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Here are some questions I’ve been asked by viewers since I started making YouTube covers. I thought it might be a good idea for me to post them here, with some answers, just in case anyone else might want to know too 🙂
If you have any other questions which I haven’t included here, or any comments, please feel free to comment at the bottom of this page… I love interacting with viewers! Remember to put in your name at least , otherwise WordPress considers it spam and tries to ‘protect’ me from it haha! 😦
1. My Headphones – quite a few viewers have asked me about them
Q: What is playing in your headphones? The song that you’ve transcribed or the output from the piano you’re playing?
A: The output – The headphones are connected to my digital piano so that I can hear what I’m playing without it disturbing the neighbors! I live in an apartment and I usually record at night, so it’s more considerate to use earphones. I don’t listen to the original while I’m doing the recording. I do that while I’m transcribing the song. I’m pretty good at writing down what I hear. Playing from memory takes much too long for me. I can play by ear, with basic chords, but I want my covers to be more complete and as much like the original as possible, so I always write the notes down.
2. My Tablet – I read my music from it while I perform. So far, I haven’t seen anyone else do that on YouTube, although I just read an article on BBC news, that some orchestra is going to use tablets for their scores. Might be a bit hard for them to turn the pages though – can’t use the violin bows haha! And tablets are still a lot smaller than A4 size.
Q: I’m just wondering, how did you get music sheets onto that tablet? I’m used to having a physical copy of the music sheet, but to save money and paper, I want to try reading from the tablet while playing.
A: Reading music from a tablet saves a lot of trouble dealing with paper copies. I write my music using Musescore (free and really easy to use!) on my laptop. Musescore themself tweeted me (So pleased!!!) And informed me that I don’t need a separate pdf converter 🙂 Just go to File > save as > select. pdf 🙂 Easy peasy! It turns the scores into pdf files which can then be copied over to my Acer Iconia tablet via a USB cable. If your tablet doesn’t have a USB port, you can email the file to yourself and open it using the pdf reader on your tablet.
3. Playing the pieces
Q: Thanks to you, I can now play this song. It does not sound as good as when you play it however! How do you do it?
A: You’re most welcome 🙂 It’s the fluency and expression that makes it sound good, so if you practise till it becomes really easy, then feel the music when you play, it will sound just as good! The secret, is individual voicing of different notes in the bar, meaning you’ll need to make certain notes softer so they taper off gently. This is so that it won’t sound ‘chunky’ – like a solid block of sound, but will flow and weave pleasingly 🙂 Just go lighter on the ‘weaker’ beats of the bar. 🙂
Read [FAQ Page 2] [FAQ Page 3]
Joyce Music 
Hello Joyce,
In your youtube videos, like « On my way » by alan walker, you says that we can learn your pieces on flowkey but i can’t find them anywhere. When i type « joyce leon » there is no results.
Did you took them out ?
If you didn’t can you tell me how i can find them ?
I love your arrangements and i would really like to learn them
Have a good day
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They are still there. Type Joyce Leong 😉.
The songs that are displayed when you do that, don’t have my name on the titles, but they are my arrangements. However, not all my covers are there. Flowkey has been using many other pianists’ arrangements. Most of my more recent covers aren’t there. That’s why I’ve provided Synthesia tutorials and sheet music.
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Ok thank you 😁
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Hello Joyce,
In your old video, like heart by heart by demi lovato, you says that we can learn your pieces on flowkey but i can’t find them anywhere.
Did you took them out ?
Have a good day
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I’ve not taken out any of my arrangements that were on flowkey. You can still find them when you search for Joyce Leong. The songs that are displayed when you do that, are my arrangements. However flowkey has a lot of other pianists’ covers there besides mine, and most of my more recent covers were not used by flowkey.
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Hi Joyce, do you need a license of any kind to play and upload covers on youtube/Facebook?
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You don’t need a license to upload cover videos on YouTube. After you upload to YouTube, the copyright holders will make a 3rd party claim on it. This allows them to either claim ad revenue, or share ad revenue with you if you have monetized your channel. This is not a copyright STRIKE. It doesn’t affect your channel standing. It’s fine. I don’t think Facebook cares either way haha!
However, if you want to upload your cover to streaming platforms like Spotify however, you will need to pay cover song license. Your music distributor company (eg. Distrokid) will have a way for you to pay that easily. In distrokid, it’s $12 per year, per song.
If you want to make sheet music, you’ll need to sell them through a publisher like Musicnotes. They will obtain licensing for you. You’ll get a percentage of the sales.
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Thank you dear Joyce for answering my doubts!! Stay cool, amazing and healthy!! Rock on!
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You’re very welcome, Betty! Have fun with your music channel!
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Looking for Lady Gaga – Always Remember Us This Way
You have a YouTube video but I couldn’t find the sheet music. Thanks
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The link to my sheet music is in quite a number of places:
1. The YouTube video description
2. The blog post on this website (you can do a search for it in the search box)
3. My sheet download page on this website (click on the sheet music tab on the menu at the top of the screen)
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Hello, this is JC, it’s ok if you already forgot about the other one 😉
I have a yamaha psr e323 and I use the default also when I am playing. The sound coming from the keyboard that I use is a bit different from yours.. does the model of the keyboard varies on the sound of it??
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Yes, mine is a Yamaha Clavinova CLP330 digital piano.
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Okay thank you!
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Hi joyce!
Thank you for sharing your talent and your music to us. Anyway, I just want to know what is your ‘default’ tone when you are recording your covers? Is it grand piano or you’re on a dual tone mode? I’ve watched most of your covers by the way and I love it.. 😊
Jc
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You’re welcome. It’s almost always grand piano – the default time on my Clavinova. The only times I’ve use anything else were for Interstellar, and one other, which I can’t even remember now, haha!
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Thank you for all of your dedication! I can not wait to play these songs.
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Hi joyce, i love your arrangements and was wondering if you could arrange Sign Of The Times by Harry Styles. It’s my favorite song but I can’t find any good arrangements so I hope that you could when you have the time:) thank you!
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I’ll think about it
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Hi Joyce. I’m wondering if you’d be interested in putting together a Metallica song – “Nothing Else Matters”. I love playing your pieces and am also learning some of Beethoven’s Sonatas presently but my husband just loves heavy metal and as a surprise for him, I’d love to play this but haven’t the talent you have for putting music together. I hope you can help.
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