If you own a Jupiter-80 & can't play...

If you can I would grab some lessons and, of course, lot's of practice...oh, so much. You know how to play guitar and bass so you have some musicality. Try and translate as much as you can from those instruments and just keep trying. I turned 53 today, thunderkyss, and still take lessons!

Also, the metronome is your friend. I always use it when I practice and it cleans up your timing. You might have awesome timing on the guitar and bass but this requires different muscles so get that metronome on. :)

I agree with HowardS, invest in lessons. Heck after 30 years of playing guitar and keys I still take lessons about once a year for a month or so just to brush up or learn a new style. I'm still not very good at sight reading quickly but once I figure out a song, I just keep practicing and improving. Good luck!

howardS wrote:

If you can I would grab some lessons and, of course, lot's of practice...oh, so much. You know how to play guitar and bass so you have some musicality. Try and translate as much as you can from those instruments and just keep trying. I turned 53 today, thunderkyss, and still take lessons!

Also, the metronome is your friend. I always use it when I practice and it cleans up your timing. You might have awesome timing on the guitar and bass but this requires different muscles so get that metronome on. :)

Practice practice practice, I would say.

My first instrument was piano at the ago of 4, but for family reasons (a new sister coming) I had to stop playing at the age of 6 and the piano was even removed from the house so I could not play anymore, and my mind got blocked for music for the next 10 years.

I got interest for guitar and bass at the age of 16, and I learned how to play to an enough level that allowed me to play bass in various rock bands in the 80's.

Due to professional reasons I stopped to play in 1982 and only resumed playing in 2003, when I could buy my first piano ( a Roland Rd-170), which helped me to learn how to play, having to practice almost every day.

I never stopped playing again and music is my main hobby as an amateur composer and occasional gigging musician, but still at a very low level.

Only lots of practice can improve your play!

PauloF wrote:

Only lots of practice can improve your play!

Good point. That's how I learned to play guitar/bass & am able to play with the proficiency I do now. Another thing that really helped was actually learning the fretboard, where each note is, the patterns that make up the scales & chords. So I think I'm going to take that approach to the keyboard & practice, practice, practice.

I thought about taking lessons, but I honestly have no "desire" to play piano & no one in my area is giving funk bass, or searing leads lessons.

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only beginner here learning the Jupiter 80! I'm well able to play using music books and I write onto the notation the correct note to play, as I'm unable to read music yet. I had piano lessons a few years ago and my mother taught me as a child. As with chords I suppose it's similar to a guitar where your hands 'remember' the 'shape' of a particular chord, I think they call it 'muscle memory'. Unlike you I don't play guitar but I do play the drums (if you can still call me a musician!). Drumming requires a certain degree of muscle memory as each limb can be almost totally independent from each other. I guess there is a steep learning curve to learning the keys/reading music etc but I find it just 'comes to you' after plenty of practice. Sorry if I'm rambling on I hope it makes sense! Good luck and keep in touch with your progress and ideas, I'd certainly appreciate it.

Macker62 wrote:

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only beginner here learning the Jupiter 80!

Sorry if I'm rambling on I hope it makes sense! Good luck and keep in touch with your progress and ideas, I'd certainly appreciate it.

Thanks... I appreciate you sharing your experience, it's a big help to me. FYI... I don't own a Jupiter 80, nost likely never will. I asked here, thinking there would be a lot of folks here who never played piano either. I may be wrong about that.

Figured most "synth" players would be self taught, like "most" guitar players. I own a couple of Fantoms, just bought an Alpha Juno (& a Prophet 08) & plan to start playing more synth. I didn't want to ask in the Fantom forum, because a lot of those guys are "Piano" guys.

Still, thanks for sharing.

Like I said in my original post, I can play some, I'm just not very proficient at it. Practice, practice, practice makes the most sense to me. My biggest issue is having my hands work independently of each other. Most likely it's because I don't "know" the keyboard as well as I should. I can type pretty fast, I taught myself more or less. My fingers fly around independent from each other & I'm not even thinking about it... I guess it should be the same for piano.

Strange... I would have bet money there were more self taught players around here.

I was self taught on guitar and played for many years before getting the electronic music bug. I could not play piano when bought my first Casio 49 key synth back in 1992 and still can't play piano here 22 years later. I always entertained the idea of taking lessons and doing a lot of practice but just had too much fun along the way bashing away and making a lot of noise. Now up to 23 synth's with 136 songs and counting so far.

Because of this inability as a trained keyboard player, I do rely a lot on KARMA grooves to get good timing and because I can't play left hand-right hand stuff like a pianist. One bonus from this is that I have actually learned a lot about chord structures and harmony adding in the leads and different sound effects along with those grooves since the KARMA page shows the chord(s) being played. And some of them are huge like for example a Cm7_9_11_13. Basically though I just rely on my ears...I can definitely tell when I hit a wrong note or something doesn't work!

I took lessons for 13 years, and then went back and took lessons for another two years about ten years ago. Without lessons, I would still be fumbling around in the dark.

I would love to have piano lessons again, but where I live now there aren't any piano teachers to be found. I'm doing quite well on my own though, I'm working hard learning sight reading using various methods. It's tough going though.

@thunderkyss

Just a quick note to say that like you I can't play at all and yet am still intent on acquiring a JP80 (in about month). I have no doubt it's gonna take me more than a little while to get my head around it, .. I'm only just getting my head around soft-synths used with my DAW, and I can already tell it's going to be a challenge getting used to the JP80.

Once I have it, I intend to sign up somewhere for online piano training. Then it's gonna be about the consistent application of effort over the long haul.

... I've read so many great reviews in this forum from other JP80 owners and their enthusiasm is palpable and somewhat infectious. Keyboard players impress me. - The left hand doing something totally different to the Right. ... I've succeeded at patting my own head whilst rubbing my stomach simultaneously. - Hopefully a sign I might be able to play a JP80 one day?

As my piano teacher told me when I ventured to complain about the trouble I was having when playing with both hands, "Of course it is hard! That's what learning to play is all about."

As an adult beginner, for me the secret to success is simply this. If you find a way to enjoy practicing, you will learn to play. If you can't entertain yourself while practicing, you will just give up. Don't set a goal of where you want to be in 1 year or 5 years or 10 years. Just get a bit better this week vs. last week, this month vs. last month, and this year vs last year. (Oh, I'm sure you'll find the JP-80 is a great way to make the practice fun.)

That's great advice, Rodan. Find the joy to make practising fun!

ref If you can't entertain yourself while practicing, you will just give up.

perhaps the best musical advice ever dished out !

90% of any musical performance is about muscle memory....10 % good ear/musical taste

and once you have that muscle memory the ratios get flipped

here is my trick...and i have almost no skills or desire to learn to play piano, synth etc

1 ) Make up a simple physical action, 123 arpeggio, press a key with your nose and nudge the pitch wheel with your elbow, arms crossed with inverted hands, fingernails only, whatever

2) now pretend you are the greatest musical virtuoso ever and STORM up an down the key bed an octave at a time, later chromatically, then 2 key spaces apart...start by repeating the same action 4 times in the same spot before moving, look to your next destination before you jump, then drop the repetition to 3 or 2, and finally to 1....before you know it you will be jumping two octaves at will !

*IMPORTANT never change the physical action ONLY change the place on the key bed where you do it

3) make something fun and musical from that simple repetitive action, change the rhythm, dynamics, speed BUT not the core physical action


What are we doing here ???

we are learning a simple physical action but learning it well, and then applying musical taste to that action

we are playing till it hurts a little, your bodies cue to make more muscle and strengthen those neurons




You are becoming a virtuoso one crazy trick at a time and that is a lot of fun if you are just a casual player

Ive played things you people wouldn't believe
Arpeggios on fire off the DAWs of the sighing
Ive made D Beams jitter in the dark via the CV gate
All those notes will be lost in rhyme
Like tears when your playin