Holy Crap....awesome piano skill

Raymond Lin said:
Oh come on, but it's all by ear, with no sheet music !
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Hmm, true that is impressive. But then I used to know Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart et al by heart, and I didn't learn by rote. Endless scales, endless arpeggios, endless exercises sure, but I could remember a piece much more complex after only playing through it a few times. Then it was onto the exercises..tricky things like being told to play sections out of context, playing bars backwards, weird things like that.
 
Raymond Lin said:
Oh come on, but it's all by ear, with no sheet music !
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That's not hard either, really. I've always played by ear. To work out something like Chopin's 8th Prelude in F sharp minor by ear is impressive, but Coldplay's Clocks is quite a few rungs below that. You can easily get a feel for it after a short amount of time.
 
Lysander said:
That's not hard either, really. I've always played by ear. To work out something like Chopin's 8th Prelude in F sharp minor by ear is impressive, but Coldplay's Clocks is quite a few rungs below that. You can easily get a feel for it after a short amount of time.
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well, its not just THAT 1 song, there's like 50+ videos on there.
 
Blackvault said:
This is more impressive to be honest. The solo starts around 4:45


Blackvault
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That's a racket, it's not too hard to play by ear when you know a bit of theory and can hear the chords.

Some people don't even need to do that though like these guys (probably), and my piano teacher's daughter. It's a fantastic and very handy skill.
 
There's not much dynamic variation and just sounds like a lot of banging. I don't think it's awesome skill at all, each to their own though.
 
This is probably the most impressive piano playing I've seen. It's not all about fast tapping within the same scale like Rick Wakeman, but thorough knowledge of the keyboard and musical theory - not forgetting injecting emotion into the piece.

 
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That's quite easy to play. Not disrespecting his ability in any way, but it's a simple tune.

I play everything by ear as well. Weirdly, I can't sight read whereas my Mum (who is a piano and singing teacher) can't play by ear.
 
If he was playing this, like this..then i'd be more impressed.

(i can't do this. yet.)

Or even this
 
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gillywibble said:
That's quite easy to play. Not disrespecting his ability in any way, but it's a simple tune.

I play everything by ear as well. Weirdly, I can't sight read whereas my Mum (who is a piano and singing teacher) can't play by ear.
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Likewise, my Mum is a music teacher and has been playing piano & organ for years and usually can't work out anything by ear.
 
Am i meant to be impressed? He plays the song very well but its hardly a challenging song.

I really like this rendition of Nightwish's 'Ghost love Score' Once again relatively simple but played well

 
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I have been playing the piano for some 28 years now. You can play without music when you know the piece. Not that hard. Although I can play some seriously fast pieces I am presently trying my hand at 'rag time' music. Things like Scot Joplin's Entertainer and Maple Leaf Rag. Not easy in my eyes. Quite hard to learn as at times 2 - 3 rhythms going on. Lots of work. But hay, all fun.


Like so...
 
I'm one of those lucky few who can do both :P Sight read and play by ear.
Plonking out a pop tune you heard on the radio hardly takes much skill.

You want to see awesome piano skills, watch the video Lysander posted above, or this:
My favourite piece of all time and probably one of my favourite performances. Granted it's an organ piece but this is a piano thread and the only piano arrangement/performance that does it justice.
 
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