# New hobby for cubers? - Piano



## Eazoon (Jun 6, 2012)

Hey, I was wondering, are any of you cubers good at piano? I use to play but I was never very good, but once I reached sub-20 I gave it another shot and in my opinion I'm suddenly really good. My fingers flow through the keys in many of the ways they do on a cube. What do you think?

BTW, am I supposed to capitalize "my"?


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## 5BLD (Jun 6, 2012)

I've done my grade 8 for UK which is the highest grade before diploma, not sure what that means in US. I do a lot of jazz piano..


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## Stingray970 (Jun 6, 2012)

Grade 8 in the US is the grade 13-14 year olds are enrolled in.

Never tried piano, but I do intend to learn one day. Preferably when I have the money to do it. (Not of legal age for an official job yet. Only 14)


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## Eazoon (Jun 6, 2012)

I'm in 8th grade as well (I'm 13).



Stingray970 said:


> Grade 8 in the US is the grade 13-14 year olds are enrolled in.
> 
> Never tried piano, but I do intend to learn one day. Preferably when I have the money to do it. (Not of legal age for an official job yet. Only 14)



If your good with computers there is a $125 piano on amazon that comes with a software, it only works when pluged in to a computer and uses the computers speakers. Just search on amazon avid keyboard. Sadly it only has 49 keys but you can use transpose to go an octive up or down so its fine.


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## applemobile (Jun 6, 2012)

Why would he possibly buy that when you could get a full sized working keyboard for half the price, that doesn't need to be plugged into a computer. In fact I see lots of them going free.


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## Ollie (Jun 6, 2012)

Aye, a self-taught pianist me  Played in China, Denmark and Barcelona though with a couple of different soul/jazz bands


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## vcuber13 (Jun 6, 2012)

Stingray970 said:


> Grade 8 in the US is the grade 13-14 year olds are enrolled in.





Eazoon said:


> I'm in 8th grade as well (I'm 13).



That's not what he meant


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## Eazoon (Jun 6, 2012)

applemobile said:


> Why would he possibly buy that when you could get a full sized working keyboard for half the price, that doesn't need to be plugged into a computer. In fact I see lots of them going free.



They have those??? Well in that case get that. the avid one is a beginners studio keyboard. its mor advanced than regular ones (you can make drum beats and stuff).


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## Forte (Jun 6, 2012)

I heard Weston was going to pick up piano, but I heard he's finding it quite challenging ):


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## blackzabbathfan (Jun 6, 2012)

For a self-taught player I consider myself decent. I don't think cubing has really helped me play any better. But I still love playing piano and guitar.


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## 5BLD (Jun 6, 2012)

Stingray970 said:


> Grade 8 in the US is the grade 13-14 year olds are enrolled in.



I'm in 10th grade for US age wise! That is totally missing the point of what I was saying.


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## Applejuice (Jun 6, 2012)

I think 5BLD was talking about piano grades, which has nothing to do with school.
I'm in about grade 5 now. I play piano decently if you ask me. Cubing really helps me somehow,


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## Yuxuibbs (Jun 6, 2012)

I started piano when I was like 3 then quit after a year or something. I picked it up again when I was like 7 or something and I just finished level 10 (the highest level in SATD stuff) in piano a couple months ago (February?) but I was never really good. I started cubing almost 2 years ago so I think piano helped cubing and cubing kind of helped piano. My fingers got a lot faster in both cubing and piano after practicing both. I cube to warm up before I play piano.


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## emolover (Jun 6, 2012)

I tried it for a little bit and I truly sucked it. I can not get my hands to do two separate things at once for piano, this is also the reason I can not play drums. Plus I hate the music you are suppose to play on piano and I think most piano players that are not insanely good have no soul to their playing. 

On the other hand I play guitar and I love it! Plus even the starter music doesn't make me want to claw my eyes out from boredom. 

Piano's gay!


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## Ollie (Jun 6, 2012)

> I don't think cubing has really helped me play any better.



It's probably a a hindrance! I didn't play piano for a while and found that (probably cubing) caused me to lose the stretch I had in my fingers. Plus the obvious repetitive strain injury from cubing which is a lot harder to get if you're playing piano.


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## MWilson (Jun 6, 2012)

I play classical piano (grade 7) and guitar (grade 8), Canadian if that makes any difference in what the grades mean. I don't think there's any direct benefit between cubing and music, but I do think there's a nice freeing of many mental blocks.

For example, after learning full CFOP and it's initially overwhelming alg lists and so on, I'm no longer overwhelmed by any "lists" of things to learn in music. I think like everyone else who learned full OLL, I was like "_57???_". But now that I know them it doesn't feel like all that many. This resulted in much more focus and less procrastination when practicing music theory and technique.

Also, now that I've learned the importance of slowing down and looking ahead in cubing for improvement, I got better at sight reading and memorizing music by going as slow as I needed to make sure my eyes were always decently far ahead of my hands. It's not some unique concept, but I used to just stare at my hands and learn the finger patterns visually before I started cubing, which was of course terrible.


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## Eazoon (Jun 6, 2012)

I didnt know there were grades. I taught myself for the most part. And I know what you mean by no soul, I have a friend like that. But I dont play without soul.....

edit: I think this thread got moved. I so confused.


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## Tao Yu (Jun 6, 2012)

I have just done my grade 8 exam with the Royal Irish Academy of Music. (Dunno how well I did though)
I suppose I am pretty good for my age group and my area as I can usually get podiums in piano comps, unless I get nervous...

I don't feel my cubing has given me a great help in piano, but suppose I can't prove that.
I definitely like cubing better


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## cuberkid10 (Jun 6, 2012)

Eazoon said:


> They have those??? Well in that case get that. the avid one is a beginners studio keyboard. its mor advanced than regular ones (you can make drum beats and stuff).



You can use those to control MIDI parameters in a DAW. They are mainly for recording sampled sounds in a software, and are not meant as stand alone keyboards. I have an Alesis Q49, which I use in most of my YouTube videos and it only samples the given instruments in GarageBand.


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## PianoCube (Jun 7, 2012)

I have played piano for about 12 years, but I'm far from as good as I could be if had practiced more than only 1-2 hours weekly. I'm not sure if cubing have made me better at piano or piano have made me better at cubing, but I have noticed that my left hand gets a bit less exhausted from playing some of the piano pieces I play. I guess it's because OH cubing have made my left hand fingers stronger:tu
I have two videos of myself playing at my YouTube channel, if someone are interested. I plan to upload some more during this summer.


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## Hyprul 9-ty2 (Jun 8, 2012)

I predict a new event will come from this:
Speed-pianioing

HOW FAST CAN U CHOPSTIX?


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## Eazoon (Jun 8, 2012)

I'm not a OH solver, so I challenge you guys to make a vid solving a cube with one hand and playing piano with the other.


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## 5BLD (Jun 8, 2012)

Trouble is, many pieces for OH are for the left hand alone, not the right hand 
I used to know godowsky's etude on chopin's revolutionary etude for the left hand, maybe I'll do a right hand solve (table abuse?) while playing it when I learn it properly again. It'd be really cool to see someone play a piece composed for OH while OH cubing tho


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## Ranzha (Jun 11, 2012)

I've been playing for eleven years. I was never integrated into the grade level system thing or whatever, but I did study classically with a private teacher through the sixth grade in school. I then took a two-year break, came back to the same teacher, wasn't enthused with what I was learning, and stopped taking lessons in February this year. Also, I've never taken theory, but I understand enough to get by.
I haven't improved much in the past couple of years, mainly due to a lack of time and commitment to it. At best, I played the Revolutionary Etude, but it wasn't 100% clean at the written 160 bpm. I keep saying I need to get back to it, but time isn't exactly "of the essence".


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## Noahaha (Jun 13, 2012)




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