music house toronto
Resources
Looking to sign up for an exam through the RCM? Need to buy sheet music? Does your piano need tuning? You've come to the right page!
Piano and Theory Exams
To sign up for an exam (piano, guitar, theory, harpsichord) go to: rcmexaminations.org and follow the links provided to register for your exam. Make sure to ask your teacher ahead of time for their teacher number. Your teacher can also sign you up on their end but that requires some additional information to be provided to your instructor. You will also find important dates related to examinations (generally the sign-up deadline is three months in advance of the examination). On the RCM's exam website, under 'syllabi,' you can also find the Popular Selection List, containing pieces which may be substituted as a "study" for piano exams beginning at the grade three level.
Music Bookstores
There are a number of music bookstores in the West end of Toronto that are easily accessible by transit. The nearest one, if you are taking transit, is the Long and McQuade store at Bloor and Ossington. If you have more than just books to pick up, this is the best one-stop shopping option. Their score collection is comprehensive and they have a substantial amount of sheet music available. www.long-mcquade.com
Queensway Music Centre, our neighbourhood store, is no longer open for business here in the West end of Toronto. While we are sad to see them go, we hope they enjoy their time in Saskatchewan and RVing elsewhere around the country!
If you work downtown there is Remenyi House of Music, located directly across from the Royal Conservatory of Music Building and the Telus Centre for Performing Arts at St. George Station. In the basement of the store they have a wide selection of classical music scores and texts while at street level they have a fair selection of popular music. Remenyi is home to "The Steinway Room," a dream-room for ambitious students who might one day like to own a Steinway & Sons piano.
Remenyi House of Music website:
www.remenyi.com
Online sheet music sources:
For the pop music enthusiast there's www.musicnotes.com. They have a wide selection of sheet music at various levels and you don't have to leave home to shop their virtual shelves. One bonus feature of the site is that you can download the first page of each song for free so that you can try it out before purchasing it. To do so requires a quick free software download from the site, which is in effect, a reader for the sheet music. One word of caution: if you are interested in buying pop music, whether it's from a virtual store like musicnotes.com or from an actual store: not all piano scores have the melody to the song. Some sheet music just features the piano accompaniment making the score more workable if you plan on accompanying yourself at the piano or wish to play while someone else sings the melody. Usually it's possible to tell whether the piano music contains the melody of the song or just the accompaniment by looking at the first page but this isn't always the case. Our advice? Print off the first page and bring it to your lesson so that we can figure out whether or not it is an appropriate version of the song.
Pianos and Piano Tuners
Our favorite tuner is Bob Delyea from Delyea Pianos Inc. We have heard only positive feedback about their piano tuning services. They're trustworthy, are in and out efficiently, and do a great job tuning and maintaining our students' as well as our pianos. Bob and family also sell used pianos. Both of Nicole's instruments were purchased at his shop, located a stone's throw from Burnamthorpe and Highway 427. If you are just getting into the piano market and are looking for a moderately priced instrument that plays well Delyea's is a good place to start. Remember that usually when you purchase an instrument though a piano dealer the price will almost always include the move (to the main floor) and tuning of your instrument.
Delyea's website also has some valuable advice for those looking to buy a used piano through a private sale. This includes things to look for in a prospective piano, but importantly also includes tips on instruments to avoid. I can speak from experience when I say that nothing is more of a headache than a piano that won't stay in tune and sounds much less than pleasant because of it.
For more information:
www.delyeapianos.com
Newer to the scene is piano tuner, Andrew Kinnear. Check out Andrew's website for some information on the care of your piano as well as the optimal placement of your piano in your home (ie. away from heat sources, not against an outside wall, etc.)
Piano tuner Andrew Kinnear:
www.torontopianotuning.net
One fascinating Toronto-based site is concertpitch.ca. This site is a great resource for all things piano and even has a virtual tour of the instrument. If you've ever wondered just how the action of a piano works this is the place to find out. If you hear your tuner/technician talk about hammer flanges and whippen spoons now there you'll know they're talking about. The operator of this site also tunes and rebuilds instruments, and although we've never used him to tune our pianos, he has been in the industry for years so if you're interested in trying someone new…(and his website is pretty neat or did I say that already?).
Check out:
www.concertpitch.ca
Movers (not shakers) need to move your piano. Don't trust your instrument to just anyone. Make sure to hire a reputable piano mover when it's time to move. After trying various piano movers we have decided to endorse Braymore as our movers of choice. Our most recent experience with them (not the other guys)— included moving a grand out of storage and having them move three uprights up the stairs out of the basement, around a tight corner, and down the narrow walkway. It was a tricky move but we couldn't have been happier with their service. By all appearances, these guys were born moving pianos!
Here's their website:
www.braymore.ca
Remember to book your move well in advance!
Guitar Resources
This web app is a relatively painless way to explore the standard scales and modes on guitar. The page defaults to the C major scale in standard tuning, and the degrees of the scale are colour-coordinated and numbered on the fretboard. To change the tuning—and the location of the dots—click the plus or minus signs of a string to raise or lower it, or click "common tunings" to choose from an array of blues, open and other tunings.
I know most of you aspiring guitarists out there will be shocked speechless to discover that this site has more than its fair share of spelling and grammatical errors. The good news, however, is that it also gives you good basic pointers to help you tune your axe, and a guitar tuner web app with a drop-down menu of alternate tunings including a "custom tuning" option.
I admit to not having spent good money on guitar notation software. And why should I? There's a perfectly good free program called tuxguitar which is available for Mac, Windows and Linux. My students seem to learn how it works easily, and you can multitrack and import standard guitar tab formats into it. Viewing options include tab and music notation together and "rhythmic notation" tab.
Android Phone Apps
No doubt there are many iphone music-related apps to choose from, but I've gone the way of the droid, so I use gstrings (classy name!) for tuning guitars and Mobile Metronome as, well, just that.
