Ray Mak

Dear Visitors,

        Thank you for the wonderful personal messages telling me that you've learnt how to play from my Music Posts here. I really love to be bombarded with messages like this and I am really glad that you guys have learnt the song and also learnt how to play by ears from reading these tutorials. But, I strongly believe that you should thank yourself for learning it because I know that being a person who plays by ear, my tutorials can be not easy for people who read notes to play. I am only writing on how I play it and what are the chords, the person who actually feels and play the music, is You. You should be proud of yourself for taking the extra steps and effort to understand my tutorials.

For those who are having difficulties in understanding my tutorial. Here's some tips shared by my visitors who were able to follow my tutorials for you. These steps are what they have done in order to play most of the songs that I have played, (thanks for the email guys!!):

1. Print out the particular tutorial you want to learn, if possible in colors.

2. Listen to the original song to get an idea of the lyrics and bass. Look at the mood written by me, you may feel it yourself, my mood is not always correct.

3. Visit my YouTube and click on the song that you want to learn, view FULL SCREEN, if possible, turn on the HIGHEST DEFINITION your computer can support, so that you can see my fingers in crystal clear definition

4. Look at the Left Hand FIRST!!!!! Don't look at my right hand, you need to get the beat and the bass! Follow the chords that I've written on the tutorials.

5. Learn the Left Hand (Know the chords ie C Major, CEG, C Minor CEbG)

6. Try to figure out the Right Hand yourself, mine will be too fast if you really want to learn. You need some time, do not rush!

7. Practice slowly, looking at the chords, feeling the music

8. Trust me, if you can follow this, you'll learn the song within 2 hours if you're good, within a few days, if you're average

9. Download and Enjoy the mp3 version on your Ipod or Mp3 Player

For you guys who email/message me thanking me that you've learnt it. I'm really proud of you.

Warmest Regards,
Ray Mak

Dear Visitors,


Thank you for visiting / returning to my website. I really appreciate that. If you notice, in my tutorials, I always post stuffs like Simple Chords, Dancing Chords, Gliding Chords, etc. right? In fact, when I write tutorials, I always try my best to KISS (Keeping It Short & Simple). If you're expecting me to spoon feed you by writing every single note for the melody and every single note for the accompaniment, then learning by ear is really not for you.


Melody part, right hand, for any songs, is actually pretty simple to learn. First of all, you need to know the notes and the keys well. For instance, in D Major, you have F# and C#. What are the notes in Bb Major? If you're not familiar with keys, you can take a little more time to find out. To play the melody, you just need to know the lyrics and you can add in some background music using your right hand if you are capable in doing that. Secondly, you can add chords to make it sound richer too. For instance, if you're playing a C Major chord, add in E and G below it.


Accompaniment, is where my help comes in:


Let's use C Major in our example to make things simple.

Simple Chords
C, E, G or E, G, C or G, C, E all played at once


Dancing Chords
Dance around C, E, G as accompaniment at different beat, according to the beat of the song that you're playing. Usually Lower C, followed by G, followed by upper C or E, running back and forth. You can also combine them like lower C, then G and upper C played together, the C and E played together. Just Dance!


Gliding Chords
Usually the same beat, no dancing around. Just glide on lower C, G, then upper C, E, G back and forth at the same tempo. Just Glide!


Octaves
If it's a C chord, lower C and upper C played one after another. Like Dong Ding Dong Ding Dong Ding Dong... Or you can rock it up a little by pressing lower C then upper C twice and back to lower C. Like Dong Ding Ding Dong Ding. Just play octaves! You don't need long fingers, don't worry, just play!


I found this very good website that explains a lot about the keys to you. Just click Here



If you wanna know how I do it, just click Here


Ray Mak