Messages

1

Essentially Flyertalk / Re: Learning Piano

« on: June 03, 2025, 01:10:03 PM »

I also had a similar experience with public humiliation. We were at my wife's grandma's nursing home and there was a piano in a common area. My son was playing songs for her and several older people gathered around and were listening. Then my wife said I should play In Christ Alone (old people love hymns) so I sat down to play, but the piano was different than my digital keyboard and it broke my brain. It wasn't even that different, just the difference between a piano and a digital piano but it did something to me. I got through the first few bars and kept messing up/went blank. Probably some stage fright in there too, but I really think if it was my home piano I would have been fine. I stood up and said, bring the kid back up, and my son went back to playing Interstellar or something.

so do you focus almost entirely on songs that are right hand dominant with very simple left hand parts? my left hand is completely worthless. when i search out songs to try i will look for songs that have single-key left hand parts. i'm also fine with octaves in the left hand. but anything even remotely complex in the left hand just simply isn't happening.

if you have any good-but-easy song recommendations, would love to hear em.

also, sigh, im gonna throw some $ away and sub to this for a year: https://www.pianowithnate.com/piano-chord-breakthroughs#Payment-Options

this guy has been like the one online teacher who has gotten through to me somehow, and his song selections and demos sort of click for me.

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Essentially Flyertalk / Re: Learning Piano

« on: June 02, 2025, 02:58:06 PM »

Yes! We are the same!

I also exclusively learn by watching the falling keys method on YouTube. I did learn to play Epiphany from the movie Soul using actual sheet music but it was just note by note finding the C key and then counting to what key I needed to play lmao. Then I just have to memorize it because looking at the sheet music as a whole is like looking at a paragraph written in Japanese or something.

I constantly say to myself I need to start back at the basics and learn to read music and learn where the keys are and all that stuff and then I don't and instead learn to play the first 30 seconds of Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol before moving to learning the first 30 seconds of the Top Gun Theme then moving to Right Now - Van Halen for cat football reasons.

Like you, I just find it really fun to play something recognizable. I have no interest in practicing scales lol.

lol exactly. i can't fathom actually ever reading sheet music. that's why webpianoteacher's method really appealed to me. the problem i have with him is that i never watched all his tutorials and don't really care to - so i don't know exactly what all his various squiggly lines mean. also, the production quality of his lessons are objectively bad - it's sometimes very difficult for me to tell which keys he's pushing with which finger, and when. which means i have to waste a lot of time going back 5-10 secs to try to decipher what he did. then he will realize he mis-wrote something, so he'll say it but then race through it. then he'll skip to a different part of the song without telling you. some tutorials are certainly better than others, but i find the whole experience to be somewhat aggravating. unfortunately, he has many of the songs in his library that i want to play, which is why i never cancel.

if you could combine piano with nate's presentation and teaching style, with webpianoteacher's song book and general approach, i'd be a much happier bad piano player.

not sure if you've ever used them, but the silicone labels you can place on top of the keys is incredibly helpful, but with an obvious downside. i was at my in-laws house, and they have a piano. it was suggested that i play one of the two aforementioned songs that i actually know how to play. so i sat down and prepared to play. but without my silicone labels, i literally couldn't even get started. i was completely lost. 

learning sheet music is pretty easy.  you don't really need to know the rhythm/counting stuff -- especially if you're playing familiar music.  But recognizing which notes are where is very helpful.  I know webpianoteacher (or just "sean" as we call him in my house) does a whole walk through on theory which is helpful and interesting (imo).  the circle of fifths, in particular, is mindblowing just to see how all of the puzzle pieces fit together.  idk, i think it's interesting.

Really, if you can just get a feel for knowing what notes are in what keys and knowing the general chords associated with the keys, that goes a long way.  OTOH, if that feels like homework or boring or whatever, don't bother with it!  keep having fun playing piano!  but the circle of fifths is neat and i bet you guys will agree if you watch a 10-15 minute youtube video on it.

im gonna have to check out the circle of fifths. one thing i figured out only recently was that my method for practicing is awful/inefficient and my timeline for learning a new song is insanely unrealistic. as a complete newb, with no real training, i really thought i was going to learn a billy joel song beginning to end in a couple of days - and that the path to progress would be fairly linear. what makes it worse is that when i get stuck, instead of focusing all my time/energy on the part where im stuck, i always play through the part i actually know leading up to that point. again and again until the stuck part. so i'll play 25 seconds of stuff i know, get stuck, smack myself in the head, then return to the beginning. then i repeat the 25 seconds of stuff i know, then get stuck again, then back to the beginning. i repeat this process again and again, and keep getting stuck in the same spot. why wouldn't i just stay on the stuck spot until i get unstuck? it makes no sense and i have no idea why i do this. my only theory is that video games i played as a kid reinforced the idea of always going back to the beginning - like mario after getting bitten by a piranha plant. you go back to start!

literally LOL'd at the thought of you sitting down at your in-laws piano at thanksgiving or something and then having a panic attack because the keys weren't labeled.

what made this worse is a 6 year old took my place and ripped through a very solid version of ode to joy (she takes lessons).

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Essentially Flyertalk / Re: Learning Piano

« on: June 02, 2025, 02:26:09 PM »

Yes! We are the same!

I also exclusively learn by watching the falling keys method on YouTube. I did learn to play Epiphany from the movie Soul using actual sheet music but it was just note by note finding the C key and then counting to what key I needed to play lmao. Then I just have to memorize it because looking at the sheet music as a whole is like looking at a paragraph written in Japanese or something.

I constantly say to myself I need to start back at the basics and learn to read music and learn where the keys are and all that stuff and then I don't and instead learn to play the first 30 seconds of Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol before moving to learning the first 30 seconds of the Top Gun Theme then moving to Right Now - Van Halen for cat football reasons.

Like you, I just find it really fun to play something recognizable. I have no interest in practicing scales lol.

lol exactly. i can't fathom actually ever reading sheet music. that's why webpianoteacher's method really appealed to me. the problem i have with him is that i never watched all his tutorials and don't really care to - so i don't know exactly what all his various squiggly lines mean. also, the production quality of his lessons are objectively bad - it's sometimes very difficult for me to tell which keys he's pushing with which finger, and when. which means i have to waste a lot of time going back 5-10 secs to try to decipher what he did. then he will realize he mis-wrote something, so he'll say it but then race through it. then he'll skip to a different part of the song without telling you. some tutorials are certainly better than others, but i find the whole experience to be somewhat aggravating. unfortunately, he has many of the songs in his library that i want to play, which is why i never cancel.

if you could combine piano with nate's presentation and teaching style, with webpianoteacher's song book and general approach, i'd be a much happier bad piano player.

not sure if you've ever used them, but the silicone labels you can place on top of the keys is incredibly helpful, but with an obvious downside. i was at my in-laws house, and they have a piano. it was suggested that i play one of the two aforementioned songs that i actually know how to play. so i sat down and prepared to play. but without my silicone labels, i literally couldn't even get started. i was completely lost. 

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Essentially Flyertalk / Re: Learning Piano

« on: June 02, 2025, 01:39:47 PM »

_33 what are you playing these days

I finished the Severance theme a couple weeks ago. That was very hard for me but also very satisfying.

Now I'm working on Amazing Grace to add to my hymn collection which right now only includes In Christ Alone (my favorite and the first one I learned).

I also really want to learn the Jurassic Park theme this summer. Basically I want to know how to play the most random collection of music of all time lol.

I'll post some videos of some of these this summer. And everyone else can post videos of them playing songs on the piano too if you want.

great thread! i bought a piano about 18 months ago. i started with the simply piano app, got impatient with it, and then went directly to trying to learn songs using the falling keys tutorial method that is all over Youtube (Hugo was my favorite); as well as Nate the Piano teacher (also on Youtube); and webpianoteacher (mentioned previously in this thread.)

very first song i learned - well, 45 seconds of it - was the life and death theme from LOST.

second song i learned - well, 30 seconds of it - was the intro to springsteen's thunder road.

third song i learned - well, 30 seconds of it - was the intro to fleetwood mac's silver springs.

fourth song i learned - well, the first 90 seconds of it - was jackson browne's late for the sky.

you get the point. i learned the intros to various songs - independence day and racing in the street by oscar; doctor my eyes and standing in the breach by jackson browne; heart of gold and after the goldrush by neil young; and billy joel's new song ("turn the lights back on") among others. nothing, ever, to completion.

my piano routine since the beginning has been: sit down at the piano for 15-30 mins, play whatever song opening i feel like i know or want to learn, rifle through the opening or try to get it down, then quit on it. then i find a new song, repeat the process until i get stuck, and quit on that as well. shockingly, this has remained fun for me, even as my actual piano skills suck. i like being able to replicate songs i like - parts of them, anyway.

just recently i had a bit of a breakthrough. i was able to learn the entire outro to layla from goodfellas:

i also can play jackson browne's "these days" pretty much beginning to end.

in any case, i completely suck, and have decided i need to actually go through the process of learning fundamentals. so i'll be back on simply piano or some related piano app soon enough.

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Kansas State Basketball is hard / Re: Coaching Carousel Master Thread (MAYBE FEATURING THE KSU CATS?)

« on: April 05, 2024, 01:51:02 PM »

hire dawn staley.

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Kansas State Basketball is hard / tang the egomaniac

« on: February 06, 2024, 09:44:48 AM »

for a guy who professes to be all about the players and the fans, tang sure does seem to make everything about him. let's be real: he doesn't want the students storming the floor because that will turn him into the hoops version of where's waldo. after big wins, tang doesn't want to be the dude in the candy cane sweater, surrounded by chaos. he wants to be santa claus, handing out presents, camera fixated on him while he builds his own personal brand in the most passive aggressive way possible.

one of the bigger home wins in recent k-state memory, and the story afterward is that tang somehow kept all the animals in a cage.

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Kansas State Football / Re: Rank the new Big 12

« on: August 04, 2023, 06:37:51 PM »

when you factor in everything - town, football upside, hoops upside, brand and fanbase - this is what i come up with:

TIER I - oklahoma state, arizona, kansas state, kansas

TIER II - baylor, tcu, texas tech, utah

TIER III - arizona state, west virginia, colorado

TIER IV - byu, houston, cincinnati

WASHINGTON ST OF MIDWEST TIER - iowa state

FICTIONAL SCHOOL TIER - ucf

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Kansas State Football / Re: Smoke your cigars and enjoy the band while you can....

« on: August 04, 2023, 02:28:02 PM »

my favorite option for the big 12 is to reconsider the ucf invite. don't need a create-a-school from orlando in the big 12. they seem like a fictional university.

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Kansas State Football / Re: Thank God for Iowa State

« on: August 04, 2023, 02:25:54 PM »

Side rant, but IMO it should always be legal to bet on your own team to win.

disagree. if an athlete bets on his team when he thinks they will win - and doesn't bet the game at all when he thinks they won't - he's in effect giving up valuable information to whoever typically takes his bets (whether it be a legal operator or corner street bookie.) if dekker bet iowa state in the first three games but not the fourth, as one example, it's a major story. and if he just so happens to play poorly in that fourth game, people will question if he told someone else to bet against them.

best solution: don't bet if you're a participant in the sport.

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Kansas State Football / Re: Smoke your cigars and enjoy the band while you can....

« on: August 04, 2023, 02:16:50 PM »

conferences are utterly pointless.

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Kansas State Football / Re: i give LittreLL 2 thumbs down

« on: December 20, 2022, 10:07:26 AM »

Good prediction on kstate never winning 9 games in a season ever again @j rake

since i wrote that, they've won 8, 4, 8, 10. so i'm not wrong yet? 

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Kansas State Football / Re: i give LittreLL 2 thumbs down

« on: December 20, 2022, 09:50:56 AM »

i had some real hits in this thread. and some bad misses.

but pleased that i hit the pro klieman anti LittreLL parlay!

edit: didn't re-read entire thread, maybe i was pro klieman at a diff time. 

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Kansas State Football / Re: Status/Twitter/Whatever steve dave Wants To Talk About Thread

« on: July 16, 2022, 10:35:48 PM »

shirt rankings:

The best...
1. every man a wildcat
2. wildcat country

Also solid...
3. bring on the cats
4. retro gray hoodie

Decent, would buy if i lived in small town KS...
5. wabash cannonball
6. leaning wildcat 60s
7. angry cat sitting on a football (white tee)

If I were a band geek or woman...
8. Band tee
9. women's tank

No thanks...
10. vintage oatmeal hoodie
11. k-state white crew sweatshirt
12. vintage giant K tee

You're a loser if you buy these...
13. purple pride
14. eat em up (purple)

the worst shirt...
15. eat em up (black)

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Kansas State Football / Re: Smoke your cigars and enjoy the band while you can....

« on: July 01, 2022, 08:56:01 AM »

i was relistening to wefald's appearance on tim fitz's podcast from july 2021. hilarious stuff in real time, but more so now given all that's happened since.

wefald...

"you haven't heard from anybody at kansas state, either the president or the AD? that's a shame. because here i am, up here in minnesota, and we've already come up with...we've come up with a new conference that i think would pass the test as a power 5 conference. we did it in like, what, a half hour? get this out there. if oklahoma and texas leave, and i think they're going to leave, we have a list of 15 or 16 schools that would make up for a big 12 conference that has national followings - from the army and the navy, to brigham young - and we'd keep the texas schools. listen, kansas state would be left out if the texas schools got into the pac 12."

(...)

"i like the president and the AD, but they have to come up with a plan. we've come up with a plan right here on your show. we've come up with, was it 16 schools? that would do it! we would be a power 5 school. if we have the three military academies, plus cincinnati, and memphis, and then one of the florida schools - or both of them? i think both would be great. oh man, how would you like to have the top 22 guys in central florida at kansas state? ... we would really gain a lot by having those two florida schools!"

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Kansas State Football / Re: Smoke your cigars and enjoy the band while you can....

« on: June 30, 2022, 01:58:16 PM »

is it too late to uninvite UCF? i hate that school.

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Kansas State Basketball is hard / Re: Possible oscar Weber Replacements Thread

« on: March 15, 2022, 09:22:18 PM »

Coach McC survives! we must wait for k-state to hire this loser coach. darn!

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Kansas State Basketball is hard / Re: Possible oscar Weber Replacements Thread

« on: March 15, 2022, 09:09:46 PM »

OT

yep, the soon-to-be-new k-state coach is one basket away from reaching 60 pts!

 

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Kansas State Basketball is hard / Re: Possible oscar Weber Replacements Thread

« on: March 15, 2022, 08:48:04 PM »

the loser north texas coach (not LittreLL, the hoops one) is 3 mins away from being ready to hire! his north texas squad currently trails texas state by 8 pts, at home, as an 8-pt favorite, in the NIT.

they have scored 44 pts so far.

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Kansas State Basketball is hard / Re: Possible oscar Weber Replacements Thread

« on: March 11, 2022, 01:33:33 PM »

the loser north texas coach (not LittreLL, the hoops one) just had a team put up 36 points in a six-point loss in the CUSA tourney. 

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Kansas State Basketball is hard / Re: Possible oscar Weber Replacements Thread

« on: March 10, 2022, 05:48:56 PM »

I think the real question is does jrake think there is a better fit out there for KSU (football), or does he just want to be a negative nancy?

between FBS and FCS, there are roughly 260 head football coaches, 520 offensive and defensive coordinators, dozens of NFL coordinators, assistant head coaches, out-of-work former coaches, etc.

last year at KSO, someone in mid-october - username mobcat - suggested k-state hire seth LittreLL. he cited LittreLL's promising turnaround at UNT and his win-loss record, among other reasons (Big 12 ties, youth, offensive system, etc). others seemed intrigued by LittreLL, and he has been a constant potential candidate by fans in the many months since.

earlier this week, snyder officially announced his retirement. a national search for his replacement officially began (although it was surely already underway). and gene taylor's first choice is apparently ... seth LittreLL!

jon wefald/tim weiser embarked on a national search to find ron prince, and they did the same to get bob huggins (and also "moved heaven and earth" in trying to get him to stay).

gene taylor's first big search? eh, he came up with the same guy that mobcat did.

lol are we really going to do this again? is gene taylor's search firm going to once again land on another north texas coach, the same north texas coach that KSO identified as replacement #1 for the program? 

21

Kansas State Basketball is hard / Re: oscar's Press Conference

« on: March 10, 2022, 04:22:14 PM »

fantastic presser, one of the best ever. fan expectations at k-state are too unrealistic. everyone wants and expects k-state to contend for a big 12 title every couple years, or at worst finish top three, and to make the ncaa tourney every year or close to it. well, that is simply never gonna happen.

my goals for k-state hoops are simple:

1. beat kansas once every four years.
2. be good enough to not get relegated to having all your games on ESPN+ or ESPNNews.
3. be good enough where k-state's crap fans care enough to fill bramlage to half capacity or more on a weeknight.
4. make a deep ncaa tourney run once per decade.

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Kansas State Basketball is hard / Re: Possible oscar Weber Replacements Thread

« on: March 08, 2022, 06:35:20 PM »

https://twitter.com/RealPitino/status/1500616355590062080

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Kansas State Basketball is hard / Re: Possible oscar Weber Replacements Thread

« on: March 07, 2022, 02:20:38 PM »

scott davenport.

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Kansas State Football / Re: bill's book

« on: December 03, 2021, 09:02:07 AM »

in the book, snyder says it was his idea to have jim include the k-state clause in his contract.

he told me, "oregon wants me to sign a new contract.'"

i told him, "you might have them put into your contract the clause that you would be exempt from any financial penalty if you left to become head coach at kansas state."

snyder said his desire was always to have sean or jim take over as coach someday — in that order.

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Kansas State Basketball is hard / Re: Albany

« on: December 02, 2021, 01:32:59 PM »

k-state is going to finish top 40 in kenpom this year. i feel quite confident in that. but they need to sweep these games vs wichita and marquette, and then win at nebraska. otherwise the non con resume is a train wreck.

Lol top 40? No way Jose.

i don't think they'll actually be a top 40 team. but they'll have seven chances to beat a top 20 kp team this year - half of them at home - and they'll have a handful of other chances to beat top 50 teams. they're capable of beating good teams in bramlage.

the 7th place team in kenpom has been rated #39, #61, #35, #42, #30, #54, #38, #45 in recent years. there have been years where the 8th-best team in the league has finished top 40. it just isn't that hard. the kenpom algo will treat them kindly.