Transcripts
1. Lesson 1: Posture at the Piano; Quarter, Half, Whole Notes: Hi there. I'm Doctor Kathy Robot, Go. And I'm so glad to meet you. Thank you so much for downloading these videos to teach you how to start playing the piano . I'm ready to teach you. So let's go ahead and get started. Okay? Let's look at what posture. What should be? You have a bench that you're sitting on a piano bench. You want to sit in the front half of your bitch with your knees slightly below the keyboard ? I don't want to sit back and become too comfortable, because then it makes you slouch. You're sitting. Height should be. Enable your arms to be level with the piano. See only arms too high or too low. And then your hands need to be relaxed. The easiest way to do that is shake out your hands to find a relaxed around it hand sheep shape, and then you're gonna play on the tips of your finger in the side of your film. Now, this is very hard for me to explain this by words. So why don't you watch me? Let's talk about your posture at the piano. You want to sit on the upper half of your bench so that you're not sitting back too much. You want to sit at a distance from the piano so that your knees or a little bit under the keyboard, but not too much, maybe about two inches under the keyboard. You can check your distance away from the piano by looking at the fall board, making a fist, putting your hands out straight. If you are able to put your hands out straight enough with a fist touching this part of the fall board, then you add the correct distance. Now let's talk about how you hold your hand on the piano. You want to take your hands and hold them exactly like you hold them when you walk, so it's a very natural shape of your hands. So pretend you're walking. Shake out your hands, pick him up and he should have this nice round of handshake When you put them on the piano . Your fingers stay curved and your fingers are playing on your fingertip in your thumb is playing on the side. Okay, it is second thing. We're going to talk about it. Hi! Allo notes on the piano in the pattern of Blackie groups low end of the piano's here, High end is here. Piano is white keys and Blackie's groups into twos and threes again. Why don't you watch me explain it? Let's talk about the layout of the piano. We have white keys and we have Blackie's. The black keys are grouped into twos, on into threes. On that alternates all the way up the piano. The low end of the piano is the left hand side, the right hand side of the pan or the high notes. Let's do an exercise with our two index fingers in her hand and the groups of two black keys, I want you to find your lowest set of two black keys and play them one of the time, going all the way up to the piano from lowest to highest. Let me demonstrate it for you. Go ahead and pause the video and try that on your own. OK, now let's look at the group of three black keys. I want you to do an exercise with me, too. I want you to take your middle three fingers in your hand so your index your middle and your ring finger in both hands and we're gonna play the three black. He's one at a time from lowest to highest. Your left hand's going to start with the lowest keys. And when you get into the middle, the piano switched to your right hand. Watch me demonstrate this. Okay, Now it's your turn. Stop the video and try that on your own. All right, let's move on and learn some basic rhythm again. Maybe you're beginning, student. Or maybe you're dusting this off. Doesn't matter. So our quarter note is our basis of rhythm. The quarter note looks like this. It's filled in with a stem that gets one beat. By the way, this still they can go up or down. It doesn't change the note. So quarter note filled in with a stem one beat. Ah, half note. Looks like this is not filled in its imperial inside with the same stem. Half don't get too. Beats her right. And now our whole note or whole note is a little bit trickier to understand because it fills up the whole measure and we're gonna learn later about managers and time signatures and all that. But for right now, I just want you to know that in our most common time signature. The whole note gets four beats, so quarter note gets one half gets to whole note gets for okay, lets go. Move to the piano again, and I want you to practices for them. Exercise of the Okay, let's do some exercises with the rhythm we just learned. Let's take your index fingers in both hands and put them on the set of two black keys. We are going to practice going back and forth with right and first and then left hand playing Quarter notes. Let me turn my math room on. There's 1/4 note beak. So we're gonna play back and forth with the ride and left hand using quarter notes. They tried this with me. Remember, we're going to start with the right hand. 12 Ready? Go. Great job. Now what if we did half notes to remember that half notes Get two beats, curt note. So if we start with the right hand again, doesn't like this, try it with me. Remember, we're going to start with our right hand ready. 12 Betty G o. Super job to remember about whole notes. Whole notes. Take up the whole measure and you learn about measures in some of the following lessons. But whole notes get four beats in our most common time signature. So whole note, we're gonna hold it for four. I'm gonna start with my right hand. Here's a whole nother Teoh the foreign on my left hand one Teoh 34 Can you try elements with May Start with your right hand ready Go a greater understanding of rhythm. Now let's do a pattern. We're gonna play 4/4 notes, followed by 4/2 notes, followed by four whole notes. We're going to start with our right hand ready. Let's do it with me to ready go corner notes now squished 1/2 notes 1 to 1 Teoh one Teoh one to know full notes 1234 123412341 Teoh, Congratulations on learning the first part about rhythm. You did such a great job today. We obviously only learned a couple of rhythms, 1/4 notes, half notes in the whole notes. But we got to try them out and play them on the piano. And we learned about the basics of sitting at the piano and posture and how to hold our body. So we're starting off on the right foot, which is where you want to begin when you're starting to play the piano. So in the next video, I really help you come back and join me for the next video because we're gonna be talking about playing on the black keys on the piano. So we're actually gonna look at the rhythm that we learned today. Put it on a piece of paper. You can read it off your iPad, your laptop or your gonna print it out and read it on your piano. And we're gonna be learning a piece on the Black Keys, and it's gonna be a lot of fun is gonna be the first piece that you actually read on the piano and play. So I will see you there.
2. Lesson 2: Playing on the 3 Black Keys: welcome to us in two of our beginning Piano chorus today. We're going to take what we learned in our last Lawson about the Black Keys on the piano, and we're going to be obviously playing a piece on the Black Keys. We're also going to be using the rhythm that you learned the corner note the half a nose in the hole notes and implying that taxi starting to read music. So let's go ahead and get started, okay? To play a piece that we're gonna be learning today, you need to know about finger numbers are thumb is finger number one in both Angie GNC. Our thumb is one index finger is number two. Middle finger is three. Ring finger is four and pinky is number five. We use finger numbers in the music to show you where to put your hands on the notes and which finger to play on a specific note. So until we get to know reading, we're gonna be reading the rhythm by using just our finger numbers. So it's very important that you memorize your finger numbers. It's something to you. You can do very quickly. Okay. Today that these were gonna be learning is on the three black keys. I want you to find a set of three but keys in the middle of your piano. So here's the director middle of your piano. So one set of black, He's right to the left and one set of black. He's right to the right. Your left hand will be here on this red circle set of three. Buck he's and your right hand will be right here on the blue circle. Three black keys. All right. Here is the piece we are going to be learning today. Have caught several things on this page to show you. Make sure you download the pdf of this piece. It's right below this video. So if you need to pause this video right now, download your music. You can either print it out and put it on you and by you on your piano. Or you can read it as a pdf on your laptop or I Okay, take a second to do that right now. All right. If you look at the bottom of this music, I have a chart here for you. It's showing you there were only gonna be using fingers 23 and four in both hands. And we're gonna be putting them on the three black keys just like we had before. Okay, now, And this piece here are notes. So we're actually gonna be reading the notes and reading our finger numbers. So these numbers down here, these are your finger numbers. Okay, So up here we have our notes, and that's how long we hold the notes. Those are rhythm. So if we look at it, we would first hold note with finger number two for one count. Finger number three with one count. Figure number four with two counts. Because again, 1/4 note is one beat half Otis to beads, and a whole note in this case is four beats. Okay, you may look at all these groups of notes and you don't really know how to play them. So there's a system for you to learn how to play them. The first thing you need to know is that if the stems are going up, you're gonna be playing those with your right hand. So these 1st 3 notes since the stems air going up, you're going to be playing them with right hands to three and then four. So down here it would be right hand to three and then four. Now you don't jump to the next right hand port. You go down here next and play the three left hand notes. Now you have stems going down. If the stems are going down, they're gonna be played by your left hand. That's why they're here. But left hand the word. So you're gonna be doing with your left hand for your four, then three, then two. So after you play your three right hand notes, you then go to your left hand and play finger. 43 and two. Then you continue with your right hand and play. 234 to 3. Down here. It's 234 to 3 now. Did you notice we went from 4 to 2. We skipped that note in between. So 4 to 2. We skipped finger three. That's a tricky part of this piece. Make sure you get that right. And then our last note. How long do we hold that last note for? That's right. We hold it for four counts. So you need to keep finger three on this note for four counts before you move on. So that's our first line, right? And left hand right hand. When you are done with that, you jump to our second line. Here's our second line. OK, I want to divide. Draw a line right now between the two lines so you can see this a little bit clearer. Okay, so far. Second part. We first play the right hand and then the left. Did you notice that the right hand left hand part are exactly what you did in the first line? It's a great thing to notice what's going on in music. And then when we end 44332 it's different from what we did in the first line, so that would be 443 three to. So in this piece we have stepwise motion. 234 is an example, so we're going up. Just one note. We also have an example of a skip for 22 is our skip, and finally, we have some examples of repeated note for 42 fours in a row. That's repeated note. 332 threes in a row. That's also a repeated note. Okay, I want you to listen to me playing the entire piece, and then we're going to talk about some practice steps. Okay? I hope you enjoyed listening to that piece. That's the piece you're gonna be learning today. Now, with this piece and any other piece, we can't just jump in and play it without doing some practice. So I'm gonna walk you through some practice steps. The first practice steps were going to do is we're gonna close our piano lid, and we're gonna tap the rhythm of this piece with our hands. We're not gonna talk with our fingers, just our whole hands. So when the right hand is supposed to be playing the right hands going to top when the left hand should play, the left hand should tap. OK, so we're going to count one for the quarter notes to for the halfs and for for the holes. After we do our tapping exercise, I'm going to play with you Just the first line on Lee that we're gonna take the little paws and they were gonna practice the second line. Onley will take a little pause and then we'll play it all together. Okay? The first thing that we need to do together is weenie to tap the rhythm. So what I want you to do is I want you to take your piano. If you have this lid right here and close your keyboard up and with your right in your left hand, you're going to top the rhythm. We're going to tap right hand when our right hand is tapping. When our right and it's supposed to be playing, we top are right. And when our left hand is supposed to be playing with top our left hand Okay, let's do it from the beginning. We're gonna count one for court adults to for half and four for holes. 12 Ready? Go. 111 Teoh 11 Want Teoh. 111112341112 1112 11111234 Okay, great job. Open your piano up and let's play the first line together. Put your three fingers on the three block. He's close to each other. Let's do just the first line. I want you to be very careful at the end of the lining of a skip from figure four to finger to 12 Ready? Go, You. 344322343 All right. Did you get that skip at the end from 4 to 2 if you did your on the right track. Okay, let's try the second line together. One to ready. Go. 2344 Bring two more for 332 Great job, everyone. If you notice I held my last one for four counts. Which is that whole note? Now let's try the entire piece altogether. One Teoh. Ready? Go. Wait. Three. Remember your lovely rounded hand shaped that you're playing with? Remember that you're holding your half note for two counts your whole notes for four counts and your quarter notes for one count each. Congratulations on learning this piece. You've done such a great job. So today we played a pizza on the three black keys. We used our finger numbers and the rhythms that we've learned the quarter, half and whole notes. Great accomplishment. So make sure you play This is much ado. Like before we move on to the next lesson and in the next us and we're going to be playing a piece on the two Bucky's. And we're gonna be learning about the measure, a bar line and the double bar lines. So I will see you then.
3. Lesson 3: Moving to a Higher Set of Two Black Keys, Bar Lines: welcome to lessen three of our beginning piano course today. I'm gonna walk you through how to play a piece on the two black keys, and we're gonna learn something that's very important. Piano plane. We're gonna learn how to move up the piano and down the piano when I do wanna move and one we've back in the middle of this piece and it's something that you need to know when you're playing the piano, so it's gonna be very fun. Very exciting. We're also learned today about measures and bar lines and the double bar lines. So let's go ahead and start it. Okay, lets start right off about. We're talking about the concepts that you want to be integrating into your piece today. Now, we're not learning yet about these lines on about this number, so just ignore those for right now. But I did want you to show you what it would look like in its entirety. We are learning today about the bar line. This right here this line is called a bar line, and what it does is it separates music into groups of beats. So everything within this space has the same number of beats. In this case, it's four in the piece for playing today. It's going to be four beats in every groupie between the bar lines. Now the groupings between the bar lines have a name that's called a measure. So the space between the bar lines is called a measure. So here we have one measure, two metres, three measures. And finally, at the end of the piece, we have to bar lines, the 2nd 1 being thicker than the other. We call this the double bar line. Whenever you see the double more line, that means that's the end of the piece. Okay, so here's the piece we're gonna be learning today. I wanted to show you those concepts that were just starting. Here's our bar lines. See them right here. And then we have our double bar line of the very end. That means that peace is over, and then we have the space in between the bar lines that are called the measures. So now we have just like we had in our first piece, we have one line and then a second line of music. So we have a two line piece and just like in our first piece, the right hand is going to be playing the notes with the stems. Up on the left hand is going to be planes notes with the stem down. So let me walk you through how you're going to be playing this piece. So the right hand plays the 1st 2 Then you move down the left hand, then right then left the new right, Right, right, right, right. And that finishes that first line. Now, when you get to the south end of the first time, you jumped in the second line. Then it's left, right, left, left, right, right, right, right, right, right, right and right. Finishes of the peace. Now you may have noticed I've got some brackets here. Okay, Whenever I have notes under a bracket, that means you're going to be moving to ah, higher set of black keys. And I'll be explaining this more in the practice steps today. But you're going to be starting with your left hand and your right hand on the set of two black keys. And when you get to measure too. So this is measure one. This is measure to when you get to measure to your right hand that was here is gonna float up to the next set of Blackie's and your left hand that was here is going to go ahead and take the place of where the right hand waas and you're going to stay in that higher position for measure to imagine. Three measure for and measure five started in measure six of the second line. Your left hand's going to float back to where it started and the right and floats back to where it started. And you finish out the piece in your starting position so that our fancy move that we have in this piece now most of the peas is played with just the two black keys. There is one little five know your finger fight is gonna play this Blackie group of the three black keys and you feel noticed. The only time your finger five places that very, very last note. So every single note, except for the last one, is played with finger to and three on the two black keys, and the last note is played with Speaker Five. All right, so I'm going to take you through some practice steps in this piece. We're going to practice tapping with the lid, closed the right and then the left whenever the right hand plays the right hand taps when the left hand plays the left hand taps and then we're going to top our finger numbers. We haven't done this before, so we're gonna tap 32 23 go all the way through the piece, tapping our finger numbers. We're gonna do that on the lid of the piano, and then we're going to open up the piano and play one line, pause and play another line and pause. Now. So the Onley tricky part of this piece is that move. Otherwise, you're just playing on these two black keys. Okay, Before we begin our practice steps, I'm going to show you the piece. I'm gonna play for you the entire piece. I'm playing it at a little quicker speed. And when we do our practice steps, we're gonna play it a little bit slower. So here is the piece. Okay. I hope you enjoyed that peace. And I hope you watch for that move because you're going to be doing that. Now we're gonna be learning that your yourself and it's it's really quite fun to Dio. So here again is a picture of the piano. You are going to start with your left hand on the two Bucky's here and your right hand is also gonna be on the next set of Lucky's. When you move, you left hand goes ahead and it takes over where the right and waas and then the right hand moves up and takes it to a higher set into Blackie's. So you start off with the red circles and then when you move your on the two blue circles when the brackets go away, you're gonna foot back down to your original position. OK, All right, let me go over the practice steps with you on this piece, Play along with me if you like, or pause the video after I demonstrate, then try it yourself and make sure if you haven't done so already. Remember, the pdf of the music is below this video. So pauses video. If you need to download that pdf and have something to look at while you're playing this piece in this piece, one of the challenges we have is moving from a set of two black keys to, ah, higher set of Tupac Keys. So I want you to take your hands, shake him out and get a good rounded handshake. Bring it up to the piano and place fingers two and 32 and three in both hands on the two black keys. Now take your right hand floated up to the next higher set, and then your left hand floats up to the next higher set. That's what you will do in the second measure of the peace. Let's try this one more time. Start at the beginning, right hand floats up, then left hand floats up. And then for the second line for the first measure, you stay where you are, then laughed. Hand floats down. Then right hand floats down and you end where you started. All right, let's start off our practice steps but closing our lid and tapping our hands to the rhythm so right hand will tap when the right hand plays left, handle tap in the left hand plays and when we move, we're going to actually move our hands up high and pretend we're moving to and move our hands up lower in Britain were moving down Okay. I have my Metrodome beating at 65 beats per minute. So let's go ahead and try this. 12 Ready? Go. Right, right. Left, Left, Right, right, left, Left. Right, right, right, right, right. Next line. Left. Left, Right, right, left, left. Right, right, right, right. Right. By, Bride. You agree? Four. Okay, we're gonna take this one step further in our practicing, and this time we're gonna practice tapping with our finger numbers. We're gonna say our figure numbers. Tap them and don't forget your move. 12 ready. Go. Three to do. Remove up. Three. You do great. Agree to to agree to stay where you are. 3223 Moved down three to 233 to you. I agree. I to food and you're off. Okay. Oh, but your piano and I want you to try the first line with me stopping at the end of the first. Not line again. We're playing with a matter known beating at 65 beats per minute. 12 Ready? Go. All right. Did you get that move from this two sets of Blackie's to the next set of Blackie's? I hope you did. Okay, let's go ahead and try the second line together. We're starting off in our higher position, and then we're gonna move down on the next measure. 12 Ready? Go. 333 three. And okay. Did you notice that the end your right hand gets to play that one little three Blackie all by itself for the very last note. Okay, let's try it one more time. All the way through. Make sure you're getting your move up for the second measure. And then in the second line, moved back down in that second measure to the very end. Here we go. 12 Ready? Go. - Great job. I'm really proud of you for what you did. Practicing that move. It's very important. Remember to move on the piano because we have so many keys and we only have 10 fingers, so we have to learn how to move. All right, You did a great job today. I'm very proud of you. You played a piece of the two black keys, and not only did you do that, but you moved to a higher set of two. Bucky's in the middle of a piece and you move back down towards the end of the piece, you learned about bar lines, double bar lines and the measures And you what you're doing right now, you may not realize it or not, but you're learning how to read music, which is very, very important. So you're not learning how to imitate. You're not learning just by copy and somebody or doing something by here. But you are learning how to read, which is a very important concept. So in the next us, and we're gonna combine our sense of the two and three groups of black Keys and learn about the trouble in based club and learn a whole new piece for next time, so I'll see you there.
4. Lesson 4: Combining 2 and 3 Black Keys; Treble Clef; Bass Clef: Hi and welcome back to lesson four of our beginning piano course. I really hope you're enjoying these lessons. And I'm so happy to be able to teach you how to play the piano. You are doing so great so far, you're learning how to read music and you're learning how to play. And we're just gonna be progressing and a wonderful pace so that you can learn how to play the piano. It's a rainy day here at my house, and I don't know what the weather is like for you, but the rain just reminded me how wonderful oven activity it is to be able to play the piano at home. So I hope you were learning this on your own pace with its after work or on here on a rainy day for you Or maybe during the day are after your school day. Whatever works best for you. I'm so glad to have you along for this journey. Today we're gonna be continuing on the Black Keys we're gonna could be combining or sets of two and sets of three black keys, and then we're also gonna be learning about the trouble cough and the base Clough. So let's get started. Okay, So are you concept that we're gonna be learning about today is a travel Clough and the base Clough. So so far, we've been using our stems up to show you want to play with the right hand and our stems down to show you win to play with the left hand. We're still gonna be easy, not system for a while. But we're also going to be adding on these symbols to tell you which hand is going to be playing. So from now on, our right hand is going to be playing with this symbol and our love 10 is going to be playing with this simple. Now again, we're not getting to note reading just yet, but I'm introducing this slowly so that when we get to it, it will make a lot more sense. OK, so this nice beautiful shape is called the treble clef. The treble clef is also called a g clef. And that is for two reasons. Number one. This line that it swirls around is the note g and again we'll get into that when we start reading music. The second reason is the symbol came from the letter G. You see, this is one of our old symbols. So when people started writing down music, they wanted to and show you which line was a certain note. So they wrote this as a G and said, That's the G note, and eventually over time, here's some some progression of the symbol. Over time, it developed into the symbol that we have today. So a treble clef and a G clef means the same thing. We used to call it the trouble Clough Trouble means high, and our right hand is going to play in the trouble club. Now, even though trouble is high and the right hand is on the higher side of the piano, just know that this isn't always the case. Sometimes I love 10 plays in the Trouble club, and sometimes a right hand plays in your base club. But for now, for us, for these lessons, right hands going to play in the trouble cloth. All right, so that's our trouble. Close, simple. Then we have our base Clough symbol. Base means low, so this is the lower half of your piano, and the left hand's going to play in the Base club. The base club is called the F. Clough, and again it came from a symbol of a letter. And they when people started writing on music, they wrote the letter F and said, That line is the F note. So today we still have the two dots that go around our F line. And here's a progression of some of the symbols from when it started to how it developed today to our base. Clough. Alright, So, looking of the music that we're gonna do today, you can see right away we have our trouble club and our base cloth now. So our travel club up here, it's gonna be everything for your right hand, and our left hand is going to be in the base. Clough were still again using the symbols of stints going down for your left hand and stems going out for your right hand, but also left hands in the base and right and is in trouble. Now let's look at this piece. Remember, we have our bar lines. We have a double bar lines at the end. Our bar lines divide this into measures. And let's look how Maney beats Aaron each measure for this piece. When we have 1234 here's to beat 1 to 2 more. 34 So it looks like we have four beats every single measure in this piece. And remember, that's what our bar lines do. They separate the music into equal number of beets. Okay, so I know by now you were just getting great with reading music. You know, you're gonna play this entire first line, then jump down and playing the entire second line. The first line starts off with the left hand, then goes to your right and look at this. Your right hand goes all the way to the end of the first line. The second line starts off with the left and goes to the right. And again the right hand goes all the way to the end of the piece. Now let's look for things that are similar, because this will help you learn the 1st 2 lines. The 1st 2 measures excuse me of the first line and the 1st 2 measures of the second line are identical, so that will help you learn the piece. This last two measures of each line are different, so That's where you need to be A little bit careful if you look up here in this measure, we have a skip from 2 to 4 here. We have some repeated notes going down. Okay, Another skip toe. Watch out for Is this 4 to 2 right here on afforded to right here again, That's in your right hand. So it's finger 42 finger Teoh. Now looking down here at our chart, you'll notice something a little bit different from the pieces we've done before. We are now combining the two black he's and three Bucky's. So are the left hand is on the two buck. He's in her right hand, is on the three black keys. All right, I'm gonna go ahead and play this piece for you. Listen to me. Play it and then we'll talk a little bit about it and I walking through some practice steps . Okay. I really hope you enjoyed that video. Once again. Your hand position is your left hand on the two buck he's in your right hand on. The three were using fingers three and to our left, and and 23 and four in our right. Go ahead and find those notes on your piano pauses. Video of you need to take your iPad, her laptop to your piano, and I'm gonna walk you through some practice steps for the peace. Okay, Lets start off are practicing with capping. Close your piano lid and we're gonna tap on that. By the way, if you don't have a piano lid that closes, you could always tap on your lap or in any flat surface. OK, Raina top left. The animal left him is supposed to be playing and tap. Right? Him with right hand is supposed to be playing. Make sure you're holding your half notes for two whole counts. Whole notes for four hold counts. Here we go. 12 Ready? Go. Left, Left. Right, right by. Right, right, right, right, right, right. Good. Go left. Left, Right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right. Try to three Poor Great job. You probably noticed that the left hand only has two notes for the first line and two notes for the second line. The right hand does most of the work in this piece. Okay, get a nice rounded hand shape. Shake out your hands, curve your hands on your lead and we're gonna practice. Tapping the finger numbers is time to the beat saying our finger numbers out loud. 12 buddy three to to 34 Do you floor agree to 43 blacks. Line 32234 do you? 44332 Good job. Now, did you notice that a couple of times you skip from finger 42 finger to it's once you skip from finger to two. Finger four. Make sure you've got that skip down before we play it on the piano. So if you need to top that again and get that skip correct, make sure you do that one more time. All right? So when you're ready, open your piano and with me, we're just going to play the first line together. OK, so check out your hands. Find a good round hand shape, left hand fingers two and three of the two. Blackie's right hand fingers 23 and four. All are three black. He's just the first line together. 12 Ready? Go! Great job. Did you get that skip from 4 to 2 in the second measure and then again from 2 to 4 in the third measure. If you get great. If not, go ahead and pause the video and try that line one more time on your own. Okay, let's work now for the second line together. One, two. Ready? Go, Ray. Job again. Make sure you got that skip from 4 to 2 and all those repeated notes of two fours and two threes at that. Second to last measure. All right, great job. I'm gonna play it one more time for you without the metronomic clicking. Let's try it together. We're going to keep it at this. Lower practice, Timbo 12 Ready? Go way. Way! Uh, great job. Super proud of you for learning that piece. I really hope you enjoyed learning this piece. You have come so far in just these 1st 4 lessons. We played a piece today on the sets of two. And the sets of three black keys. We didn't move today like we did in our last lesson, but you learn how to combine those two and read both of them with their hands. We learned about the trouble club and the base club Trouble club being our right hand on base cough being our loved hand. And the most important is you are learning how to read music. You are playing with both hands already and you're just off to a great start. So in our next lesson, we're gonna be adding a time signature again showing us how many beats are for measure. And we're going to be playing a fun piece called chimes, which is the piece of the Westminster Clock plays the clock tower times. I'm sure you recognize it, so I will see you back here for the next lesson.
5. Lesson 5: Chimes; Dotted Half Notes, 3/4: welcome to less than five of our beginning piano course today we're gonna take a different turn with our classes, and we're actually gonna be playing a tune that, you know that you're familiar with. And in the process, you're gonna be learning to new concepts. And also, today is our last lesson in the free trial membership if you're free member. So we hope you consider joining us for the rest of our journey. We've got tons more material to cover in our beginning piano course. And we're gonna end the course plane with both hands and reading music for the right and left hand. So luds can started with less than five. Here's a piece we're gonna be learning today. It's chimes. It's a tune you recognize, And it's really fun to play because we get to do some new things today. So you see some things that are familiar. You're right. Hands playing on three black keys with finger 23 and four. We've done that before. Left hands playing on the two black. He's with Onley Finger three. So we actually don't need any more notes in that. Just one little finger. Three. And then you see some. Don't you recognize ce Got some quarter notes You recognize You see some other things you recognize We've got the trouble cloth That's our right hand part and again, our stems air up for our right hand We've got our basic lawful left hand part stems down for a left hand But there's some new things on the page that we have not talked about yet that we're going to discuss today. This is new and this type of note is new So both of those air new. So the first thing I want you to dio is I want you to listen to be playing this piece. I'm gonna play it for you. Watch the video and then we're gonna talk about how to play it way. So one of the new aspects in this piece is the concept of a dotted half note. This is a new kind of rhythm. We know what 1/2 note is. If we took away this dot that would be two beats who were adding a dot to it, and we call it a dotted half note and a dotted half note gets three beat, so you'll find that a dot can be added to many kinds of notes, and what a dot does is. It takes the original value of the note and adds half of the original value to the note for a new combined value. So original half note was two counts. Half of two is one. So when we add that dot to it now are dotted. Half note is to post one or three beats. So that's our new rhythm we get to explore today. The other new thing we get to talk about is this number, this 34 that's at the beginning of the peace. It is called a time signature, and we're going to discuss it in more detail in our next Lawson. Put in today's lesson. I just wanted you to see it there and experience what is different about this time signature versus the other pieces we've done in our 1st 4 lessons. Is this number three on the top? This is the first time that we're going to be playing three beats per measure instead of four. So if you remember our measures and our bar lines that separate the measures, we always have a common number of beats in each measure. So with 33 beat a pattern. 34 time signatures. We only have three beats per measure and not four. So when you're working with this, be careful not to add another beat in 34 time. This is a very common mistake. You don't want to add that fourth beat just because we're so used to hearing four beats per measure. Now, the reason I wanted you to play this piece today and 34 is it Is it because it's a tune that you know, so that you get to practice the feeling of three before we do some other pieces in 34 and do more counting with that? Okay, back to our peace. So here's our dotted half note, our new three count note. So we have it here, here, here, here and all the way at the end. So when you get to that note, make sure you're counting it for three counts, holding that note down for three counts. And here's our new time signature. And again, all this is telling us is that in each measure there's only three beats and not four and again we're going to discuss that in more detail in the next lesson. After we experience it today A little bit now, At the end of the piece, you will see all these dotted half notes. We have four of them in a row. This is us chime ing for oclock, so we're gonna play it the stems up. So it's with your right hand. You're gonna pay, play finger to there and you're gonna hold each measure for three counts and do it for four measures. That's going to be our four o'clock. All right, so I'm gonna walk you through some practice steps. One thing you will notice about this piece it is not indicated anywhere in the music is that you're going to be holding down your right pedal with your right foot throughout the entire peas. This will make your sound sound like it's vibrating in the piano and it will make a sound is very nice for this chimes piece, so find that right pedal on your piano. Some of your pianos may have three pedals. Some of your pianos may have two. Or you may be on a keyboard with just one pedal, so find that right pedal we are just gonna use out of your piece, okay? I'm gonna walk into the practice steps for this piece. So in chimes you are going to be playing with your right hand on the three Bakkies and your left hand on Lee. Only one note of the two keys. So find those groups on your piano right now. Right hand fingers 23 and four on the three black keys left hand. Figure three on the lower note of the two black keys, Get a nice rounded hand shape and that we're going to play our peace. So since we're in a new time signature, let's close our panel leads and do our tappings remember, three beats for every dotted half note, one beat for every quarter. Okay, so I have my Metrodome here. I'm gonna turn to quarter note equal 65. Make sure since we're in a 34 time signature that you also set, you might know 234 as well. We're gonna tap right hand when the right hand supposed to play left hand When the left hand supposed to play remembering that the dotted half note gets three whole count. Yeah, here we go One Ready? Go. Right, right, right. Left, Left, right, right, right to Right, Right, right. Left, Left, Right, right, right. You could write. Right? Right, right. Right. So that last line were lying were Chinese four o'clock, but holding down our finger to in the right hand four times for three beats each. Okay, let's do the same thing with our tapping. But now let's tap finger numbers. 4323 etcetera. Remembering in your left and your Onley playing with finger three. Here we go. One ready? Go. 432 I agree. 33 floor too. 4323 3342 Last line to To To to. All right, open your lid. Let's fly. Try plane. Just the first line together. Find a group of three black keys and your one set of two black keys. Let's do the first line together with our Maginot beating buddy. Go! Great job. Did you remember to hold her dotted? Half notes for three counts. And did you also get that skip at the end of the line from 4 to 2? If you dead, you're doing a great job now. Remember the first lines in the second lines are exactly the same. So now let's try playing the 1st 2 lines together with the motor. No. Here you go. One ready? Go, Go. Next lines. Exactly the same. Great. And for the last line again, we're just trying our four o'clock with our finger to with our ride hand. Let's try that right now. Ready? Go to Teoh too, do you? Great job. Let's try the whole piece. This time I want you to put your right foot on your right pedal. This is called our damper pedal. Hold it down throughout the entire piece for that special sound. Shake your hands out. Get a nice around in hand shaped Brigham back up to our keys. I'm ready to go. One. Ready? Go. Uh, beautiful job. All right, go ahead and rewatch. That pauses. Video real. Watch out if you need to try it on your own with your right pedal down. Great. You did a great job with their practice steps. So once again, as your reminder, your right hand is going to be on the three black. He's when you play this piece. The left hand is going to be on the two buckets, but you're only playing that one note, and here's your right pedal that you're going to be holding down throughout the piece. So I want you to go ahead and try this piece on your own right now. Stop the video play at one time on your own, with the pedal down your fingers in the right position and you watching watching the music without listening to my video instructions, or try it right now, once on your own. Great, you were doing a wonderful job of learning these pieces. So in conclusion, we play Chimes Day on the Black Heats, and we got to use our pedal for the first time. So that is kind of exciting to hear that wonderful sound on the piano. We learned some new concepts today. We learned about are dotted half note and are 34 times in your gym, and we touched on the concept of a time signature. We didn't go on it into it in too much detail, but in the next lesson, we will dig in about time senators and talk about those for some more, and your rhythm in your note reading skills are dis improving so much. I'm super proud of what you're doing. You're learning how to read finger numbers. You're learning how to read rhythms. You're learning how to read directionally in the piece. And pretty soon we're gonna be putting that all together and starting to read music. So I'm super proud of you. If this is your last lesson as a trial member, we help you consider joining us as we can continue the journey. Learning about playing the piano in our beginning piano course, we're going to be moving from the black keys that we're working with now. Two plane on the White Keys. Gonna be learning all the names of the notes on the piano and learning how to read that with the white Keys. Then we will begin reading music on the staff. We'll earn our right hand alone on the travel Clough. Then we're gonna move to the base club on the left hand, and then we're gonna put our hands together on the grand stuff. And by the time you finish the beginning piano, of course, you were going to be reading music and playing with both hands. This is a wonderful place to be. It's gonna be a great jumping off point that after that you will be able Teoh. Just dig into any music that you wanna learn, whether it's classical music or pop music or holiday music or whatever your interest is. So we certainly hope that you continue to join us. I know that you are as busy as I am, and I know watching these videos at home can be a wonderful way toe learn. I've taught many students this way, and it's a wonderful thing. So look at our page are joined US page on our main site, and we have some monthly options that just commit you to one month or we have a yearly option are we have an unlimited membership, and in the unlimited membership, you will be able to contact me directly and will be able to do a personal online lesson together. And we're gonna also be doing monthly Q and A sessions and a webinar well, you will be able to ask questions. Get your questions answered about the pieces, learn from each other, learn some more concepts that aren't covered in this course, and finally, we do have a private Facebook group for unlimited members, where you can ask as many questions as you'd like about the pieces and the course and all pop in and answer questions. It's just a wonderful place for us to discuss ideas. So I hope to see you at our next lesson. I'll see you soon.
6. Lesson 6: Time Signatures: welcome the lesson six of our beginning piano course today we're gonna be just shaking things up a little bit of doing it a little bit differently. I'm going to explain to you time signature in a little bit more detail than our last lesson . And I'm gonna introduce a new piece. However, in this new piece, it'll have elements that you've done before. The hand positions will be the same. Fingering rhythms will be the same. So I am going to skip the practice steps for you. Play the piece for you and see how much you can learn on your own as you're gaining independence. So let's go ahead and get started. Okay? As promised, we're gonna talk about time signatures. Now, if you remember in our piece that we did our last lesson chimes. We had a Times editor for 34 and I wanted you to see that and experience it without me going into too much detail. But the day will go into two will go into detail about time signatures. As you can see all the time signatures except for this. See right here have two numbers. Is a top number on the bottom number of each time signature. The top number shows you how many beats there are per measure. So in a 44 time signature, the four on the top tells us that there are four beats per measure. All the pieces we've been doing up to this point and the peace were doing today are in 44 time signature. Here's a three. So if you have a 34 times in sure, like we did with times, that means there are only three beats per measure. Not for any more, 2 to 4. It would be two beats per measure. Now let's take a look at these and have a different bottom number. So what is that bottom number mean? The bottom number tells us which note is the one that gets one beat? So far, we have been counting. Our quarter note has one meat. So when you have a four at the bottom, you can kind of isolate that and scoot that four out and pretend it's a fraction like 1/4 a quarter. So when the four is on the bottom, that quarter note gets one beat. Okay, so four forward before beats per measure, Corden note. Getting one beat 34 would be three beats per measure. Quarter note. Getting one feet, etcetera. So what about we have a two on the bottom? Well, let's isolate that to pull it out as a fraction. You have 1/2 right. So into two, it's the half note that is Onley getting one beat. Well, experience that way down the line. But I just wanted you to see these possibilities. So 1 to 2, you have to be the permission with the half. Note getting one beat or 2/2 cuts per measure. 323 beats per measure with the half. No getting beat. All right, when we've got eight on the bottom, same rule applies. Pull that eight out. Isolated as a fraction it's an eighth. That means now that eighth note is getting our beat. Okay, so eight note 6868 knows per measure. 9898 knows her measure. Now you may be looking at me saying What is an eighth note? We haven't gotten to it. We will get it. Actually, in the next couple lessons will be learning about eighth notes, so that's what a time signature is. Now, what's the C. C. Is 44 time signature. That time signature is so common that we abbreviate it with a C to stand for common. All right, so here's our piece that we're gonna be learned today. As promised, You've got a time signature for four, meaning that there are four notes, four beats per measure or 4/4 notes for measure. Because the quarter notes getting the beat. His 1234 right. Here's to be tear and two beats here they make four. All right, So look at this piece. I'm gonna play it for you. And I'm not going into too much explaining cause again. I want to see how much of this you can do on your own. It's gonna give you a great sense of accomplishment to be able to play this with just looking at the music because you work through the other lessons on your own. So let's look at our hand position. You're in the same place we've been for a while, right? Handle the three black he's left hand on the to you know, about the trouble club that the right hands playing in trouble cloth, you know, that the left hands playing in the bass clef. You know that you move from right hand toe left hand back up to right into the end. The line. You know that quarter Don't get 1/2 us get to and whole notes get four. So there's your quick introduction to the peace. I'm gonna play it for you. Watch it as many times as you like. Then try it on your own. And when you tried only your own, you get to choose your practice steps. Do you want to talk to rhythm? You absolutely can. Do you want to tap your finger numbers rate? Do you want Teoh? Just go ahead and try one line at a time. That would be wonderful. How do you want to just try all of it at once and see how you do whatever you decide. Based on how you're doing so far in this course it's going to be wonderful. So watch the video me plain and then you go ahead and start it on your own way. Okay. Home. You enjoyed that video once again. We're using the same position with our right end of the three black keys and left hand on to. We're not using any pedal today. Just the keys on the piano. All right, So in conclusion today, we learned about time signatures it a little bit more detail than we've explained before. And we learned a new peace with our time signature. And the peace we learned wasn't for four, which is our common time. Remember the sea and you practice and learn this piece on your own without my help. So in the next lesson, we're gonna be going over a few pieces in the 34 time signature. Just a practice, that feeling of three. Get that in your body and understand what that 34 time signature isn't ballot. Then once we figure finish those pieces in 34 time signature, we're gonna be moving from our Blackie's to our white keys and starting to learn the names of the keys on the piano. So you're making great progress. I will see you in the next Also
7. Lesson 7: First Dance and Improvisation on the black keys: welcome a lesson seven of the beginning. Piano course. We're gonna be continuing playing in 34 time signature today learning a little piece called First Dance. Have got a lot of things for reviewing, learning a new piece and I've got an exercise prize for you today. You're gonna be doing some improvisation with me, making up a piece of your own for the first time. So let's get started. Okay, here's a piece we're gonna be learning today. It's called First Dance and I call the first dance because it's in 34 time and a lot of our traditional dances like a waltz, An older dance, even a Min Yuet is in 34 time. So in first dance, we get to practice our 34 time signature three beats per measure. We also get to practice are dotted half note, which gets the recounts a review of that that we learned in times. So we have a dotted half note here here, in here, so those of three counts each and you'll remember other notes are quarter notes. Get one beat or half notes, get two beats, right. You'll notice a various in my your hand position, right hand on fingers to three with fingers 23 and four on the three black keys left hand with fingers. Three into only two. Bucky's a lot of other things you already know in this piece, so I am going to go ahead and walk into the practice ups for this piece. But first I want to just play it for you. So you hear it sounds, and then I'll walk you through the practice steps way. I hope you enjoyed that video. Did you notice some patterns in this piece? I hope you did. First of all, the right hand, this 432 pattern it's descending from four down appears here, here and here. So we have that pattern three times. It's really important to learn to recognize patterns and music, because in once you play it, then your brain will know what it is. And when you get to it again, I'll be easier to play. Now, as we go to the practice steps together, remember, this is where you're going to be. You're gonna be in the middle of a piano with your bright handle in three black keys and the left hand on the two Blackie's. All right, I'm gonna walk you these in practice depths. Okay? In first dance that we're gonna learn today, we're gonna be playing in this position with you in plain and for a while. Right hand on the three black. He's left hand on the two black keys. Now we have our dotted half note, which is three counts, and that's something relatively new. We did that in shines, but let's go out and practice. Just holding a note for three counts. I want you to find finger to with your right hand and figure two with your left hand. And what we're gonna do is we're gonna alternate back and forth between right hand to and left hand to right hand Teoh and left hand to holding each for three counts holding for our dotted half. All right, here we go. One ready? Go Right, Green. Keep going. Great. I hope you got the feeling of that dotted half note for three counts. So when we encounter that dotted half note in our music today and first dance, we have to make sure holding it for three counts. All right, let's close our lids and let's tap our finger numbers for first dance. I know you're getting so good at identifying right and left hand. We're actually gonna move right into tapping just our finger numbers. So get 43 and two ready for your right hand. Two and three Ready for your left hand. Here we go. One ready? Grow four Greek. You three, 34323 Next line fourth. Agreed to three to Teoh to great. Now, if that was hard for you, make sure you stop your video trying to get on your own or if you need to backtrack and do our your right hand tapping in your left hand tapping that is simply okay. There is nothing wrong with doing that steps. The more practice steps you do, in fact, the better. Okay, let's open our piano. I want you to play the first line only with me. If you notice three times the right hand just goes down from four. It just goes 432 So look for those patterns. When you get through to those, you'll know exactly what to dio. All right, here we go. One ready? Go. Great job. So two things you should have watched out for for that line, of course, holding that last dotted half note for three counts. And also did you notice your left hand is just plain finger three in that first line. All right, if you need to stop the video and try that line again. Okay, let's move on to line two together. One ready go, great job. And, of course, at the end of the line, we had to done half notes each help for three counts. And this time our left hand doesn't have just three but three end to let's put it together with the Metrodome, all of the piece from the beginning to the end. One ready? Go. Excellent job. Let's try one last time together, this time without the Metro beating. Just play it with me and hear those beats in your head. Count out loud if you need to, or say your finger numbers out loud if you need Teoh. Nice rounded hand shaped her of your fingers. Here we go. One ready? Go! I really hope you enjoyed learning. First waltz. Now we're gonna take a little bit of a different her and we're going to do some improvisation improv improvisation is making up a piece on your own, and it's not a scary as it sounds. Improvisation is a very important part of panel learning because you take the instrument and what you've known that what you know so far and you turn it into something that is your own, your own composition, your own improvisation, and it helps you become more familiar with the instrument. By the way, this picture is a manuscript of one of Beethoven's pieces you conceal of its scribbles, all of his notes, all of his notes to himself. He did a lot of improvisation when he was premiering his own pieces. So let's learn the active improvisation. Here's two wonderful quotes for you from Anthony Hopkins, he said. I always had a knack for improvisation. I can write down the notes I play, but never really had a proper academic musical background. I suppose I'm blessed and cursed by the fact that I have that freedom. So, yes, improvisation gives you a wonderful freedom to do what you want to on the piano and the second quote down here. But one of our famous American composers, George Gershwin Life is a lot like jazz. It's best when you improvise. So I hope other these quotes inspire you to improvise. Now we've got some rules for you to improvise. Is not just going to be playing anything you want First, we're going to do it in 34 time signature. So we're gonna practice our feeling of 123 That's one rule. Do you have to follow the beat that I set of a 34 time signature? The second rule that you have to follow is you have to play on the black. He's only any Blacky is fair game. If you play on the upper half of the piano, the higher notes, I'm gonna be playing on the lower notes so we'll make a little duet together. All right, so those were only two rules. 34 time signature and black keys. I'm gonna walking through some practice steps for improvisation. Remember, you can play any Blackie you'd like. You might want to find a familiar position, and then I'm gonna play. And while I am playing in this video, I want you to play with me and what you played. You're making something up. And by the way, I improvised my own part. So we're both improvising right now. All right. Here. The practice steps. Okay. Are you ready to try your improvisation? Remember, you can play out any black keys. You might want to just find a spot. Knew that you're familiar with you. Choose three and two black keys. You could choose two sets of threes. You could choose two sets of twos or you could move around a little bit. Any black key that you want to play, it's simply fine. I'm gonna be playing down a little bit lower. I'm gonna start my improv part. I'm gonna be your background. And when you feel like it, come in and join me with your improvisation. - Great . How did you do on your improv? If that was fun for you? Go ahead and rewind this video a little bit. Try it again. So remember, you can make up anything you want. Let's say you started right here. Notes, long notes. You play repeated notes, steps, snips, even try playing two notes at the same time. So all those together you can move up high. There aren't any wrong notes to play when you're just playing on the Black Keys. I hope you enjoyed that first improvisation that we did together. I hope you enjoyed everything we did today. It was a lot of fun for me to teach you both of these things. We learned how to play first dance on the Black Keys in 34 time. We reviewed our rhythm of their daughter. Half note. That gets three counts and we did improv for the first time. I really hope you had fun doing that. I loved doing improv myself, and I loved doing it with my students. It's a very valuable school skill. And in the next lesson, we're gonna be learning about the repeat sign and moving an octave higher. So practicing some more moves on the piano as we get more and more familiar with it, you would. Our intention. Great job. Thank you for joining me on these lessons and I'll see you in the next
8. Lesson 8: Floating; Repeat; One Octave Higher: Hi. Welcome the lesson eight of our beginning piano course. Today we're gonna be working on a piece called Floating and in the piece we're going to learn about the octave higher sign moving up. A knock tive and the repeat sign, all while continuing to practice are playing on the three black keys and our rhythm and are 34 time signature. So let's go ahead and get started. Okay? The first concept we need to learn today is a repeat sign. This is what it looks like. It looks like a double bar line. We have the thick black line in the thin black line, and then we have two dots. The two dogs tell us that we repeat now, there are two rules you need to know about the repeat sign. Number one. If there is only one repeat sign there, that means you repeat all the way back to the beginning of the peace and play it again. If there are two repeat signs. So there could be one somewhere in the piece and there could be another that's flipped. That's the inverse of this one. That means you repeat from one repeat sign to the other and then keep going in your piece. So what we're gonna be doing today is just with one repaid science. So that means go back to the beginning until you hit the end of the piece. All right, So here's a piece we're gonna be learning. Here's our repeated sign. You see the looks like a double bar line and into dots And the $2 That means we repeat all the way back to the beginning of the peace and play it one more time. So the first time through, we're gonna play our peace first line, and then we're gonna play our piece of second line and then when we repeat it, their instructions here that says to repeat it one octave higher eight ve is a symbol for octave Oct, of course, means eight like octopus Octagon. So when we start this piece, we're going to start with their left hand on the two black. He's our right hand on the three. When we repeated our left hand floats to the next set of two Bucky's our right hand floats to the next out of three Bucky's. Now you may be asking yourself wise is called an octave. What is eight have to do with it? Well, let me show you on the White Keys. It's a little bit easier to understand, and you can try this yourself on the piano. Find two white keys that look exactly like. For example, this one is in between the two Bucky's and this one is also in between the two Bucky's Let's go ahead and count from one to the other. 12345678 That's right. Eight. That's why it's called an octave. Okay, so you're gonna play through this piece is a lot of familiar things. Your hand position is very familiar. You've done this before? 34 time signature. You've done this before? Um, dotted. Half note getting three counts. Quarter notes, getting one count each. Of course, we're still playing with e stems going up for the right hand. Stems going down for the left. Okay, So the trickiest part about this piece, the newest thing is moving up from one set of black. He's to the higher one on our repeat. So I'm gonna play this beef for you right now. Watch me play it and then I want you to figure out where the move is. A look where I'm moving pay really close attention to that. And then we're gonna walk these a practice steps. Okay? I hope you enjoyed the performance of floating. Once again, your right hand's gonna be in three black. He's left, handles to and all the repeat, your left hand floats up to the next, and your right hand floats up to the next. Okay? All right, let me walk into the practice steps of this piece, and then I want you to go ahead and stop the video anywhere in the practice steps and try the entire piece on your own in plain floating. One of our bigger challenges is moving from where we start to. Ah, higher set of black keys for our repeat. So I want you to practice us. Move with me right now. Find on your piano the set of three black keys with your right hand fingers. 234 and with your left hand's fingers. Three. And to find the two black keys. Now, pretend we just played the first time through your right hand and your left hand will move up, float up to the next set of two and three black keys. Let's try that one more time. Start if you're starting position in the middle of the piano and float up to the next position. Great. You've practiced one of the hardest part of this piece is moving up. Okay, let's close our lids and left town. We're gonna go ahead and tapped a finger Numbers. Now, as we talked about, the 1st 2 measures in each line are exactly the same. And then the last two measures in each line are different. So let's tap in the middle of our piano one time through and then practice our moves up. Okay? I'm gonna set the Metrodome to a beat of quarter. Note equals 80 in 34 Time one. Ready? Go. 3432232232 Next life, 3432 Do you agree, Teoh Gore three to move up. Right. So why would you do that? Move up. That you would start tapping again for the second time through. Now, when you get to that last note one Teoh three. It's actually somewhere around. Beat three that you move up. You can't wait 123 and then move because you'll add a little bit of extra beat. So let's practice that last note tapping and then practice our move up and top one more time, all the way through. So we're on finger to for our last note. Remember, you're gonna be moving somewhere around Beat three. Here we go. One buddy, go to Google Grief. So I need you do greet you to 32 3432 to 3 to go three to Great job. So you practice your move and you practiced all of the finger numbers tapping. Let's go ahead and open your piano lead and let's try the first line together with their hands in a nice, rounded position. Let's play the first line one. Ready? Go! Great job. Now let's with second line together. Remember, the 1st 2 measures are exactly the same as the first line one. Ready? Go. Great. Now, when we move, remember removed to the next set of black keys. Now let's do all of it together from the beginning, with our move and the repeat remembering our move, you have to remove during beat three to get there on time. Here we go One. Ready? Go. Load up. Great job. Remember, Like the title of this piece moving up is a float up. It's not a sudden jerky movement, but a nice, gentle float. Let's do one more time together, this time without the Metrodome beating, and I will play with you. Here we go. And don't forget our repeat one. Ready? Go way. I hope you enjoyed what we did today. We learned how to repeat. We learned what every pizza in looks like. And we played one octave higher in the second time around. We learned how to play the piece floating, and we also learned how to float our hands up an octave. So to great concepts that we learned next. Lawson, we're gonna be wrapping up our plane in 34 time of the Black Keys, and I'm going to give you a special assignment. On the next lesson, I'm gonna give you a piece that you'll know everything in that piece. You'll know all the concepts, and you get to figure it out on yourself for yourself. So you get a grounded the practice steps. Any way you'd like to figure this out, And I'm of course, gonna play it for you. So here exactly how it sounds. But this just proves that you're learning the tools to figure out a pizza on your own and learned it on your own. And you may be asking yourself what we always gonna be playing on the Black Keys. I mean, it's fun, but are we gonna move around a little bit more? The answer is yes. In just a couple lessons, we're gonna be transferring from the Black Keys to the White Keys, learning all of our musical alphabet names of the notes and the white keys and continuing our musical journey and learning how to read music. I will see you then.
9. Lesson 9: Yes I can!: welcome to lessen nine of our beginning Can. Of course, today we're gonna be doing something a little bit different. You're going to be learning the piece on your own. So I'm gonna play the piece for you. I'm going to show you the music, and I'm gonna show you the things that you know, and then you're going to take the music to your piano and practice it on your own. This is a very important step in you gaining independence and learning how to play the piano. And we're gonna be doing this every so often after you gain a new set of skills. So let's go ahead and get started. So the piece you're gonna be learning on your own today is appropriately titled. Yes, I can. So if you look, let's look at things that you know about this PC know about 34 time signature three beats per measure, you know, the right hands playing in trouble, and then the left hands playing in the base with the stems down right in the trouble with the stems up. You know about this repeat sign at the end. So you're gonna repeat it and you have the instructions. Repeat one octave higher. You know how to do that? You've done that before. You know, about quarter notes, one each half note to means each dotted half three beats each. You know about your finger numbers. Now, one thing that is different that you're gonna have to apply to this piece is your hand position. This time, both of your hands are on the three black keys. So let's take a look. A little bit of that position. Your right hand's gonna be on the three black. He's in the middle on the left hand on the three, but keys right below it. Okay, Winnie to your artery, Pete. Left hand flow to take the right hands. Place right hand floats higher to the next set of three black keys. And remember, you have to do it in time so that you get to the repeat on the exact beat. Okay? Those are the only directions you get from me. I want to show you a video of me playing it, and I want you to try it on your own way. Theo, I hope you enjoyed that video. And I hope you were able to successfully try this on your own. Now, if you get stuck, remember some of the practice steps you can dio. You can tap your rhythm with your hands. You can tap your finger numbers with your lid closed. You can say your finger numbers out loud. There's many things you can do. Make sure you're practicing your move on your own so you know exactly where to dio. I create job today, learning the piece on your own. You took the skills you already know and learned it. You learn the bees on your own. Yes, I can. Is the name of the peace remember, learning piano is not only about imitating. You can't just imitate me or another teacher your whole life, but you have to be able to read the music and figure out the piece on your own. So this is a first step on your way to independence. So congratulations about that. And the next lesson we're going to be learning Amazing Grace by ear with a little bit of help for reading finger numbers. So we're gonna incorporate some ear exercise next time, learn something a little bit fancy that we can't really do, which are reading and just have a lot of fun with it. All right? You're doing great. You're progress. I will see you on the next lesson.
10. Lesson 10: Amazing Grace on the Black Keys: welcome the loss intent of our beginning. Piano. Of course. Today we're gonna be learning Amazing Grace on the Black Keys. I bet you didn't know that you could play Amazing Grace on the Black Keys. You can. And it's a lot of fun. This is gonna be a great accomplishment piece. When you learn this today, we have some tricky elements in the piece. But don't worry. I'm gonna explain them as we go, and I'm gonna demonstrate them to you so you can do a lot by ear. So let's go ahead and get started. All right? We're gonna be learning this piece a little bit blood by ear. So we're gonna learn amazing grace on the Black Keys, but we're gonna be doing the rhythm by ear. That means you don't need to understand the complicated with them on the page. It shows gonna play the way you know this piece. And if you don't know this piece, you're gonna imitate me on the video. We're just gonna be reading the finger numbers and imitating what's going on. Why am I doing this? Why are we learning this little aspect of amazing grace by ear? Well, there's some complicated aspects in this piece. We've got three things that we haven't explored yet in our lessons. But I want you in this piece to experience them. First. I'll name them for you will experience, Um, and then later lesson will go into more detail in explaining them. And in this piece, we've got an extra special, really impressive hand cross over. So let's look at the notes and figure out what we're doing. All right, Here's the music to Amazing Grace. Let's talk first about things that you don't know. Okay, you don't know this for them yet. Hear, hear. Here. And year, I'm gonna name this for you really quickly. This is called an eighth note. The rhythm is to eighth. Notes equals 1/4 note. So 2/8 notes go into one beat. Eighth notes can have a beam like this could be beamed together, or they can have individual flags. These two have individual flags because the right hands playing one and the left hand is playing one. So it's split apart now, so it's a faster kind of rhythm again. You don't need to know any more detail than that, and you're gonna imitate me when I play it. The second thing you don't know in this rhythm, the aspect is this right here, this symbol. We've got this note connected to this next note right there. I'm gonna name this symbol. It's called a tie. And it means that you add up the value of the notes of three plus two. So when we get to this note, we're gonna play it for five, hold it for five beats. You're not going to replay this second note, but hold it for five beats. And the last thing that you do not know in this piece is this at the very beginning, this measure, it only has one be in. It says the first measured only has one instead of three that are times furniture. Should be. I'm gonna get name this concept for you. It's called a up beat. Okay? And you don't need to know again now exactly how it functions or what it is. Just know that it's a possibility. When I gave you a count off for this piece, when we do practicing, I'm gonna count a complete empty measure. I'm gonna say 123 and then I'm gonna say, Ready? Go and then you'll start playing with this finger. So I'll say 123 Ready? Go and then you play. All right, but so three things you don't know. But look, there's a lot that you do know. You do know this hand position down here. You know, the left and on the two black, he's right hand on the three. But keys, you do know about the rhythm of 1/4 note and 1/2 note and you do know about the rhythm of a dotted half of the recounts here at the end. You do know that the stems up for for your right hand and the trouble cloth systems down or for your left hand in the base. Clough. So now there's a lot that you know, three concepts that you don't know and one extra super impressive cross over there we're gonna do. Let me explain that twice during the peace, your left hand's going to play this higher note now to get there to that higher note you left hand us to cross over your right hand and place finger three on this lower set of two black keys. Where do you do that in the piece. I marked it for you here with the bracket left hand crosses over right hand for this note. Of course. You hold that. And then the last 10 place here for this note. Now they're so close together, you don't need uncross and then re cross again. You're just gonna stay crossed until that second notice played, then your left hand on crosses and continues as it started when it gets here. Sounds complicated, but it really isn't. I'm gonna play for you the video of me playing the piece. So watch that I want you to pay attention to my crossover. I want you to pay attention to my faster notes the notes, and I want you to pay attention also to this longer notes that I'm holding. All right, so let's go ahead and watch the video, huh? Way, Theo, we owe. Did it help you that you were able to see the lyrics of the piece as I was playing it? I hope it did, because that's one reason we're doing this piece by ears because a lot of you know the lyrics to this piece. You know how this beast sounds So I'm gonna write in the lyrics right now to this music. Okay, so now you can see how the words match up with the rhythm here. Right? So we have a May Zine Grace How sweet The sound that saved a wretch like me I once was lost , but now am found was blind. But now I see. So that's why we're not counting the rhythm of this piece. You know the words You know where it fits with the notes. Okay, I'm going to run through some practice steps with you before I dio I want you to look again , very close, that your hand position, your left hand is going to be able to block. He's in the middle of your piano right hand on the three buck. He's in the middle of piano and this is the black note that your left hand is going to cross over to play in my practice steps were not going to be tapping the rhythm, because remember, we're doing this rhythm by you. Instead, we're gonna be tapping finger numbers and then also we are going to be taffy in our finger numbers in saying the words and then Finally, I'm gonna play with you two lines at a time and be feel free to pause a video and practice that as many times as you need. And then they lost two lines. Now this is a long pieces, four lines. So if you need to take some extra time to learn one line of the time, that is fine. And then I'll play the piece together with you in its entirety. All right, let's go ahead and our practice steps. The first thing I want you to do with Amazing Grace is find your hand position and let's practice the left hand cross So the left hand goes on the two black keys with fingers two and three, right? Handle the three black. He's with fingers 23 and four. Now let's practice our cross. When you get to the end of the second line, your left hand will go over your right and play finger. Three. On this to Blackie this practice that again. So your left hand goes over your right hand and lands with finger three. On this set of the two Blackie's. It stays there until the second measure of the next line and it on crosses and finishes the piece. Okay, let's close our piano lids. And let's try tapping the peace with our finger numbers. And okay, let's practice topping the piece. We're just going to do the 1st 2 lines together. And instead of playing with the Metrodome, we're gonna top the fingers to the rhythm of the peace as we know it. Here we go from the beginning. One, 23 Ready? Go! 32 4 to 4, 32 23 three Ju 4 to 4, 33 And stop right there in your crossover. Okay, so, sure, your left hand should be crossed over your right hand on at this point. Now let's tap the next two lines. You're going to stay crossed for our next two measures and then on cross. All right, starting on measure 912 three. Ready? Go! 43 four to 32 2 to 3, 3 to 4 to 432 Okay, so we're going to try a different approach this time To the piece we're gonna top are figuring numbers again. But this time, instead of saying our finger numbers, you're going to say the words to this piece I'm gonna have the words written about this video in case you don't know them. So say the words with me as we play it. 123 Ready? Go May Zine Grace How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me Keep your hands crossed over. I want Waas lost. But now, um, found waas blind. But now I see. Okay, great. Open your candle Leads. Let's try the 1st 2 lines together. Shake out your hand. Get around hand shape. Put your left hand on the finger two and three on the two black keys. Right. And figures 23 and four on three lackeys. Remember our cross over his over our right. 1st 2 lines together. 123 Ready? Go way through. Great job. Did you get that hand cross over to that high note if he did? Great. If not South this video right now And try these two lines again. You could practice them saying your finger numbers out loud like we did with the tapping. Or you could practice them by saying the words out loud like we did when we talked. Awesome. Okay, Give your hand back to crossed and we're going to start in Measure nine, where it says Finger number four and we're going to do the last two lines of the peace. Here we go. 123 Ready? Go The o great! Remember that line starts crossed and then uncross is for the rest of the peace. This piece is a little bit more complicated, so if it takes you some time to work it out, that's OK. You can download the PdF and it's been a much time as you need to own each line before we haven't learned. Okay, let's play that piece all the way through from beginning to end. 123 Ready, Go way. We owe great great job working through these practice steps. Now, if you haven't already download the PdF of Amazing Grace, you really need the full music to be able to see it in practice it on your piano. It's below this video. Go ahead and do that. Now we learned how to play Amazing Grace on the black. He's today, which is a great accomplishment. A lot of people don't know that you can play amazing grace on just the Black Keys, so that's fun to Dio And even though the rhythm was complicated in this piece, you know, we learned a couple of new things, like a notes and upbeat and a tie. You were able to play this by ear by imitating the video and your own knowledge of this piece. So and by the way, this is a wonderful piece that you can play for your family and friends. Please use. This is a show off piece to show all that you've learned so far. Now, in the next lesson, we're going to take what we've learned, and we're going to start learning the names of the white keys on the piano and playing pieces on the white Keys. So you're making great progress in reading the concepts and new concepts that we did today . The eighth notes, the tie and the upbeat. We will all we would get in those into more detail in the next lesson. I'm super proud of you for the accomplishments you've done so far, and I will see you in the next lesson.
Kathy Winston
