Piano (and other musical) skill is not at the same level as gaming, or sight-seeing. More than singing, instrument playing require absorbency and perseverance. Like jogging, it strengths self-efficacy, raises self-esteem,,,

Musical journey is a struggle. The level of struggle is between the level of recreational workout and bench-marked workout. There’s some form of penalty if you don’t put in a minimum amount of practice .. you end up achieving nothing and you waste your effort. As such it demands a minimum commitment.

If I make very slow progress with a tough piece, I can feel disappointed and frustrated.

I need to select reasonable songs. what if I make very slow progress (stuck) with one song? How do I motivate myself?

— sink, buffer, slack resources
Piano practice is an excellent energy sink. If 3H/week, then it becomes a good reserve of slack resource, a buffer of extra time. See blogpost on buffers and alternatives.

See My_song_list

[b=bug or limitation of this software .. requires out-of-the-box thinking]

— to fit everything into one page for both screen and printout
To put more Systems into one page, File->Settings->Layout->choose Tabloid ?! [b]
— zoom out .. ctrl/-
— print: better print in pdf as intermediate step [b]
xp: print in portrait to pdf -> print hard copy as landscape in “actual” size
xp: print in portrait to pdf -> open pdf and fine-adjust zoom of currentView -> print currentView with another fine-adjustment

Proven bad: exportToPdf including any menu item about pdf.
— playback .. is one of the top 3 justifications for the tcost
You can have 3 staves and you can enable/disable each stave for playback 🙂

To add a new stave: dropdown menu bar -> score -> parts-n-staves -> new stave

==== annotations:
— fingering marks: try to tag them to notes, so they can move with the notes
tip: if a finger mark is currently anchored to a spot on a line, you can move the anchor to a note 🙂
— How to mark Am, F …
I tend to create actual notes to help playback, but simple chord names can be added to each measure
— lyrics: prefer phrases, provide one per measure. Not advisable to tag each Chinese character to a note. When the notes cluster together, the tagged words often overlap 🙁

Warning: fine-tuning word spacing is not time well-spent.

The real value ROTI in adding lyrics — efficient search for a particular section. Actually, the lyric provide milestones

———- score editing ———
— copy paste a group of 2 measures or more:

1. create enough empty measures to receive the paste
2. drag to select the group.
3. click in the first empty measure and paste… I think this replaces only the first empty measure with the group.

— moving a measure (or a group) … important to my personal need for organization, but Crescendo automatically shifts a measure to a new System 🙁 Anyway, here are the steps to copy a measure, based on http://help.nchsoftware.com/help/en/crescendo/win/barsandsystems.html

1. create an empty measure
2. select an existing measure
3. click into the empty measure and paste
4. you may want to empty or delete the old measure

— emptying an existing measure .. Often needed after copying a (group of) measure
Just select all the notes in upper stave and delete them. Then repeat on the lower stave.
— auto-format is always counterproductive. There are multiple triggers to auto-format, like changing layout between Tabloid and A4, or adjusting spacing between 2 staves.
== grouping measures into Systems: The software automatically shifts an existing measure either down to next system (less often: up to system above) usually due to overcrowding. Tricky! Similarly, it’s tricky to insert bar lines in a crowded system.

Sugg #1: dtopdown menu -> Score -> Layout -> set max measures per line to a number like 4 to 8. Note the software still has the freedom to put fewer measures on one System, if overcrowded

Sugg #2: insert blank measures all over the place. I think it’s harmless

Sugg: think twice before “moving a measure” as described above .. too complicated.

— to shift a measure up to previous system # down is similar
select the measure. RightClick -> measure -> toPreviousSystem # available only if selected measure is left-most.

Note this has the power to break the maxMeasuresPerLine limit, temporarily, but at some juncture in the future, the software may do a “clean-up”.

— you can  insert an entire empty “System” mid-stream
Select a measure mid-stream -> rightClick -> ….

I prefer looking at fingers than the score. It helps me prepare my fingers for the next key.  Preparation and hand-eye coordination reduces my stress and increases much-needed calm confidence.

I think this habit eases and speeds up my initial grasp of a new piece, so I could run end to end.

To a lesser extent, I also need to annotate fingering and note names.

As I grow old, as a long-term habit for quick-learning and easy-learning of new pieces, I may need to adopt the new habit of playing-by-score.

A piece almost always has single root note, though some pieces start with one root note and ends in another root note.

Mr Pacholo said for each of the 12 root notes, we mostly need the 3 primary chords:

• Chord-I (the first major chord or the root chord),
• Chord-IV (4th major chord), and
• Chord-V (the 5th major chord).
• .. Mr Pacholo said if Key-IV is not suitable, then try Key-II and Key-VI. Note we are talking about single-fingers, not chords.
• A #4 common chord is Chord-vi (the 6th minor chord)

Q: Why the I, IV, and V are so common and popular? See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-chord_song.
A: https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/music-theory/four-chords-every-pop-song/ explains that on the circle of 5th,

• chord-V is one hop from chord-I, clock wise,
• chord-IV is one hop from chord-I, anti-clockwise
• chord-vi is the minor reflection of chord-I
• For example, if a song is based on the C, then C major (chord-I), G major (chord-V), F major (chord-IV) and A minor (chord-vi) are all consonant with C.

Each major chord can have inverted positions. This is the last flexibility, useful in practice…

Q: what’s the level of impact when inverting a chord?

I think simple songs tend to have the simple root notes like C, G.

Goal: faster progress at each step.

— for a melody-n-sing song

1. download a simple song. Ignore anything but the simple melody.
2. learn the right hand melody.
3. learn to figure out the left hand single-finger chords.
4. .. major milestone if I can quickly figure this out.
5. optionally break up the chord
6. optionally expand the single-finger chord into 2- or 3-finger chords

On the right hand, I can also download a richer melody, and hopefully the chords are unchanged. This is often “diminishing returns”

— for a chords-n-sing song, like guitar singers
Suitable if the melody takes too much time to pick up.

• left hand plays single-finger base
• right hand chords

Scenario: my piano score often has a left hand note struck at the same time as a right hand note of the same name like two E notes — I call it a minimum harmony. To improve on the minimum, I have two basic choices:

• 1) I can change the left hand E to a simple two-note chord
• 1b) better still, change to a broken two-note chord to get more ups and downs.
• 2) I can change the left hand E to another note, perhaps a G (or B). But what if the adjacent left-hand note is also G? I would say stay with the original E.

For my own enjoyment or for any audience, variation within the left-hand accompaniment is higher priority than richer harmony between left vs right. Stagnant tune on left hand is worse than having the minimum harmony of two E notes on left^right. In fact, the minimum harmony is the first technique to create a basic left-hand accompaniment.

• 2b) if we choose #2, then we need to change the adjacent left-hand note, to break the monotone.
• 3) another choice — change to another note, possibly a lower G

See my score-editor

1. silent night
2. Rudolph #for meimei
   1. https://www.letsplaykidsmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Rudolph-4.pdf
3. let it be
4. My Way
   1. .. https://www.noviscore.com/piano-sheet-music-my-way-frank-sinatra
5. Blowin’ in the Wind
6. tears in heaven
7. Words .. by Bee Gees
   1. https://www.everyonepiano.com/Stave-5418-3-Words-Bee-Gees-Stave-Preview-3.html 
   2. .. is probably printable in 3-pages
8. Memory
9. — Paul Simon
10. sound of silence
11. Bridge over Troubled Water
12. if I could (El Condor Pasa)
13. .. https://musescore.com/user/9417401/scores/2209826 is closer to the song.
14. .. https://www.8notes.com/scores/22975.asp is beginner.
15. — Elvis
16. Can’t help falling in love
17. love me tender
18. 当你老了 — slow-n-easy
    1. .. https://wap.hqgq.com/pu/show/54942
19. 把悲伤留给自己
20. 橄榄树
21. Will you still love me tomorrow
22. 假如爱有天意
23. 贝加尔湖畔
    1. .. http://www.qupu123.com/qiyue/gangqin/p241171.html .. beginner
    2. .. https://www.qinyipu.com/gangqin/gangqinpu/2944.html .. more complex
24. 偏偏喜欢你
25. —- 齐秦
26. 大约在冬季
27. 外面的世界
28. 花祭
29. —- 姜育恒
30. 最后的温柔
    1. .. https://m.tintinpiano.com/sheetmusic/87267?lang=cn has first half
    2. .. https://www.cnscore.com/number/view_tab_1btlx3h1r9z.html in 简谱
31. 再回首 — slow-n-easy
32. 驿动的心
33. 牵手 — slow
34. —- 苏芮
35. 亲爱的小孩
36. 請跟我來
37. 奉献
38. —- 罗大佑 作品
39. 爱的箴言
40. 是否
41. 东方之珠
42. 追夢人
43. 戀曲1990
44. 人生何处不相逢
45. —- Teresa
46. 月亮代表我的心. Will take 1-2H to create my own basic score, and 2-3 hours to practice right hand.
    1. .. https://www.qinyipu.com/gangqin/shequ/60027.html is full score one one page !
    2. .. https://www.hqgq.com/pu/show/36369 is full score with simple left hand and also chord names
47. 恰似你的温柔
48. 又见炊烟 – slow-n-easy
49. 人面桃花
50. 我只在乎你
51. 在水一方
52. —- traditional songs
53. 北国之春
54. 茉莉花
55. 送别
56. 小白船 .. Alternatively, https://www.gangqinpu.com/cchtml/939259.htm is playable