Old organ player learning piano - Off-topic

Something totally off-topic....
My missus wants to try and have the kids learn piano... The older one shows an aptitude towards music, and she has had several toy pianos and plays them well enough I guess... The younger one probably will too - music is in her family. Anyway, long story short, I now have a piano.
So, I used to be a reasonably good organ player (i.e. 2 manuals and pedal board), but I stopped playing about 15 years ago... I reckon I could give this a bash too, and I dusted off my old sheet music and started giving it a go... I've forgotten most of the chords but I have a couple of toys that show me where to place my mitts, so it's within the realm of learning again. After a few days, I can play a few hours in the seat, I can play a couple of songs through with some reasonable success. Funnily enough, my brother could play guitar well, but nobody else in my entire extended family could so much as carry a tune in a bucket.
Now, an organ and piano look pretty much the same... But they're certainly not. So I feel like a total n00b at this because I'm hitting the keys too lightly to register, or inconsistently in pressure. And of course I keep tying my hands in knots because I would play with my hands on different manuals on an organ. And the pedals do different things too. I had a look through beginners books, but I already know how to read the music, and I know what key to hit to sound C.. But starting to go higher than this, they of course assume knowledge of how to play a piano..
So therefore, if anyone has some experience in this, can you recommend some resources to help transition? If I really have to go back to square one, I hope there are some beginners books out there without the friendly cartoon characters offering their encouragement

Related

Call of Duty? FIFA? GT?

I couldn't possibly care less about these sort of games. This puts me in, I'd venture, less than 3% of the young male population of this country who can buy an Xbox or whatnot in the first place.
Discuss.
Homework or a public speaking competition? Sweet Idea, will post my arguments once others give me ideas
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
More like inciting a flame war. ^_^ j/k
I've never liked racing, shooting, or sports games, which I've found doesn't sit well with most men my age (22). Just wondering what fellow techies think.
Usually I get a "wow, I can't believe another human being has different tastes than me" response. I don't think I've ran into a "Wow you're so gay" response but it's only a matter of time. =/
ninestraycats said:
More like inciting a flame war. ^_^ j/k
I've never liked racing, shooting, or sports games, which I've found doesn't sit well with most men my age (22). Just wondering what fellow techies think.
Usually I get a "wow, I can't believe another human being has different tastes than me" response. I don't think I've ran into a "Wow you're so gay" response but it's only a matter of time. =/
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Yep same. I'm different to everyone in my school. Everyones got iphoned, I got a Desire, now everyones jealous haha.. anyways, I like racing and shooting games. Just the real ones. CoD and GT not things like killzone or WoW. Though I don't play often, every 2–3 weeks maybe, I do enjoy some adrenalin pumping through my veins when I due just begore the end of the mussion. It makes me more determined to finish correctly the next time etc..
Everyones always asking me when I'm online next to play a bit of CoD or whatever and I just don't understand how you can become addicted to something that doesn't actually exist. Well it does but not really, you know what I mean : )
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
LOL been a gamer for too long. But I have never told anyone that they were "gay" because they didn't like to game.
But.. usually they were women.
well im different to everyone in my school.
most of the lads in my year like football and cod.
"medal of honor- is ****"
"driving games - ****"
"every other game apart from cod and fifa- is ****"
i have been called gay because i have long hair and i like rock music and drum and bass (and others).
i think the reason they call you gay is because they don't like people that are different and like other things.
about 1 year ago everyones phones where sony ericssons (crap ones)
and samsung tocco lites (horrible)
but 1 lad had a t-mobile g1.
i had my 7 year old htc himalaya brick (excellent phone)
now quite a few have htc's desires, hero, legend. (and obviously don't know about xda (what a pitty))
people seem to follow other people and call you weird because you are not following.
sorry if i drifted off topic.
i like driving games, fps (half-life excellent!!)
im a gran turismo guy i love that game, i also enjoy a nice helping of cod now and then too, i cant stand football soccer or basketball games though
COD - meh
FIFA - meh
GT5 - drool
Well, an explanation is warranted for the above...
I never really got the hang of FPS games in multiplayer, mostly because I used to pwn at CounterStrike and Half-Life, but a hiatus during my formative days (read, TEENAGE) lost my edge in FPS games. Mostly I will check out the single player experience, and if it gains enough traction amongst my friends, I'll get the original copy. Mostly, for group enjoyment purposes, we game L4D if we wanna play FPS. I'm just waiting for Crysis 2 (as an excuse to upgrade my Gfx card more than anything else )
FIFA... well... is a game for douchetards who imagine that they have the skills needed to take Leo Messi/CR to whatever glories that in real life they couldn't achieve (both for the gamers and the players). Simply said, it gives little to none benefits, and merely act as an escapement and commercial device. For the more serious guys, we play futsal, which is like football played in a netball field. Pacing is fun, especially since players with less stamina can join in and height doesn't bring that much of a benefit (read, GIRLS CAN PLAY TOO). And for the brainiacs, we play Football Manager 2011.
GT5 is going to be something of a old history for me. It's more of a nostalgia device than something of real enjoyment. Back in the days, me and my brother played GT1, GT2, GT3, and probably GT4. To my brother, who is an engineer by now, it is the most accurate depiction of a car on the race-track. I'll skip the nostalgia bit... Anyway, since neither of us own a PS3, and neither of us plans to own a PS3, this game will forever reside in the droolworthy section of our hindbrains, possibly forever.
The problem with me is I'm probably in the less than 0.05% zone. I'm a self-professed geek that likes to party and do sports. I could, enjoyably, spend the afternoon tinkering with my PC/phone or just dump everything to hang out with friends, chilling out and maybe finding the answers to life (we checked, its not 42).
So gaming is cool and all that, but it's not the be all and end all for me
Gotta say... I love GT5 lol. I think I like it more than GT3 or 4 because I'm actually trying now lol. I used to have a Game Shark, Code Breaker, and Action Replay to cheat my way to having (basically) infinite cash, the AI guys wouldn't move, and every car would have like 16x acceleration lol. It made it fun cause I could get what I wanted when I wanted, but ruined the sense of accomplishment needed to make it feel way better. I actually HAVE to try and succeed in this now, which is awesome imo.
Call of Duty is cool, but I'm not into it as much anymore as I am with GT5 now.
FIFA is a game I'll never play. I don't do sports, nor like them; especially soccer.
Sent from my Droid Incredible running Myn's Warm Two Point Two RLS5.
sakai4eva said:
To my brother, who is an engineer by now, it is the most accurate depiction of a car on the race-track.
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That is VERY cool and I didn't know that. Sucker as I am for new experiences, it makes me want to play it again with this knowledge.
sakai4eva said:
Pacing is fun, especially since players with less stamina can join in and height doesn't bring that much of a benefit (read, GIRLS CAN PLAY TOO).
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Haha, I hope I'm reading your implications right: b/c size isn't an issue, women can play the sport side-by-side with men. The other implication would be a little... off-putting. >.<
flyboyovyick said:
well im different to everyone in my school.
i have been called gay because i have long hair and i like rock music and drum and bass (and others).
i think the reason they call you gay is because they don't like people that are different and like other things.
i like driving games, fps (half-life excellent!!)
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Click to collapse
Sorry I paraphrased your Quote
1) Nothing wrong with Long Hair and playing Bass. I did both for a long time - but now the hair fell out and I play a little guitar (i.e. it stares at me taunting me on the wall collecting dust due to RL stealing all my time)
2) Your unique... just like everybody else
3) Half Life is probably the BEST GAME EVER. And I'm a sucker for driving games. I haven't purchased GT yet as I know my wife would kill me while I was going around the track at 4am.
YOU DON'T LIKE THOSE GAMES!!! wow!!, i didn't know another human being could have such different taste to me.
But seriously 'normal' at my school is f'd up compared to everybody elses, screamo metalheads and emos rule the street and jocks are considered to be on the same level as the scum you find in public toilets... its a weird place.
Im lucky anyway because im a self admitted nerd at school but for some strange reason nobody believes me? (WTF's with that!?!) Which is especially strange considering people are paying me to set up snow leopard hackintosh on their pc's.
My favorite shooter is Gears o' War 2 (can't really call it fps), but, uh, what do you guys think of bioshock? I personally don't like it, much to the disdain of all my friends who are obsessed with it.
urbanengine1 said:
But seriously 'normal' at my school is f'd up compared to everybody elses, screamo metalheads and emos rule the street and jocks are considered to be on the same level as the scum you find in public toilets... its a weird place.
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Wow, that is strange. At my school there was no "jock" contingency either, but why would there necessarily have to be, stereotypes are stereotypes.
What IS indeed common to probably every school ever are cliques. I'm guessing it's the 'us vs. them' mentality that's so crucial to so many living things.
ninestraycats said:
FIFA?
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Soccer is the worst game (notice I didn't call it a sport) in the history of mankind.

New KITES demo - "The Disappearance of Becky Sharp"

In December I set out to make a track using just my 1985 vintage Roland JX8P synthesizer and Roland TR707 drum machine. Because of the nature of the synth (the JX8P is monotimbral - it can only play one sound at one time) I had to record each part separately and multi-track it. The result was a spacey italodisco tune some of you may have listened to on another thread. Anyway, Matt loved the tune wrote the first verse and part of the chorus and we recorded it just in time for Christmas break. Although I'd been listening to it a lot, only this week did I get around to juggling the arrangement and Matt spent the last few days completing the vocal. We are quite pleased with the overall result.
Hope you like it.
http://soundcloud.com/kites/beckysharp
As you may notice that as this is totally synth track, we are going to have to be quite creative to fit this in a live set with guitar etc. Watch this space.
I like it!
It reminded me my old years dancing new wave stuff
Kinda 1st albums of human league and soft cell and depeche mode!
Congrats!
Thanks duder. Glad you like it. I am pretty pleased with it. Need to play it loud!

Help with my burnging desire tobuild something!!

Ok, well recently i've been getting tired of playing my xbox all day and feel as if I need to be more productive with my free time. Three things have interested me a lot are; lasers, speakers/audio, and LED's. I really want to so something including one, if not two of the three interests. I've never soldered but im defiantly going to learn how. The biggest project i've done so far would probably installing lights in my xbox along with cutting out a two windows too see them.
I need ideas. Summer is just around the corner and will have plentiful free time. Any idea I will consider because im always up to learning something new.
Any ideas will be GREATLY appreciated!!
I want to put a screen in my xbox, have you ever thought of that then i cld play it at work i know thats not much of an idea but may be cool
Get a broken bluray player, or a BRD drive from a PS3, take out the blueray lazer, get a cheap red lazer, pop out the old red one, solder the new blue one, add a resistor, power source, and now you can burn stuff with a lazer.

Rise and Shiny recap: Crystal Saga

There's a lot to be said for automation. Thanks to automated processes, our society hums along more nicely than it ever has. But should we include our playtime on the list of things we want to automate? Is it possible to enjoy something like an MMO if we really don't control it at all? If we assemble our army men and wind them up, is watching them go as much fun as controlling what they do?
Ah, such deep questions stemming from such a simple game. Crystal Saga
is a browser-based, free-to-play, Flash-based MMORPG (there's a mouthful) that allows players to do a lot of things, including fully automate the grinding process. I can hear the potential comments already, so click past the cut and let me explain it more.
I need to clarify what I mean when I say "fully automated." It's not as though you can tell your little on-screen character that you want it to go here, attack this, and rescue that. It's not quite that in-depth. Basically the developers have added in a system that allows you to place your character into "AFK mode." How much time he can remain in AFK mode depends on a special item that you can get from quests or from the cash shop (I was AFK for hours and hours and never spent a dime), and what happens during that AFK time depends on what specifically you told your avatar to do during that time.
You're essentially telling your character which mobs to attack, when to heal or use a healing potion, and whether to loot or not. As I say in the livestream, you "set it and forget it" like the Ronco Rotisserie. You can also click a link in your quest to auto-walk back to town or to a specific NPC, and you can auto-walk to any number of quest objectives. In fact, you can play this game and level up without ever really using more than a few buttons.
Gaming purists needn't worry; this system is not new or uncommon. In fact, if you have ever played EVE Online, Alganon or a few other titles, you have automated your play. Yep, if anything, the offline skill training that EVE popularized is much less labor-intensive than Crystal Saga's AFK mode. While I AFKed in Crystal Saga, I had to at least watch for enemies in case I was overwhelmed. Clicking "learn" in a game like Alganon takes no work at all. Hours or days later, you log in your character to find him or her smarter than before! The wonders of science!
More good news: You don't need to worry whether other players, readers, or super-cool column writers care about how you play. Crystal Saga is for younger players, true, but accessibility is not only for them. I found the automated system to be really fun. In an AFK way, of course. I liked coming back to backpacks filled with goodies, and I still had to go back to town and sell the items and organize my skills. In fact, I've realized that AFK modes in games like Crystal Saga only shine light on how incredibly boring and trivial leveling-up has become in many MMOs. The archaic system of advancement hasn't changed in years and years, so why not do away with the process, or make it something that we simply don't have to sit there and watch?
Again, I know what you are thinking. "But that's what makes MMOs fun!" I get that many of you might feel that playing the game is the fun part. I agree that playing is fun. But grinding is not. Of course, this raises another question: Why didn't Crystal Saga just design a better way of leveling? Or better yet, why doesn'tCrystal Saga do away with leveling altogether and invent a brand-new way to play MMOs? Good question, Beau. I think the answer is that these devs do not care to redesign the entire process but instead want to speed it up and get you to the good stuff. In a world filled with "AAA," indie, and free-to-play games that are all filled to the brim with massive amounts of grind, I appreciate these AFK systems that are showing up more often. Give me a cash shop filled with every single item in the game and we have a deal.
I've been playing Oblivion a lot lately. We have all probably played it a lot. If not, we jammed on Morrowindbefore that. Remember "fast travel?" You know, the ability to click on an area in the map and instantly transport there, instead of traveling the long, literal way on horseback? We have all used it at some point. I use it when I am faced with an incredibly long (but not difficult) ride. If it is dangerous and within a 15-minute window, I will be on the trail. Games like Crystal Saga allow for the same choices, and I appreciate that. Long ago I lost the feeling that even the mere presence of such systems tainted my gameplay. They exist, and I don't care.
The rest of the game is fun and colorful, including the pet system. I like the fact that the game runs on anything and that there are always players around. Other than those few facts, there's not much more you need to know about your first several hours in the game (which is how long I generally spend in a game before writing this column). It sort of pains me to say so, but the existence of an "AFK mode" is about the only thing I came across that makes Crystal Saga much fun. It sounds weird, but I got the same feeling when I found pocketfuls of goodies that I used to get when I logged into EVE and saw that my skill training was completed. It's worth checking out, even just to surprise yourself.
Next week I will be looking at Starjack Online, a free-to-play empire-builder that has sucked me in. For some reason, the game does not allow me to stream or video it, so look for a screenshot-heavy article next time. Now, go log in!

Hey!

Just recently started using this website to get to know how to root, twrp, all that good stuff for the first time and the support I have had has been amazing and the community seems really active like I litterally got a reply to my comment in under 10 mins after posting it don't even remember the last time that happened all in all happy to be here
Welcome to xda.
Good to hear you are enjoying xda.
It is a very active site and normally someone can give you an answer or help find one.
Glad to have you part of the xda family.
Cheers.
Yes it was quite the learning experience, I had to use the knowledge I had learned through the years to actually conceptualize how to deploy a defense and anoffense. DESPITE HOW I FEEL ABOUT IT NOW: I would never put anyone else hrougu that though. These days we've become, as a society, very dependent on our technologies, I'm some cases if you don't have access or knowlefhe of the most basic components, it could cost a meal, or where you lay your head at night. Let's see, I lost 4 smartphones, 2 tablets, half my hair went grey, the other half just gave up and fell out, and it cost me 2 job opportunites that will not be around in my near future. Having the knowledge of technology is great, having the wisdom, the experience in wether to deploy it, or make it what it's for are two different beast, I think people initially don't feel that there hurting anyone by using technology to get back at them, but if they put themselves in the shoes the person is about to walk in, is the punishment balancing what it will cost them in real life because of the lost communication, job, or relationship? Just because it's not a knock out drag out fight doesn't mean it won't sting
So essentially what I am saying is that it has become the right hook, body slam, forrgose that can't actually do that to someone, but there is a degree of social responsibility, that needs to be assessed. If I deploy a hijacker virus on someone because they said something I didn't like, and that person supported their family with Uber, depending on how long I kept the hijack up I might just help that dude get an eviction, no technology, no phone, no way or getting fares, etc, etc.....

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