Hi. Welcome Jim Scarletta's Music Page!



I've been taking piano lessons from Bonnie at The teVelde School of Music since summer of 2001. It has turned out to be way more fun and rewarding than I could have ever imagined. My only regret is not starting years ago! Bonnie is an excellent instructor. So if you live on the Central Coast and have considered taking piano lessons, I would definitely recommend her. Bonnie also teaches voice lessons, flute, violin, and other musical instruments.

Prior to last summer, I never had a single music lesson in my entire life... so before I started lessons, I did some homework on my own. There's a really super computer-based instructional CD called Music Ace from Harmonic Vision. If you are interested in learning more about music, this is a great way to start. I originally purchased it online from a place called Mars Music, but they seem to have been acquired by Musician's Friend. To get started, I also bought a relatively inexpensive Yamaha PSR-330 Electronic Keyboard off Ebay.

If you are looking for a manual for the PSR-330, please send me and email and I will return a PDF file... as it seems that Yamaha no longer lists the PSR330 on their web site. You may also wish to search the Yamaha Manual Library.

An electronic keyboard is great, particularly if there are others within ear-shot of a newbie learning to play the piano. Hearing the same thing over and over can get pretty agonizing! It only lasted about a year though. Bonnie started reminding me at every lesson that if I was serious about learning to play the piano, that the spring-loaded keys on low-end electronic keyboards would not be very helpful in really learning to play. I still very much liked the idea of headphones though, so she pointed me in the direction of the Yamaha Clavinova series. WOW! Talk about impressive technology. We bought ours at Owens Music in Santa Maria. The sound is stunning!! The sales person demonstrated a variety of pianos, including comparisons to real string pianos. Admittedly, I do not have the most musical of ears... however in my humble opinion, the sound and feel of the Clavinova rivaled that of $20,000 "real" grand pianos! Granted - in the hands of a true master, I'm sure there is no comparison to a real piano. Perhaps in 30 years or so, I'll reconsider one. For now and years to come - I'm sure the Clavinova will more than enough for me.

Ok, beyond the importance of weighted keys to really learning to play the piano, the Clavinova has a ton of bells-n-whistles to appeal to just about everyone. Beyond piano sounds there are literally hundreds of quite impressive sounds that you'd swear were being played by a real person. Being a full MIDI keyboard, you can of course also hook up the Clavinova to other MIDI devices or your computer. The Music Ace educational program supports MIDI input for many of the lessons. There's a floppy drive for loading MIDI files and configurations. There are little LEDs above each key with a "play by the lights" feature. There's even a video connector for connecting a monitor for karaoke. The list of features goes on and on. Would you believe you can even tune a Clavinova? Yes indeed, each of the keys can be individually adjusted (electronically, of course).

Well, check back soon for more information. I plan to add more links, technical details, and other information relating to playing the piano, music theory, MIDI, and similar topics.


Music Humor:
The Boston Symphony Orchestra was performing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. In the piece, there's a long passage, about 20 minutes, during which the bass violinists have nothing to do.

Rather than sit around that whole time looking stupid, some bassists decided to sneak offstage and go to the tavern next door for a drink. After slamming several beers in quick succession, one of them looked at his watch. "Hey! We need to get back!" he cried.

"No need to panic," said a fellow bassist. "I thought we might need some extra time, so I tied the last few pages of the conductor's score together with string. It'll take him a few minutes to get it untangled."

A few moments later, the drunk musicians staggered back into the concert hall and took their places in the orchestra.

About this time, a member of the audience noticed the conductor seemed a bit edgy. She pointed this out to her date.

"Well, of course," said her companion. "Don't you see? It's the bottom of the Ninth, the score is tied, and the bassists are loaded."

More music humor can be found here.



Some cool Music & MIDI related sites:

Create sheet music while typing on your MIDI Keyboard!
Turn your PC into a music studio with Cakewalk!
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Music Thoery Online


Visit piano-pal.com - the BEST place for music books of all kinds!

Standing Stones Music Thoery Corner

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