn here a bit, learn there a little bit.. learn from youtube a bit, from blog a bit..
You must be systematic.. like learning math, you must learn how to count first, follow by addition, substraction, multiplication
before you do complex algorithm... Same thing for piano..

For self learning, I suggest  you find a book that teach piano from A to Z.. Books are great because it teaches  you in
progressive manner, from simple to advance.. and it comes with exercise (which I believe you won't get in youtube).
For example, Alfred's Basic Adult Piano, and many more..

You can also get a dvd that teaches piano.. like Learn and Master Piano, By Will Barrow, 14 DVDs set

Also, don't forget to join the piano community like pianoworld.com. I like this one coz there's a lot of adult beginners in here and there's many piano teachers that join this forum too..

I'm beginner myself.. that's why I know all this thing.. hehe..