The Beginner's Guide to Piano

1. Introduction: Beginner's Guide to the Piano: Hi, my name is Jack. You may know me. You may not, but I think you're here for a very simple reason, because you want to learn to play piano. You want to take this and make it sound more like this. You want to develop the skills on piano to help you perform better by reading music, playing by ear, general instinct. If you answered all of the above, this is the course for you. Even if you just answered one, then this is still the course for you because I'm here to develop your skills and understanding enough across all three of those areas to put you well on the right track towards being a world-class piano player. We're not ready to devote your time just yet. Well, newsflash, you can do this course in your own time. 100%. Failure to complete homework does not result in detentions, suspensions, or any other form of punishment. Watch the videos, pay attention. Grab a notebook and a pen if that's the way you roll or sit down in front of the keyboard or piano ready and absorb as you step into the great unknown, the adventure that is the beginner's guide to the piano. 2. What is a Piano?: Less than one. What piano? Okay. So my understanding is that you've probably got either a piano or some sort of keyboard instruments at your disposal. But I will just take a step aside here to make sure that you've found the correct course to develop your skills. This is a course to learn piano. This is a piano. This is a piano. This too is a piano. And that's a piano. Skills can be transferred across to this, this, and with a little readjustment and footwork, even this. But not necessarily this. Anyway, in the same way that you can transfer your skills across to an electric piano and do a keyboard. You as a beginner, can use these to learn your skills before upgrading. This is fantastic news. If you e.g. or the parent of a child who has just announced that they wish to learn this beautiful instrument. Because if you don't already have one, a keyboard or even an electric piano is just much, much cheaper than a real one, even a secondhand one. So what do you need to look for? Well, what I want to reiterate is that this is the beginner's guide to piano. Remember what they are? My point is that the piano behaves very differently to keyboards and even most electric pianos for various reasons. So here's a point so important that it's going to raise across the screen that you, the closer your learning instrument is to a real piano, the easier it will be. Look, e.g. at the shape of the keys on a real piano versus a keyboard. Watch, e.g. how the keys bounced back on a real piano versus keyboard. Basically, even electric pianos aren't quite there when it comes to the real thing. So please bear this in mind when making the investment. Yeah, sure. A keyboard will come in super useful if your child has just declared they want to learn out of the blue and you don't know if it's a fad or not because it takes up less space and it costs less. But think about yourself, if you're doing this course for yourself or you devoted enough to the end game now, declare a little more room and spend a little more money for a good quality electric piano or acoustic piano. Keys on a keyboard behave differently to those on the piano. And it partly is due to the shape of them, and partly because of all the mechanism that rests on the other side in the mystery world that we call the inside of the piano. So the piano keys have a very distinctive banks to them. We call this being weighted. They're weighted keys. So if you can look for keyboard or an electric piano with weighted keys, then this is a big step in the right direction. Now, being a beginner, you won't need to use the full extent of the keyboard. You certainly won't need it for any of the exercises in this course. But sitting in front of a full size 88 key keyboard can be rather intimidating when you first upgrade if you haven't done so yet. If you have to downsize from that, do try to get nothing less than 61 keys. That five octaves don't want to not confuse you. Don't want to, we've not covered them. The strings inside the piano are what create the dynamic and also create the extra long sustain. It's very difficult to gauge how good an electric pianos dynamic range and sustain length is going to be just by reading. But the good news is that touch sensitivity, that is the response of loudness according to how soft or hard you press the key. So touch sensitivity is pretty much standard in electric keyboards and electric pianos. But if you have the opportunity to go and play some, most of the better, you want to be able to hear a distinct difference when you press gently versus when you press firmly and have a nice, pleasant, even sound. Play a few notes together as well with around the same level of force just to make sure that it gives a nice consistency and none of them are standing out above the rest. If you are using a keyboard or an electric piano, a sustained pedal is a must better still, if you can get a pedal board with a minimum of two pedals, but a petal is necessary. We won't actually do much if any pedal work in this course, but you will need one if you wish to expand further. Note also that your keyboard or electric piano, if it supplies, one, will probably supply a foot switch. These do not translate well onto real pianos. Get a pedal. So we can now somewhat what we need. Our dream keyboard or I dream electric piano has waited keys 88 of them. Responsive dynamic, and a pedal board, however, it is acceptable to have 61 key is minimum. Responsive dynamic. Yes, that's the same. And a sustain pedal, not a foot switch. So now you have your piano or your electric piano or your keyboard. Let's roll. Let's sit down at the piano. Now. Take a good look at yourself. Harder. You sat correctly in front of your magnificent instrument. Are you in a position in which one day you can create magical masterpieces from your very fingertips. If your answer is No idea, perhaps we should assess. If you don't have a piano stool, have a shop around, because this is by far the best thing you can use. It doesn't have to be fancy at this stage, but if you're worried about your height or the height of your piano keyboard, you can spend a little more on, we're just about one's position, your stool so that it is virtually central in the piano. If you have a real piano, the pedal board is a good indicator, as the legs should say, virtually evenly apart from either end Pebble. Now, sit yourself on the stool. Are you in the correct place? So whilst it's absolutely true that some pianist will move up and down the stool as they get more grants so they can reach certain parts of the keyboard. The chances are when you are a beginner, you will just need to be able to have good access to the whole thing. This doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be able to reach the entire span from one position. So it stands to reason merely. What you need to do is to find what is more or less the center of the piano. And in order to do this, we find a special node that is middle C. Now C is a very easy note to identify really, because as you will notice on the piano, we have a repeated pattern and we can spot the pattern not because of the white notes, because they're just the same. They just look the same. If we took all these out that you've got nothing to guide. You. Notice the black notes that tell you where everything is. And you've got groups of black notes which go repeatedly into three. I know you have to do to find c is to find the note, the white node that is immediately left. The first note of the group to which is. But it is also mental say by Jake, is the C that is just not quite, but narrowest to the middle of the keyboard, which is this one. So in order to make sure that we are set correctly the piano, the first thing we need to do is sit on our store directly in front of middle C. Now, we assess which of these is the correct position. One or two or three. Answer. To. Our arms need to be able to have very fluid motion that they're going to be able to transfer music directly from our heart uninterrupted down our arms and into the piano. So we need to make sure that we're not hunched like this, sitting too close to the keyboard. And similarly, we don't want to strain them. We don't want to sit over here and make it awkward by having sort of reach just to the edge of the piano. We need to sit at a distance whereby we can make a fist here and touch the frame of the piano. She loves that with our knuckles. And that is the perfect distance. I feel confident now in how you're sitting at the piano, then it's time to move on. 3. First Exercise: We're going to learn a very basic piano exercise just to get you started. The purpose of the exercise is to learn note names and also to start to pries apart those fingers, which if you've never played an instrument before, will have a tendency to want, to stick together. The first thing I want you to learn is how we are referring to your fingers. Goodbye and the days of thumb, index, middle, etc. And hello to the dehumanizing number system. Left-hand 12345, right-hand 12345. So to establish this, thumbs are one, index two, middle three, ring is four, and pinky is five. If you need to draw a diagram, just pause the video and draw a diagram and have it by your piano or your keyboard as it will come in useful that further, further along we go, including right now. Welcome back to those of you who paused the video. The rest of you, I admire your confidence. You've got this. Take your right hand and place your thumb. Uber middle C. Follow the white notes up and laid a finger on each one. So that all your day or your notes. What I want you to do is slowly go up. Take this as slowly as you need to at this stage so that your fingers can get used to playing one note at a time. The natural habit of the fingers is to work together, especially when you've never played an instrument before. So when you first do this, you might find that certain fingers tend to want to play notes at the same time. So really concentrate and separating them and playing them for the same duration. And top tip. Use a metronome. I never used to practice with a metronome. That was one of my downfalls. And to be honest, at Part of me regrets it. But if you can start at a comfortable speed and start to build up the speed so that eventually you'll have a really nice flow in your pattern. If you don't have a metronome, don't panic because lots of digital pianos and digital keyboards have them built in any way. If you don't have a digital piano or digital keyboard, then try your phone or your iPad or something because there's apps for that now as well. We'll metronomes are beautiful pieces of furniture that just look great in the music room, but you don't strictly need them anymore. So this is section one of the homework practice that until you feel comfortable and when you're comfortable, do the same thing in the left-hand. One octave lower. Hold on. What's an octave? Well, an octave is quite literally just the distance between two notes of the same name, but a different, different pitch, Franklin. So you know how I say that? This is the same and this is a C. And this is a C. A C, well, the octave is just the distance between them all. So up to the next C is one octave apart. Similarly, see down. See below it is one octave apart. So use your left hand, one octave lower, do the same thing. You may note that in the left-hand week just using the reverse fingers effectively, so rather than one way using five. But that's fine. Section three of the homework, when you're competent in doing it in the right hand and you're competent in new again, the left hand, you can start to annoy your neighbors hands together. When you've really cracked that. Just keep repeating it a few times and speed or you might not get to that speed and that's absolutely fine, but just get to a really competent speed. And you will feel the difference in both hands as your fingers start to, in a little bit of their independence. When you, when you get used to doing this, make sure that don't do it every time because it can get a bit dependent. But every now and then what you want to do is say out loud or say in your head the names of the notes that you're playing, C. And make sure that you are actually taking it in. Look at the node, look at where it is. But what do you notice about and D is between the two black notes. What do you notice about G between the two black notes that are the first two of the group of three. Think like that. Don't just sort of do it parrot fashion. Take it in a little bit and you'll be rewarded with great musical instinct down the line. It goes without saying of course, that if you carry on, you will get more nodes C. That's the highest note name that we get before it goes back to a, and then back to C. So once we've not actually played those notes yet, and try and familiarize yourself with those, those notes as well. So if you're feeling confident, try the next video. It's a little bit of a quiz. 4. Quiz: Here's your first set of questions for the quiz. Number one, what number your thumbs allocated when referring to them as in pianist hand terms. It's number one. Number two, in your left hand play the note F. This node. Number three in your right hand, play the note D. You should have played this note before. What is an octave? Octave is an interval, and it's the distance between two notes of the same name. One octave is the distance between any note and the note with the exact same name, either directly above or below it. Number five, play the exercise from the last video twice through after me to the following clip truck. 5. The C Major Scale: Congratulations on making it to this video. You've made it past the first exercise. And whilst it does get harder, of course, I believe in you. So you may just be thinking that what we've done that better is just a little bit of a throwaway thing, but it's absolutely not. That is actually the, the beginning, if you like, of the C major scale. And that's what we're going to start to focus on a little bit. Now. Now, I know you're panicking. Get the thought of this. I know that you'll be especially panicking when I say that we're going to do it for two octaves, but it's absolutely fine. I assure you you can do this. So what does two octaves mean? Well, we've already established what an octave is. An octave is the distance between a note, the same note, either directly above or directly below it. Then that's an octave above it. So if we're going to do it the two octaves, then our scale isn't going to finish. It's going to finish the second C above where we're starting. But it's fine. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to start in exactly the same way as what we've just done. But we're going to just change the fingering slightly with our right hand. We're going to position them the exact same way. We're going to play the first three nodes, C, D, E with fingers. Then we're going to put our thumb on the need to get to the f, which will allow for the rest of the pivot round. So the thing that too can now resume the G three on the end of fall on them. Then with pivoting again though mom the sea. Then finger to twist back round onto the d. This is a repeat of what we've just done, a three on the a. And then underneath with the thumb to the app. Because we were only going for two octaves. We're going to just finish off our fingers up to finger five here. Then we come back down the exact same way, except we use thing to three instead of the film to go over. So three to the four over. And there it is. Now, take it very slowly because you'll find that you're probably stuttering a little bit when it comes to putting your thumb under and money comes to change it being or putting your hands back over each other, but just start slowly and build it up. Start very slow. When you've mastered that one, we just need to do exactly the same as we did in the first exercise in terms of how we're approaching it by getting our left-hand involved one octave lower. And the fingering is obviously going to be slightly different. Again, we're going to go right 3/3, 4/3. Come on back again and again. So you just need to do that a few times and then eventually you'll be able to put both hands together. Now that sounds terrifying, I'm sure because they're both doing different things. I'm completely different things. The thumbs are doing different things at the same time as your middle finger wants to be coming over and all sorts of stuff, but it's fine. Trust me. Take it slow and it will work. And those exercises are your homework. 6. Quiz: Quiz. Number one, repeat after me an ascending right hand C major scale. Number to repeat after me, a descending left-hand C major scale. Number three, repeat after me, ascending and descending hands together. C major scale. Number four, locate any note B in both hands, That's one. Each. Number five, locate any note E in both hands. That's wanting. 7. Major and Perfect Intervals: Be warned. The following video contains music theory. Don't know, you didn't come here because you wanted music theory. Did you know you want to play the piano? But I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but playing piano with the right instinct and understanding that you are seeking to achieve does not come free from music theory. So if you are ever nervous disposition, you may wish to consider leaving. Because we're going to talk intervals, chords, and arpeggios, starting with intervals. So let's go back to our C major scale and deconstruct just one octaves worth of it. You may recognize the C major scale as sounding gleich, DO, RE, MI, FA, SO LA, TI, DO, as it goes up. And if you do, that's great. But the piano system of naming knows the scales is less glamorous. We just use a numbering system really. So C is one, D is two, E is three, f is four. You get the idea. Okay? So when we talk about intervals, we are specifically talking about the distance from any node. Assuming that this note is the root note of the scale. That sounds very complicated, doesn't it? So let's firstly identify what the root note of the scale is. The root node is basically the note after which the scale is named. Note one, if you will. So in C major, the root note is note one, the first note, C. Now obviously I'll only be able to use C major as an example for you guys because that's all that we've covered here. So all distances will be from C and there will be no minor intervals. Why will there be no minor intervals? Because we've only looked at the C major scale. And we're not going to bring any new ones in without any context because then you will get confused. But trust me, we're going to make this very, very straightforward. Now, just because, and it's the C major scale. It doesn't mean you can take any node and any other node and assume that it's going to be a major interval. However, it can't be a minor interval from the root node of a major scale. So do you remember the numbering system of our scale? So C is one, D is two, etc. Well, those numbers are going to come in very handy as I show you how the distance is work. So C to D is a major second. C to E is a major third. C to F is a perfect fourth. C to G is a perfect fifth. C to a is a major sixth. C to B is a major seventh, and C to C is a perfect octave. So did you get that? Well, good. Let's do it again. So C to D is a major second, C to E is a major third, C to F is a perfect fourth. C to G is a perfect fifth. C to a is a major sixth, C to B is a major seventh, and C2C is a perfect octave. Let's do it again. No, it's not. That's what real ones for. But let's just take a second to talk about why we don't recognize fourths, fifths, and octaves as major. There is a very simple reason for this. Now this is sort of that kind of thing that I want you to store up here for now because it might not make sense just yet, but it will all come into play later on. When we look at chords, when we look at triads in particular, basically, the intervals on their own do not create a major or a minor. They, they are quite on telling it's actually the middle note of the triad chord that gives it its tonality and a standard triad. So C to F doesn't really give you any clue as to whether it's major or minor. C to G doesn't really give you anything. And C to C as obviously it's the same node. So it doesn't, doesn't give you any clue as to is there any, anything there? I will also just say that when we talk about a perfect octave, that's really what it's strictly called, but it's very rare that you'll hear people actually use the full term, perfect octave. People will usually just call it an octave. Nowadays. Your homework this time is twofold. The academic side is to sit and learn the intervals, but the artistic side is to sit and play them, play the notes together, play them one after the other. I get a feel for how they sound. And getting this into your mind will really help your musical ear. E.g. if you note that a perfect fifth sounds like a hunting corn, it will really just helped me to pick things up easier if you've got a good musical ear and that's the kind of thing that you want to be doing. You really want to be exploring it. Not just, not just taking it academically, but exploring it. So have fun with them. All. Major and perfect intervals sound nice and joyful. And when you feel good about them, coming back for the quiz. 8. Quiz: Number one, player, perfect fifth in your right hand. To play a major seventh in your left hand. Number three, can you identify this interval? It's a major second number for why a fourths, fifths and octaves, perfect and not major or minor? It's simply because they rely on a third note and a middle note to give them that major or minor tonality. And on their own, they don't actually create that tonality. Number five, what is the root note of the scale? The root note of the scale is basically the note in which that scale is named after the first note of the scale. 9. C Major Triads: Okay, it's time for codes. So here's a question for you. What's the difference between a chord on an interval? And the answer is one note. Literally, an interval is the distance between any two nodes. Or it's called, is a group of any three or more nodes, at least two of which must have different names. E.g. this is an interval that is a perfect fifth. I don't know if you can see it or you can probably just about see it there. That's a perfect fifth. But if I add the C on top, which you definitely can't see, then I've created a cord specifically, that's a C fifth chord. So despite the fact that two of those notes actually have the same name, two of them, or see, we've created a code out of two different note names. The most common arrangement of record, however I want, I really want to explore with you is our triads. A triad is made up of three notes, specifically notes 13.5 of its root notes, major or minor scale. So we know the C major scale. So a C major triad would be nodes 13.5, C, E, and G. So let's play a C major triad. You need to get your right hand in the exact same position that it was for that very first exercise we did, where we did this. Get your fingers above the notes. And we're going to focus on the thumb, finger, the middle finger thing that's three, and the pinky finger five. And we're only going to press those notes down, which should be C, a, that is a C major triad. And as you can well imagine, a C major triad appears several times. I cross the piano keyboard. Do exactly the same with your left hand. Find the position that you had, and press, in this case, fingers 53.1 from the bottom, C, E, G, respectively. If you're feeling confident or when you're feeling confident with the C major triad. We'll then to moles. Using your understanding of how triads are formed, can you find an F major and a G major triad? Well, F-Major would pay less. And a G major would be. What I want you to do is play around with these codes for a little bit, but don't hesitate with them. So obviously, when you're first learning them, you want to take care to make sure we're getting the right right movement in. But when I say Don't hesitate, What I mean is trying to make sure that you try and move confidently between them. So using your metronome, I want you to write these codes down. Using your metronome as your guide. I want you to in-order play the chords G, G, C, F, C, G, C. When you've done it, it should sound something like this. Now, note that we're still in the key of C major here, so we're still using entirely white nodes. However, just because we are using the white nodes, starting from g and f doesn't mean that we've automatically shifted our, our sympathy to the F-Major or the G major scale. What we have in fact done is just kept in C major. We do still have a little bit of music theory left, some of it to follow immediately and some of it a bit later on in the course. But don't panic because the more you understand music theory at the beginning, the easier it is to absorb. For now though, play around with those calls, have fun, get used to how they sound. And I'll see you in the next video. 10. Quiz: The quiz. Number one, play a G major triad with your left hand. To play an F major triad with your right hand. And repeat this exercise after me. Number four. What is the difference between a chord and an interval? It's quite literally just one note. An interval is two notes and refers to the distance between any two nodes. As soon as you put a third note, even if it's a duplicate note name of one of the ones you've already got, then that becomes three notes and that becomes a chord. Number five, what is a triad called? A triad code is a code that is made up of nodes 135 of the major or minor scale. It relates to. 11. Arpeggios: So our final part of music theory for the time being is arpeggios. And what we're going to do is look at, look at some basic arpeggios that are just one octave span. The standard really that you would actually do for grade one. So actually, you could do in grade one standard arpeggios by the end of this video, which essentially pretty good. So you may know what an arpeggio is, thanks to the aristocrats. But if you don't, then basically it's a splayed out chord and usually made up of the initial triad, like the C major triad, with one extra note at the top, which is the root note again. So that's what we're going to focus on. We're going to focus on firstly, the C major arpeggio. Now, we need to get this fluid so we can't use the exact same thing as just dump the trial court, which was 13.5. What we're going to do is play the first three notes with fingers 12.3. So that finger five is now given the breathing space, it needs to reach that node. And then back down. Start slowly with the metronome and the left-hand hands together. And because you know the F-Major And the G-Major triad, you can already do the F major, G major arpeggios and the exact same way. So that's what I really want you to be focusing on, on this lesson is arpeggios and get them competent. And C Major, F major, G major, C, how you go with them. And there'll be a quiz. So stay tuned. 12. Quiz: Play a G major arpeggio with your right hand. Play a C major arpeggio with your left hand. The C, F, and G major arpeggio is after me. Hence, together with the click track, describe what an arpeggio is. An arpeggio is where you take a triad chord and you splay it out evenly across a rhythm that you play at giving each finger in each hand its own note to play. What possession or the arpeggios that we have just played in there in root position. 13. Notated Music: Notes: Welcome back and well done on making it this far. So by now, you should have a really good understanding of C major. And to prove it, you should be well up in playing a C major scale up and down for two octaves. One octave of arpeggios of C major and its fourth and fifth. So F and G, as well as understanding how intervals and chords work. This video is going to be quite long because we're going to start looking at notated music. Now. Why are we going to do that? Because you don't really want to be able to read music, do you just want to play? But I assure you a warm thing, even if you only follow it with understanding and can't decode music exactly, you'll be much better off for it. You'll become a better pianist. You'll have access to a far better repertoire. And what's more, you'll be far better equipped to continue with this course because I will be using notated music as a means of showing you what to do. So let's decode a few minutes. Okay, number one, reading music is hard. Wrong. Reading music is logical. It may look like a load of Scribble to you, but I'm going to pick it apart piece by piece so that by the end, you have a really strong understanding of how it all comes together. To learning music is boring. Perhaps, if you're considering what used to happen in the school classroom when they try and teach you basic notes. But by flitting to and from exercises and pieces that we already know or I going to learn. I hope to keep the learning interesting. Three, I don't need to be able to read music. I just want to play, but we're putting you on the right tracks to being a world-class pianist, aside from the enormous repertoire of music out there for which you wouldn't want to rely on playing by ear, such as the classical grades or jazz arrangements that reading music will open up a whole new world of skill and understanding to you and make you think about music logically, thus encouraging a better ear and a better instinct for playing. So we're going to learn a very specific piece of music. Oh, when the same. Now I know what you're thinking. Now. It's how the rock and roll and not the kind of thing I guess that you are going to want to be playing by the end of the course. But it's a great piece to learn. And in fact, the way we're going to do it in C major, no less is such that you'll be able to do it complete justice at your standard already. So here's the music. Here's a breakdown. Pay close attention to the remainder of this video. Grab your notebook and pen and a guarantee that with a bit of patients and learning, you'll understand exactly what's happening. Clef key type. The first thing we're going to do is talk about what's at the beginning of the piece. The clef, the key signature, the time signature. All the information you need is there. So let's start with the clef. There are two types of clef that you will commonly see in piano music. The treble clef and the bass clef. I have no doubt that you will have seen at least one of those in the past. So why are there two simple, I mean, look how many lines there are on a staff. Five, bearing in mind that we put nodes in the spaces as well. That means that in this space we can fit in nine individual notes before we start going above or below the lines. We can continue to do this indefinitely until we run out of notes on the piano. But don't forget how many keys on a piano has. 88. Now, because of sharps and flats, I'm suggesting it would be 88 individual lines or spaces needed. But what I am saying is that that's a lot of nodes above and below. Even if we assume that this staff, this group of five lines, is central. So we don't do that because it is most common in piano playing for the left-hand to be playing on the bottom half of the keyboard and the right hand to be playing on the top half, we use two clefs, the treble clef and the bass clef. They mirror one another in that middle seat. You remember middle C is in the same place below on the treble clef as it is above on the bass clef. In other words, all the notes on the staff in treble clef are higher than middle C, and all the notes on the staff in the bass clef or below middle C. This limiting the need for what we call ledger lines. Ledger lines are additional lines added above or below the staff to reach higher or lower notes than what the staff already encompasses. Let's take a one octave c major scale and do it one at a time and see how they look on each clef. We'll keep our hands in exactly the same place. So for our right-hand C major scale, starting on middle C will stay in treble. C, D E, F G a, B, C, B, a G, F E, D, C. The left hand, which remember is an octave lower and will therefore dropped down. Seven lines and spaces for middle C in the bass clef is C, D E, F G, a, B, C, B, a, G, F, E, D C. So if we look at them both together, we get our first glimpse of how it looks as a piano score. Basically, our clefs tell us whereabouts on the keyboard. Our hands are positioned in playing. So let's take another moment to process the note names in each clef. Treble, clef, middle C, D, E, F, G, a, B, C. Bass clef, middle C, B, a, G, F, E, D, C. You can continue up and down to work note names out, but never forgetting each clef for which note is middle C. And that way you'll be able to pick out and pick them out with absolute precision on the keyboard, there are one or two old school tips and tricks which you may wish to jot down in the notebook care, remember these ones from school? In the treble clef, the note from the bottom upwards, or E, G, B, D, F. So the old rhyme is, every good boy deserves football. Also, the note names in the spaces from the bottom-up would spell the word face. And the bass clef reading from the bottom up. And the space is you get a, C, E, G. You may know all cows eat grass. These tips may help you to learn. But if you're more of a visual learner takes some time in getting to know where all these nodes actually lie on the staff in each clef. Key signature. Key signature is a little bit more difficult to explain away at the moment because we're in the key of C major. And that's fine. But as you may have noticed, none of our notes, a sharp or flat. The key signature would show between the cleft. Between the cleft and the time signature would highlight any sharp or flat that would appear throughout the piece. But because there aren't any, we don't need to worry about them. C major is all standard note names. We call that being a natural note. So all the notes in the C major scale on natural, this, nothing is highlighted for the key signature. However, if you don't see anything written under key signature, note that a piece in the major tonality will always be in C major. We'll talk more about tone and minor key later and we'll explore key signatures later as well. Time time signature is dictated by the two numbers, while on top of the other, 44 is what you see written here. And to explain that very simply, that just means we're counting 123-41-2341, etc. The number of beats in the bar is given by the top number. The bottom number isn't one that we'll worry about too much just yet. But in common time signatures, you will likely only come across 4.8. Sticking with for the most common ones are to four. So this is commonly used in marches, although I am sticking to for, for, for oh, when the saints, despite being a March. So that's 121212, That's 2434 is a typical waltz. So 12, 312-312-3123 and so on. For four, which is what we're dealing with at the moment. In some cases, you may see a C. This stands for common time, which is 44. Oh my God, we've covered a lot, but I urge you not to panic if you really wanted to spend time making sure you fully understand everything in this course, then spend the most time on this and the next couple of videos about music notation. And you will see a major increase in your knowledge and your understanding just for knowing how music is written and how it reads. This means that everything following on the course, in the course will come a lot more naturally, both practically and academically. We'll do a little quiz when you are back to see how much you understand. But in this quiz, we will exceed the usual five questions. So be warned. 14. Quiz: The quiz. Number one, what clef is this? It's a bass clef. Number two, what notice this is a D on a treble clef. Number three. What note is this? It is an F on a bass clef. Number four, which one of these is not middle C? It is the one in the middle. Number five. What Rhyme? Can you help to remember the staff notes on the lines in travel. The notes are E, G, B, D, F. And the rhyme is, every good boy deserves football. Number six, how can you remember the notes for the spaces in the bass clef? Upwards? They read a, C, E, G. The rhyme is, all, cows eat grass. Number seven. How many sharps or flats are in the C major scale? There are none. Number eight, which number tells you how many beats are in a bar on a time signature? Is the number on the top. Number nine on a score. Which order do you put the time signature, that clef and the key signature. You put them alphabetically. Clef, key, time. Number ten, watts time signature would you see for a waltz, you'd see 34. 15. Notated Music: Rhythm and Dynamic: Congratulations on making it this far. Learning music is not as easy as it sounds, but it's so rewarding, whether that be learning an instrument, learning theory, or learning to read music or anything. And you're doing all three. So let's do a little bit of written and dynamic in this lesson. That is to say, let's work out what rhythm looks like when written down and how to specify how quietly or how loudly to play a piece of music and the music itself. In order to understand that further, we'll just break down the anatomy of a musical note. A musical note is made up of two parts, the stem and the head. Easy. So here are the note types that we want to worry about and how they look in for four. I'm going to tell you something for which if you ask why, the answer is just because we're counting four beats in a bar, and these beads are crotchet beats. There are four beats in our 44 bar. Remember when we mentioned the bottom number of our time signature? Well, that tells us what kind of note that top number is counting. So there are four crotchet beats in a bar. And y are crotchets considered to be the number four. They just duck because 44 is common tag. I know I know it doesn't make sense. It's a vicious cycle. It's a chicken and egg situation. It is 44, is it for four because they're crunchy beads or a crunch It's considered four because four is a common time signature. I don't know who's to say. It's probably the hardest thing to explain on this whole course. Just accept that crotchets of the number four. And mathematically you will be able to work out the rest. But I will help you out for now. A crutch, it has a black tout head and stamp and our 44 bar, there are four of them. Using middle C to dictate the rhythm. It looks like this. A minim is twice as long as a crotchet, so it lasts for two beats. Therefore, you can fit two in a four-four bar. They have an unfilled hadn't stem. And look like this. A semi brave or a semibreve is worth four crotchet beats. So a whole 44 bar. It is not only stemless and has an unfilled head. The head is usually a tad more elliptical in shape. I'm going to jump back up to crunch it so we can work the other way. Quaver is half as long as a crotchet. So we can fit, eat into a four-four bar. A semiquaver is half as long as the quaver. This quarter, as long as a crunch it. So you can fit 16 into a four-four bar. Wow, they get crazy at two, you get hurt me Demi semiquavers. If you go far enough, but we're not gonna, we're not going to worry about them. We're gonna go as far as that semiquaver. You may have seen diagrams like this and they're worth studying as they really do help. And in case you were wondering, yes, the number of each note type that fits into a four-four bar relates to the number at the bottom at the time signature, e.g. 128 would be 12 quavers in a bar. But anyway, back to 44. I'm going to set up my metronome and play the rhythm starting from a semi graph right up to semiquavers. So we can see how they are written and how they sound. So that's the metronome that's going in for four. So 12341234. And I'm going to start playing you the nodes starting from a semi breathe, semibreve. It would be this mini projects. Let me know what the quavers and the semiquavers at the end that they are joined together in groups. Quavers of four groups of two notes and semiquavers, or four groups of four nodes. Joining them across the top is known as beaming. And it makes for a much more straightforward reading and rhythmic interpretation. It takes some time familiarizing yourself with the note names and rhythms and how they work. Because I'm going to just introduce a few additional bits momentarily for which you should really have a fairly solid understanding of the basics first. And that is dotted notes and rests. And don't panic, don't panic. I know. I know it's frightening, but it's okay. A dot on the end of a note simply means we increase its length by half. So when you study this diagram, dotting any note, we'll add the note above to its length. Right? Let's put it in another way. If we play a crotchet beat on beat one of our bar. So e.g. crotchet beat on beat one of our buck. We come off it before the count beats. Because that would be a new beat. But if we make it increases, it's like half a card. A quaver, of which there are eight. Now we're going to do, It's a very subtle difference when you play and get that slowly. But it's something that you need to know for Rhythm more than anything else. Not so much the actual length of the node itself, if it's, if it's an isolated node, but for rhythm, as will all become clear in oh, when the saints shortly. It pays to know, I don't want you to lose faith with the dotted nodes. Is that out of context? They make less sense than contexts. But it's all right. We're going to look at rest. Now. Just as we wanted to demonstrate notes, we don't necessarily want both hands to be playing notes all the time. Therefore, we use rests. Crunch it, rest, looks like this. And there are, as you well know, fall in a four-four bar. Here is a minimum rest, which as you will note, comes just above the middle line on the staff. Now here's a semi-pro rest, which you'll note comes just below the fourth line on the staff. And this rest can be used to show that the entirety of a four-four bar is on played. Now going back the other way, this is how a quaver rest looks. Similarly to the additional lines you'll have noticed in the beamed notes. We just add another line to that to make the semiquaver rest. Dotted notes and rests are something that you'll understand far better when we put them into oh, when the saints and other pieces. So don't worry if you don't have this pick 100 per cent. And just yet, in the next video we're going to look at, oh, when the saints and things will start to come together naturally for you. Plus, I'll explain some stuff as well to help you relate all your new knowledge to a practical exercise. Before that video, however, We'll just very quickly look over Dynamics. Dynamic refers to how loudly or quietly you play a piece of music. The name piano, as you may or may not know, is short for piano forte, which literally translates from Italian to soft loud or quiet loud. And we still use the term piano to refer to soft music and forte to mean loud, play loud. But you rarely see them written in full on a piece of music. What you will see is an abbreviation. So you will see p, the piano. This means to play softly. Similarly, you will see F for Forte. That means the play loudly. Between the two of these, you get MAP and MAF. So mezzo piano and mezzo-forte, which literally translators quite softly and quite loudly, respectively. So if you see P or NP on your score, don't play too hard. If you see an f or f, you can batch the notes out a bit more. In the next video, we'll learn how a piece, but don't forget the quiz first to prove that you are worthy to learn your first song. 16. Quiz: This rhythm in four-four time. What rest is this? It's a semiquaver. How many semi breaths fit into 1 bar of 441. What does M P stand for? And what does it mean? Mezzo piano. And it means to play quite softly, are quite quietly. 17. Song Number One: "Oh When the Saints": Hello and welcome to your first song on the piano. Oh, when the saints. It doesn't sound complicated. I know and guess what? It's not. But I'm going to teach you this and reference the sheet music too, just so you get more of an understanding. In fact, you're going to help me understand the sheet music. You ready? Shout at the screen if you like, or just write the answers down. As we look at this piece of music, we're just going to scan the music. I'm going to ask you the following questions. Question number one, is there anything untoward about where our hands are going to be playing on the keyboard? Question two, how do we know that this piece is in C major? Question three, how are we counting the beat? Question four, what do you think the numbers above each note? Tar, question five. What do you notice about the very, very end of the music? Well, here's your answers. Huge. Congratulations if you got them all. One. No. Right hand, which is the top staff, is in the treble clef, and the left hand is in the bass clef. Furthermore, most of the notes stick well within the staff, so no, nothing really untoward about it is fairly standard to there is nothing between the clef and the time signature to mark any notes that should be sharp or flat throughout the piece. Three, it's 44, aka common time, 12344. There the fingers that you're playing each note with. It, isn't it all common for a score to give you the finger numbers that every single node. But I have just given them here to help you out. A little five at the very, very end is a thick black line. And this simply just means it's the end of the piece. Okay? So here we go. You may have noticed that our hands can actually start off in the exact same position as our very first exercise, where we've got C, D, and we've got them 54321 respectively in the left-hand and the right-hand. And we're doing them an octave apart with the right hand starting on the middles. See. Okay, So lay your hands out into that position. And here's the great thing. Our hands are not going to move from this position. And in fact, the fingers will only play the note that they're already on. So it's almost a fail-safe piece to learn. Now, it might be tempting for you to just go for it by ear, because who doesn't know this banger, right? Get that score in front of you and try to read it. Don't worry if you play a few notes or it comes to a halt. So just see how far you get before you proceed with the video. If you have to print it off to write the note names or any other notes next to it. That's absolutely fine. Learning to read music is all about association, just like learning any language, rarely. Did you do it. If you did, it should have sounded something like this. But whether you did or didn't, here's some things that I want to clarify for you and if you've already understood this, then hats off to you. You are already well on the way to being an instinctive musician. So number one, the first bar on the right hand is a minim rest followed by a quaver rest. If we counting quaver rest, this is five beats. Note that the three notes at the end of the bar or quavers to as denoted by the tail of the first one. And the fact that the second two are grouped by just one line. This, if we're counting 1234, then we can count between the notes. So 1.2 and 3.4. And the notes that were actually, it's the last three of them that are the notes that we want to play. So 1.2 and 3.4 and the other nodes. To end the left-hand, our crotchet nodes are broken up by crotch. It rests. Therefore, you don't want to be holding them on. Make sure they aren't playing on beats 2.4, like like this. You want them to be so 123-412-3412 and not like this, 123-412-3412. You need to honor that crotchet rest. Get used to recognizing that three. In the seventh bar, you will notice a dotted crotchet. This is preceded by a quaver. A dotted crotchet is worth three quavers. So if we count in quavers than that particular bar in its entirety, and the right hand would be 56 781-234-5678. Now, let's break it down and play starting slowly, the left-hand. And speed up when you feel ready. And then play the right hand. And then play them together. And all the while you should be focusing on the music and absorbing it takes into account what notes are playing versus how they look on the music, the rhythm you're playing, and how they are transcribed. And short to get both hands working well together. Sink. Keep practicing. Feel really up to playing. 18. "Oh When the Saints" - with Chords: Well done, I'm playing your first piece. Let's take it just a step further. Remember we learned trial courts for C, F, and G. Well, note on the score above that we have Cs and Gs written above the melody. This means that it's that cold. Let's take your right hand and move it to the exact same position, but one octave higher and play. Don't panic at the distance. Your instinct should be enough now that you need and be able to see everything you play at the same time. Practice on that, and I'll see you next time. 19. Part One: Minor Key: We're going to make a minor change. A minor change. We're going to go minor. We're going to introduce the minor key. Okay? So if we recap everything we've done so far. We've done the C major scale. C major, F major, G major triad calls. We've done C Major, F major and G major arpeggios. We've learned about major intervals. I learned, oh, when the saints, which is in the major key. But now we're going to go minor time to bring a little sadness into the mix. That's right. The black and white way of differentiating them is to say that the major key is happy and the minor key is sad. So let's do this with a little theory and a few exercises. Every major scale has a relative minor. Relative minor is basically the minor key that shares said major keys, same notes. Let's take C major as our example. C major has all white nodes. So somewhere there is a minor key that uses all white nodes. Well, you can identify them by using the triad. Find your C major triad. Now form a triad using the same thing as but with the Karen first and second note, the C and the E as the top two. What note have you figured out to be the root? You should have gone from this to this. Do you know that note? It's a because this is a simple triad. It is indeed an a minor chord. Your first minor chord. Therefore, a minor is C major's relative minor. Similarly, the relative major to a minor is C. Let's start off the a minor scale. Therefore, in exactly the same way we kicked off our C major scale and actually kicked off our full course. Very similarly to the first exercise that we did, play five nodes starting from a right-hand, left-hand and hands together. It probably won't take you as long to master as it did first-time because it's virtually the same thing, but it will sound a little bit different because it's going to sound sadder. And that's because it's minor. Now we're going to continue and play the whole a minor scale. But be warned, it's not actually entirely white notes. That's because this is a classical minor scale. And a classical, a minor scale does have a bit of a trick in there. We're going to use very similar fingering, however. So we're going to start with the a and we're going to go from the thumb. And then underneath with the thought that we want to jump to the middle of black note of the group of three, which we're going to call G sharp. And then the thumb is going to go underneath today. We're going to repeat that. Someone there. And we're going to finish up to five with the G-sharp. Now we're going to come back down. Simple as when you've messed it, that the left hand is going to be 3/4 over 321. And then we're gonna go back down to Monday. Monday. Monday. When you've mastered it, you can do hands together. So what we can learn from that is if you take the, if you associate the minor scale to the relative major, so e.g. C major. And you take it down to its relative minor. You can almost do it like for like exception of that seventh note, which is just risen up by one note, which in this case takes us to a black note. So it's also our first blank note, which happens to be a sharp. In this case. That distance is called a semitone. Semitone is the distance between any two nodes that are immediately next to each other, whether they be black or white. So e.g. yes, a gene to that mental black nodes is a semitone. We've established that G-sharp, but he doesn't have to be a sharp or flat for it to be a semitone apart, e.g. E2F, or B to C is a semitone. A tone, or a whole tone is two semitones. So we can find plenty of examples of that because obviously the group of black notes, the first to the second tone apart these two black notes. And any two white notes that are separated by a black node are torn apart. And there are other examples, of course, I want to just go into them now. But if we pick apart a major scale, such as the C major scale, we can, we can reference it using tones and semitones. According to this, we start with the rise of tone. Tone. Semitone. Tone. Tone finishes with a center. Whereas with a minor scale, it is the root semitones minor. That is three semitones. Semitones. You can use that structure to find the major or minor scale from literally any note on the piano. But try not to get carried away to just, just yet on the symbol and the symbol basis that there's all sorts of different techniques that come into play. And note naming gets a bit confused depending on what key you're in and everything. So let's focus on C major and a minor offense. 20. Part Two: Minor Key: Let's have a look now at what those scales look like. Notated. Note how we still don't need to declare a key signature. Yeah, sure We have a G-sharp, but we call that an accidental. Accidental is a node that is sharpened or flattened just as a one-off. In a minor, you will be playing mostly Gs as naturals. Well, because we're depicting the scale, it's a G sharp. Makes sense. Good. Note that the sharp sign is what we may more commonly referred to now as the hashtag symbol. Whenever you see this, you just need to raise the note and proceeds, in this case, a G by one semitone. So we would play a G sharp. Now remember how we learned our intervals from C In the C major scale. Now let's learn our intervals from a in the a minor scale question, however, can you identify what the intervals a to D to E and a to a would be. Well, they're all perfect. They are respectively a perfect for a perfect fifth and a perfect octave. They still remain perfect and they do not switch to minor, unlike the rest. With one introductory Act, section. A to B stays as a major second. A to C is now a minor third. A to F is a minor sixth, and a to G is a minor seventh. So take your time to familiarize yourself with these ones. Now, note how the new minor ones on different. So e.g. a major third, using C as we know, it sounds like that it sounds bright. A minor third starting on a, sounds a bit satyr. Play around with them, playing them together and apart, just like you did with the major scales and play them against the major intervals as well. So that you really start to develop your musical ear. It will really help you to understand tonality a lot better as well. When you're feeling happy with these new intervals. Let, let's make some new cohorts. So we've already sussed a minor, we've got that. And using our knowledge of tones and semitones, we know that we've got three semitones between the first two notes. And then four semitones between the second and third note is what creates a minor triad. So using that as your knowledge and understanding, can you find two other minor triads that would fit beautifully and the keys of C major and a minor, if you said D minor and E minor, fantastic, because that's what they are. The D minor is made up of the notes, and the E minor is made up of the notes. And you may notice that there's just one difference really between a major and a minor triad, and it's literally that middle node. So if you hark back to an earlier thing that I said, Firstly, if we take out that mental note and focus on the bottom and the top node, we get a perfect fifth, regardless. With the perfect thing. The middle note in, as we know, the major, E major, C major. If you do the same thing as what we know for a minor, for that middle note in C, you got an a minor. Literally, the middle note has a difference of one semitone between a major and a minor. That is to say that if you've got a major, you have to do to make it a minor. That middle node, one semitone lower. In this case, C. The E would go down one semitone to that second black note to take a lot. And similarly, if we get a minor in the middle, if you raise it up by one semitone to a C sharp, That's the first of the two black notes. You get an a major. We're not going to worry about the C minor and a major chord, but what it will do is it will just help you too. Understand how codes are, how to develop code. So a little bit more. Now, just as the C major has, is 14.5 chords. A minor has got them too, and we've already established what they are because well, we have done a minor. But I'm going to just throw you this very slight curve ball. E minor works fantastically well in the key of a minor. However, if you want to keep it classical, it should be an E major. We already know how to do that now don't we? Hazy mind? Take the middle note, which is a gene. We will note by one semitone to a G sharp. That is how the classical, that is how a classical 145 in the minor key would be in a minor, a demon. He made some new exercises, arpeggios. These are done exactly the same way as the major ones, except that there are different nodes. So you start by developing them the same way. A minor is going to use. I want you to do that with both hands individually. When you feel up to eight hands together, you'll probably not take all that much time developing these because you'll already have put a lot of the practice into the technique first time around, and they're very similar. But you've got a D minor as well, which you can do. E minor, which you can do. And you've even got E major which you can do. So keep practicing your arpeggios until you really fluent with them. And it's a good idea to do them if just a few of them, you don't have to do all of them regularly, but just have 3.4 to three or four every day. Watch TV, watch, just sort of getting warmed up and it will really start to flow the thing There's a little bit and spread them a little bit as well. That's the other thing about arpeggios. With scale. As you get a really nice finger Independence going in finger strength with arpeggios, you start to spread your fingers a bit. So they're both very, very important exercises. So let's take a look at to all the triad chords and how they look when they're notated. Although it may seem unthinkable that one day you may be able to understand this. You will. Similar to how we read words. We don't take them one letter at a time and process each word one at a time. And the same happens with chords and with intervals, you get to recognize the difference on the staff versus against the distance on the keyboard. So you don't have to break it down one note at a time all the time. Start familiarizing yourself with these chords now, both in treble clef and bass clef. 21. Quiz: Repeat this two octave, a minor scale after me. What note is an accidental in the a minor scale? It's a G-sharp. What interval is this? It's a minus six. Play a D minor triad with your right hand. Repeat the E major arpeggio after me. What chord is this? It is E minor on the bass clef. 22. Song Number Two: "What Shall We Do with a Drunken Sailor?": Well, welcome back. Last time we learned all about the minor key. And this time we're going to put the minor key into practical use. Atlanta fabulous piece of music. What should we do with a drunken sailor? We're going to learn it from the music of course, which is right here. And just as we did with, oh, when the saints, I want you to pause the video on the music and take some time to try and work bits out here and there. When you press play again, I'll talk you through it and we'll see how much you worked out. Again. So to start, there is an absence of anything between our clef and time signatures again, which means that this is in one of two keys, C major or a minor. As we know that this song is in a minor key, we know it's going to be a minor, but before you commit to a piece, just keep an open mind that the tonality of the piece sets the key. Despite being in a minor. However, this first chord is D minor. That's madness. What's going on? So as you will spot with the melody, it stays firmly grounded to the white notes, and therefore, we're not in the key of D minor so much is in a minor because that is the white note based key signature. The left hand. I've notated the triads for you as well. And don't worry, I've written them above the staff so you know which chords you're playing too, but try and get used to reading between the spaces, between the lines when you see more than one note played together. And this is a major part of sight reading. As you start to be able to pick out codes based around intervals rather than deducing which note to each individual one is burst. The numbering has slightly reduced in the right hand. And why? Well, simple. We don't need to specify every single one. The first seven notes are in a. And by telling you that I'm playing the first one with finger five and my right hand. It's unlikely I'm going to want to switch that up. Sometimes you might see that, but there's no need. Also, it's unlikely you'll see constant finger recommendations continually for a second reason, which is simply that different pianists find different fingerings easier or harder. So it may be that you start to play this and feel more comfortable playing it in a different way, e.g. that's fine. But at this stage, it shouldn't be a string. If finger five still isn't working as well as some of the others, then try warming up with some of the scales from previous lessons. We all know the tune of drunken sailor, but let's, let's recap how the rhythm goes against what is notated. A quaver followed by two semiquavers. So 12 341-234-1234, and a dotted quaver followed by one semiquaver, 12 341-234-1234. Now let's play the left hand slowly. I'm going to show you a very slightly different fingering for the D minor. This might feel unusual, but there is very, very good reason. That is we need to preempt that we're transitioning down. We only have five fingers, not six. So we can't get 100% smooth transition from three nodes to three completely different nodes. But by using 4.2 first, it means that we can transition to the C major by using fingers 5.3 on the C and E, just as we have done in the past. And then it's only the thumb that needs to make a little slide down. So rarely we're minimizing the, the roughness, if you like, of that transition. So Practice transitioning between the two using those fingerings for a few moments before you move on. For better results yet, take the thumb out and practice just the transition with your other four fingers that's foreign to on the D and the F, moving down to 5.3 on the C and the E. Then at the film. When you've got it. Fantastic. So let's investigate then the rhythm of the left-hand. So I'm going to put the metronome on. I like to play this, don't worry so much about what I'm playing, just listening to the rhythm because we got semi breath. And another seven brand. Another seismograph that emitted crotchet, wrapping, rest, rest, rest. So that was all there is to it. But there's one, just one little thing to add to that to make it bends quite literally might've noticed it in what I've just played that the dot, you'll no doubt you've seen this dot. It's been on the loose for several years and finally, I've captured it and used it and now Alabama to share its evil ways with all of you. The dot literally means staccato, literally jump off the note. So, whereas the first two crotchets in say, bar five would be one to set the duration of the beat. The third one will be a very short three. So technically, technically, the dot shortens the node by half, but it's just much, much tinier way of notating it been using, in this case, quaver note, followed by equating the rest. Now let's have a look at the melody, which we very carefully as I show you this, as the hand is going to move a little more than it did for the last piece. Practice the melody a few times and when you're ready, put the two hands together and work slowly to build it up to a competent performance. Don't forget to use them. When you find it. Got it quite together. The last little sprinkling of expression is the diagnostic. This is M p. Remember that medicine beyond white. So get into the habit of playing softly. Don't press those keys to heart. And if you need to slow it down to help, try and make sure those fingers are pressing the keys at similar velocities across the keyboard. Keep practicing and when you feel really confident, try playing along with me in the next video. 23. Quiz: Play, what should we do with a drunken sailor along with me? 24. Inverted Chords: We're past the point of halfway now, so well done. If you're following everything in getting to grips with the exercises, tips and tricks and understanding of the piano and music overall, then you're doing really, really well. But there are a myriad of ways in which we can improve on that for you. Now we're going to study codes in a little bit more detail. We did indeed look at chords, but all we really did was study the triad. You remember the triad, It's Accord of three nodes made up of the root note and the major third and a perfect fifth from said root. E.g. C major is made up of the root note C and the major third, perfect fifth. So E and G respectively. We learned to play the chord would see at the bottom, then E then G, a consecutive order from the root. And this is fine, and this is what we call root position. However, there are countless ways across the keyboard in which you can play a C major chord or any other chord. Allow me to demonstrate. Here is a C major chord starting on middle C. It sounds okay, but the problem is that when it comes to early learning things to a basic understanding such as learning just the triad, the basic triad of a cohort. Many people just translate that into the left-hand and use that as their accompaniment. So that sounds good. Maybe, maybe now, what if I wanted to do a C to an F transition? I did F-major chord down here. Yeah, it doesn't sound as good. And the simple reason for that is, yes, it's the same node, but we were to lower pitch. Therefore, everything just gets a bit muddier because it's a lot closer together. So bear in mind that when you play a C major triad in root position, you're playing three notes that although there is a small distance between them, they are still close together. When you translate it further down on the keyboard, it just starts to lose definitely. Yet time and time again. I see keyboardist and PNS play pieces of music. Sounds muddy because they only know how to do that basic kind of cool. So they will learn accompaniment space purely around these block cause or hold them down or possibly banned them. But what I'm going to try to do now is to encourage you to understand enough about the code that you can restructure and rearrange them just enough that you give them a little bit of breathing space so that they don't sound as clumsy. These codes are called inverted chord. So identifying them using our C major as our guide. And we're going to go into the right hand, and we're going to base it around middle C and play our triad with fingers. Three. We already know this, it's root position. But we can have two inversions of that, the first and the second inversion. And they relate entirely to whichever node you start on. So to find the first inversion, we're going to start with that fingering. I know we're going to do is remove the thumb and replace it with finger five on the highest. See that we've got. Now for a bit of an exercise, what you can do is you can just get used to sort of joining the inversions. Then you can do exactly the same thing using your left hand, fingers, 53.2 for the trial. Then to find the inversion, take finger five off replacing with the thumb, finger warm. There it is. The second inversion. What we're going to do is we're going to find the first inversion and we're going to read finger it slightly. So we've just learned in the right hand what I want you to do is rethink about using one. I'm going to do a very similar trick. What we're going to do is we're going to take off finger one, the E. We're going to replace it with finger five. On the second inversion. Again, you can access. I didn't order to do that for the second inversion in the left hand. Rethink the fingering of the first inversion by three to the five and replace it with the thumb on the E above. Inversion. Because of the number of fingers that we've got available to us. It's not particularly easy to get a really smooth transition between all three of the code. So if you want to do that, then the best thing you can do is take it slow to begin with and just to jump on different nodes in things that are invertible. So why are we learning about emotions? What differences are going to make? Well, it's simple really. The difference it makes is it gives a little bit of breathing space. So e.g. if I'm playing C major in the left hand. Now, in the root position triad are all fairly close together. If I go a little bit lower, just a little bit at distance between those two nodes. That's the second inversion there, by the way. Just a little bit more range. But there is another major advantage that is often overlooked with embedded codes and that is simply the day assists with transition. So if we're playing a piece of music such as, come on to this, it goes o1o when the sayings they use is the chords C, F, and G. Well, we're jumping around a lot better compared to the fact that what we can establish is that there are notes in common between some of these. So e.g. f. Has a C in it. So rather than just keep your hand and just change those to an F second inversion. C. We've got a G to G major. I'm always very little movement in that. It's another major, major bonus. For the homework. What I really want you to do is to find all the different inverted, all the different possible inversions for all the codes you've learned so far. So C Major, F major, G major, a minor, D minor, E minor, even E major. If you're looking, if you're looking for a challenge, you might need to experiment with your fingers a little bit, because obviously the black note might just throw them rescue a little bit, but that's okay. See how far you get. 25. Quiz: Number one, what notes ascending would make up an F-major second inversion? That would be C, F, a number to what notes ascending would make up an E minor first inversion. That will be G, B, E. 26. Using Inversions in Songs: So here we are again. Last time we learned all about inversions, and this time we're going to utilize them and are applying. That is our songs that we have already learned. Oh, when the saints, and what should we do with a drunken sailor? I'm going to start with what should we do with a drunken sailor? Because it's actually easier on account of the fact that we're going to switch up only one chord. Let me show you the score and just show you what's a little different about this now. So two things. Firstly, can you identify what chord is in the second bar in the left hand? Well, the nodes reading liquids are E, G, C. Therefore, it is a C Major immersion. Because of where it is, we've now got mental see at the top and it is being held on for a full bar of 44 semi brief, but metal seal, so it makes a guest appearance. And the right hand in the melody. If you ever see brackets around a note as you can hear, all it just means is that be aware that this node is in both hands at some point. And depending on how you have interpreted the piece of music during your performance or rehearsal, play it if you can or if you wish. E.g. if I've committed already to holding on this, this whole, this code for the whole bar. Before I realized that it's there in the melody line and the right hand as well, the bracket is there to tell me, Don't worry, I'm not actually doing anything wrong by not playing it. Interpreted it correctly. And if I can just play the node. Similarly, the bracket around the semibreve at the top is suggesting that at some point it may not be possible to hold on the note for quite as long as anticipated as it will be cropping up. In the other hand, if I wanted to let go of the note to allow me to play the note and the right hand, which being the melody I would probably prioritize. Then that's also fine. Brackets that your friend remember there almost there to say yes, we know how it looks, but don't worry, we've got you covered. The second thing is that I'll point out is simply about the code names on top. We don't have a specific way of defining first or second inversion. But usually when you see a chord name, you can assume that the base node should be that note, e.g. the first chord is D minor. So the bass note that is the lowest note in the left hand is probably going to be a D. That's a safe assumption. But if we want to emphasize that there is a different note in the bass, we simply use a forward slash. And we then put the note name that we want to be in the bass. Because we're using C first inversion. We've used c forward slash E because we want E in the bass. Now let's perform the left hand and will be rethinking our fingers slightly. Moving from D minor to C using any inversion is not nothing. That is not something that we can do 100 per cent smoothly because none of the notes are in common with each other. But we can make it as smooth as we can nonetheless, by way of a little practice, you've locate D minor and you use fingers 53.1 to play that. And then you switch to C major first inversion, that's E, G, C, using fingers for 2.1. So 531242, 01:00 A.M. I. Doing this a few times and building it up, we should get it. Some families. This is because the transition can be taken fairly cleanly by the direct switch between two fingers and two different fingers. Whereas finger one has a tad more work to do a bit, a bit of a jump. But with the other two, it all goes nice and smoothly together. Once you've mastered getting that smooth, which I reckon by now, you won't be taking too long at all. We just need to put the melody line on. This is exactly the same anyway. So just play that a few times until you have it down fairly smoothly. Wonderful. Know that I'm just taking a single one off middle C in time for my right hand to take over it. So if you need to take this one a little slower just so your thumb can get a bit of speed and the transition then that's fine. Once you are playing this, just pay attention to how the new chord sounds. A little more open than before you might say. And I'm sure you remember the reasons for why an inversion sounds a bit more open than root position? Number one, it's more breathing space between two of the notes because it's a bigger interval between two of them and two, you're substituting a lower note for the same pitch, an octave higher. So if you're ready to move on, Let's take a look at oh, when the saints wasn't lying, when I said the drunken sailor was easier. However, this is also extremely easy. In fact, now you're really sudden to understanding versions and I reckon this won't take long at all. You'll probably find it even easier than when we did it first time round. C major is going to be exactly the same root position. Now let's have a quick look at the chords and think how are we going to do them? Our first changes in bar five. You recognize the chord? It's a G major first inversion, that's b, d, g. Because g is a common denominator, we can keep this as finger one in the left hand for both chords and use fingers 5.3 ascending for both chords, making a very fluid transition. Similarly, in bar seven, we have a new chord. You recognize that it's an F-major second inversion, C, F. Now, note that the c is the common denominator, so we can use finger five for both and just switch from 3.1 to do with born to switch these cards. To play the whole thing in the left hand would be, do this a few times until you're feeling competent and then simply at the right hand. And do this as many times as you need to until you feel competent. So by the time you get to the next video, you should be able to competently and with full understanding of what inversion means, how to transition as best as you can see them. And there'll be a quiz before we move on, As in the next video, I'm going to be running through some accompaniments which will make the left-hand or the more exciting. 27. Quiz: Play, oh, when the saints along with me, what shall we do with the drunken sailor along with me? 28. Accompaniments: Arpeggiation / Alberti Bass / Walking Bass and Vamp: Okay, let's jazz it up slightly. Now. No, not literally. But now we're getting really into the territory whereby we're going to explore a few things you can do to state you're playing from here to here. Well, here. In fact, if you watch pianists play, even if it's something that is considered fairly basic, you turn it off and seeing them just resorting to block chords like what we've been doing. And this is where we really start to get into two-handed playing, giving the left hand a little more meat to flush out the tube. Three things we're going to look at. Arpeggiation or birdie bass and walking bass with vamp. I'm about to scare you, and I own it, hone in on the first one, the arpeggiation, and show you our drunken sailor piece with some basic left-hand arpeggiation. Terrifying, isn't it? No. Actually. Let's just break it down. Let's identify the notes. First of all, what note length and rhythm have we got going on? Well, now quavers. So we're just counting the bits in between the beats. So e.g. if we've got 1234, we're going 1.2 and 3.4, and that's your rhythm. So without me telling you, can you identify the notes? If you recognize them as d, f, d, then? Correct. Now let's just consider how we're going to position our hand. There's really no genius way to do it. Considering it like, consider it like you doing going to do a D minor route to a d minor in first inversion, because that's effectively what we're doing, but deconstructed. We're sending from D to D with the two notes between. So we can use fingers 5321. We can virtually position our hand over the notes ready? When we have a chord change, we can utilize the exact same fingers except that this time will be moving down a bit. This is arpeggiation. You already know what arpeggios are. Basically arpeggiation is just when you ascend or descend the cord across uneven rhythm buildup gradually until you can play it at competence speed and then at the right hand. And if you're getting a little anxious that your hands are getting too close for comfort. That's right. In piano playing, don't be afraid of letting your hands get close to. What I'm doing is developing your confidence in right? Now that are going to freak you out all the more. Now, this score is the same idea, except we've moved from quavers to semiquavers. This doubling up on every group of notes we do. But fitting them into the same amount of time like this. Do the exact same building up slowly to make sure you've cracked it. And then let's try some more styles. By the time you finished, you should be able to do this. I'll birdie bass, Alberti bass is something that Mozart was particularly fond of. This may sound a little odd for a piece like this, but it's a nice one to use and to practice with. Alberti bass is similar to arpeggiation and that it is an evenly splayed out chord, but in this specific order. So using D minor as an example, we use root 535, so b, a, f. So what should we do with the drunken sailor can now sound more. And similarly, this can lead, this can take a step up from quavers and become semiquavers. Now use fingers 53.1 in the left hand to play all the chords in Alberti bass style and build up gradually as you would start by playing the left handle it. And then add the melody and build up speed. And you'll gather. Walking bass with that kind of a two parter. Walking bass is a form of baseline that punctuates certain regular beat choosing certain regular notes and for are extremely basic walking baseline. We're going to use, oh, when the saints, as this is precisely the kind of song that was written for and with walking bass. Based around the same chords. We're going to use the root node followed by the fifth, except we're going to go down to the fifth, not up this time, e.g. our first bar is based around the chord C major. So we'll start with the note C, and then we'll take the fifth note, G, descend down to G, rather than raised to the one we used to using. Have a look at his score. Know that we're using crotchet beats to define the notes. However, they all have that little dot. Do you remember what that means? Staccato? Natively, we want to bounce off the node rather than a whole to tell him. Now let's have a skim through the left hand. When we get to bar five, our notes are based around the G major chord, a, G, and then the fifth node D. Except this time, you'll note we actually are ascending. Obviously bar seven is based around F-major, but in terms of our form, format of walking bass, it is back to what we established for F-major, F a, C Major, F then descend to sin. Then the very last bar, instead of rising back up to the C, We descending down to the sea. Pay close attention to the finger markings here to starting with finger two might feel a little unusual, but it allows for our transition around the G chord to be more comfortable. Now, play the left-hand on its own, starting slowly if you need to. Once you feel comfortable with this at the melody, make sure you're understanding and play this competently and fluidly before you move on to the final stage of left-hand components in this video, which is the bank. A vamping cord is basically a chord that is played at a regular rhythm throughout a piece. And the beauty of them in relation to the walking bass is that they can interject perfectly. So all that we're going to do now is, is similar walking baseline, but finished the code off with the top two nodes between the nodes. So effectively, everything now is a quaver. The bass notes still comes on 1234 and our chord stamps come on the middlemen. And that makes sense. Do this slowly and build up. And when you feel that you have it just at the melody line. When you feel extra ready. Move that melody line backup in Octave as we did first-time around them play. Well, we've done a lot. Before you move on. Really practice every piece with the new accompaniments from this video. If you can't quite master them in the quiz in the next video, just go back and refresh your memory and your technique and it bends and you'll be fine. But nonetheless, congratulations on making it this far. You're well on your way to being an excellent pianist. 29. Finger Independence: Well done. That's two sons played a multitude of different ways. And once you're probably thinking what Jan, my repertoire is hardly developing, that isn't the point. I'm opening your musical ear, your musical understanding, your natural talent and development and putting you well on the right track to being first-class pianist. Yes, you're learning just to songs currently, but you're really understanding how they work, how they fit together code-wise, how they work as a notated piece of music and using them as a base to build understanding and practice of other styles and techniques, which is fabulous. This time however, we're just going to take it back a notch and look at technique. And we're going to look at something which nobody wants to admit that they need to focus on, whether beginner or expert. Finger independence. This video is going to be short, but it's arguably the most important one and the one I really want you to get your head around before moving on. Why? Because your fingers, although they are now working truly independently of each other, I haven't really been given much excuse to use them in the context of a song. And keeping them independent allows for a plethora of possibility when it comes to performing. Just think one finger could hold down a bass note while it's 2.3 at the same hand, could carry on with a little melody or leitmotif. Effectively, you're adding even more texture to your music. Currently, we have two very distinctive components and our pieces, and we could add an extra layer. However, you will need to do a few very basic exercises in order to catapult you there. So here they are. Ten exercises. I'm going to take you through them, but I want you to take them one at a time and really focus on getting them right. However you need to, whether it be the old buildup, the speed on the metronome or however, but don't settle for, that'll do. Make sure you really are comfortable with them. Note, well, it might feel uncomfortable, at least to begin with. It's fair to say that piano playing shouldn't hurt, Fair enough. But when we start to expose our hands and fingers to new or unusual techniques at the start it can be a little odd. So this will feel odd, uncomfortable, and may even hurt just a little. I don't want you to strain yourself. Make sure you do give yourself adequate breaks and don't over practice. But do know that it is normal and you'll gradually start to feel much more comfortable. Make finger five irregular note playing at the same time as every other node or holding on for four nodes and then play it again however you want. Tried a few ways. This may be one to do hand separately to begin with, but that's fine. Do all of these exercises regularly until you are ready to move on in the quiz. As a twist, I will not be testing you on these exercises, but showing you a couple of slightly different ones. As this will be the tower as to whether or not your technique has improved. See you then. 30. Quiz: Eat these finger independence exercises one at a time after me, left hand, right hand, then hands together. 31. Using Finger Independence in Songs: Well, look, who's come crawling back for more. But why did we have to spend years and years and years slogging away at those horrible finger exercises. Well, excellent question. And the answer is because now we can incorporate a third layer into our music. Let's start this time with, oh, when the saints. But despite the fact that we're on one instrument, our wonderful piano, of course, we refer to different parts of the same piece as voices. And effectively, we're now in four voices. That is to say in the most basic way I possibly can, that for different things are happening independently of each other at any one time. That's two per hand. E.g. in the second bar, right hand, we still have the melody, yet. We have a slight underlay of notes, which is a second voice. In the left hand we have a long bass note, which we often call a pedal note, occurring at the same time as a group of quavers to keep the rhythm driving forward a bit. So that's voices 3.4. This is precisely where your newfound skill in finger independent comes into play and goes, hey, we are ready for action. No. Okay. Let's break it down slowly. Let's play very slowly, the left hand. And now let's play very slowly. The right hand. Take both parts very slowly to begin with and built up. When you're ready, bring the two together and play. And if you're happy with how you're getting on with this, let's take a look at what should we do with a drunken sailor. Can you identify how many voices are in this? Oh, it's a tough one. The answer is, still for the left hand is relatively easy to deduce because the difference between a dotted minimum underneath semiquavers is so staggeringly obvious. Obviously different. Where the majority of the right hand, although we've added texture and the shape of codes, they generally fall as quaver chords underneath query the notes or crotchet chords underneath project nodes, which strictly speaking, wouldn't make them a different voice. However, in the very last bar, note that we have two quavers in the melody proudly playing over a crotchet, E and G. And that is the differentiation that also puts that right hand into two voices. So let's play the left hand slowly and build it up until you're ready to play the right-hand smoothly. And then put both hands together and build them up. The fingers for you again. And you'll note no doubt that there are different, they are different at times to how we've played originally. But this is only to account for the extra voices. Well, to be honest, you're developing so much as a pianist hair by being able to do this. So many, too many pianist in fact struggled to even switch codes because the first thing to overcome with finger independence is transitioning chords and even just playing the right notes and chords and allowing fingers that aren't playing to just hover. But we've got a grasp on that ages ago. More recently in this and in the last video, we actually developed her skills even further. And in a way we exploited the awkwardness, fingers hovering and doing nothing by allowing them to do something. Now this doesn't mean that every single piece of music you ever play has to incorporate everything you are doing something by any stretch. But now you've got the option open to you. You will have noticed that e.g. playing drunken sailor in the way that we do now we've actually created much more derive them by just holding on codes. So using a mixture is a great way to create contrast in pieces of music. And now you have both techniques available to you. Play these pieces a few times until you feel confident and then try playing along your new multi voiced versions with me in the next video. 32. Quiz: Play, oh, when the saints along with me, what shall we do with the drunken sailor along with me? 33. Key Signature: G and D Major and the Circle of Fifths: I get that notebook and pen out again, it's less than time. We're done again academic for awhile as we further develop our understanding of music theory. Well done on developing your finger independence and further developing your skills in those songs. You can now play in a multitude of different ways. But you won't just need a piano to him this time. You'll also need an attentive ear, a bit of concentration, and something on which to take notes. Because now we're going to change key. Yes, I know terrifying. This is where it gets terrifying, horrifying in fact, but don't worry, I'll hold your hand the whole time throughout. We've explored two key signatures and saying is there relative to each other, That's not watch. We've looked at C major with a minor in many, many courses that have over faced you by now, by throwing a few select key signatures at you and expecting you to not be terrified. But hopefully I've broken you into this much more nicely by giving you an understanding of how music works overall. You'll note if you'll excuse the pun, that all the nodes we've been playing have been the white notes. I believe I've explained this already, but this is just because of the kiwi are in. Just so happens that on a piano C major and usually a minor or entirely white based. So let's explore the black notes. First of all, the first thing to do is to understand what a natural A-sharp and A-flat is. A natural note is basically any note name. If you say C, D, E, F, G, a, or B, then that is a natural note. So do you remember what a semitone is? If you hadn't said literally the distance between two neighboring nodes, any two nodes right next to each other, black or white or a semitone apart. When you accrete, when you increase the node by semitone and then you sharpen it. When you decrease it by a semitone, you flatten it. Okay. I know what you're thinking. You probably immediately looked at the white gaze on when does that mean that an f is an E sharp or B is a C flat? And to answer your question, yes, it absolutely does. However, that is not used unless you're in a much more complex key signature, then we're going to cover in this particular course, we're just going to focus on the black notes has been sharps and flats. Yes, they can all be one of two names. C sharp or D flat, D sharp or E flat, F sharp, or G flat, G sharp, or a flat, or a sharp or B flat. Whichever one is used, relates entirely to the key signature we are in. In a scale. We do not repeat notes names at all, and each note names should be used once only. So e.g. the reason we have never referred to the note F as E sharp in the key of C major is because we have already used the note name e. E. So if we then had a sharp, we'd have the note name e again. So we call it F, because it's a natural. On top of this would be jumping to the note. Would be jumping from E sharp to G. Meaning what goes C, D, E, F sharp, G. And we'd miss out completely. And all note names should be accounted for in a scale. I'm going to give you an exercise here, which is a chromatic scale, which is literally just, it's like a scale, but it uses every single node, black or white, between two nodes. We'll just do it for one octave and we'll use C again. What we'll do is we'll start from middle C on the right hand. And we'll use every single note for one octave, starting with finger one. And then we're gonna go back down. And then we'll do it in the last time as well. One octave. We start with one, again. 333, down, 313. Wendy feeling confident, you can do it hands together. Try the chromatic is a few times until you've really got the Monday about. It's a really useful technique as what we now encouraging is closer finger technique. So much of what we've done now, up to now has been reasonably spaced apart. Anyway. Let's move on. Let's take a look at, oh, when the saints as the first stage of understanding key signature. Basically, we're starting on the notes C. However, I can start on literally any note and play it. If I say e.g. f, or maybe g, I can play it starting on literally any note on the keyboard. Without accounting for individual pictures of the same note. There are a total of 12 different possibilities as to where to start playing this as the 12th unique notes harmonically. Each of these has its own major key and it's a minor key associated with it. So really there are a total of 24 key signatures harmonically. So what do we do? How do we get to grips with them? Well, I'm going to show you some basic key signatures and some exercises to help you get to grips with them. Firstly, G major and D major, fairly basic major keys here. G major is extremely similar to C major, with the exception of one note, the f being increased by a semitone I sharpened. So a G major scale would be G, a, B, C, D, E, F sharp, G. You remember on notated music how I kept saying that a key signature would be notes between the clef and the time signature. Well, let's say a piece was in D major, G major, we have an F-sharp between the cleft and the key signature right on the offline, we put a sharp symbol. This means that the pieces in either G major or its relative minor. You may recall that the relative minor of G major is E minor. Anyway, that's academia. Let's play the G major scale using the same thing because as the C major scale, firstly in the right hand and then the left. Then together, build this up and you'll eventually have a new scale. Now, consider your knowledge of how this and the C major scale is structured in the sense of tones and semitones, and see if you can work out which two nodes might be sharpened in a D major scale. The answer, still, F, but also C becomes C sharp. So in printed music, a piece in D major would look a little like this. Because we've put a sharp sign onto the F and the C line. Now is as good a time to point out that you either go sharp or you go flat in the key signature because of our OneNote name. But scale rule, we can't really pick and choose and mix up and have a couple of flats here and a sharp there in the key signature. So e.g. a, D major would be F-sharp and C-sharp, it would not be F sharp and D flat, or G-flat and C-sharp, it wouldn't, it would be F-sharp and C-sharp to D major. And let's use the same thing as again in play. The notes of the scale, D, E, F sharp, G, a, B, C sharp, D. Firstly, an hour left hand. Right hand. And hands together. I don't know, be skimming over these scales. They will come into use for you when it comes to finding your field for other key signatures, especially quite common ones like G and D. So keep playing them over and over until you're confident with them and then move on. You thinking that Jack, you're thinking this is complicated. There's a lot to remember. Is this some kind of tool that can really helped me? Well gets, yes, there is, There is a fabulous tool. In fact, the circle of, you may have heard of this. The circle of fifths relates entirely to key signatures in that sharps or flats. So we'll start with C. Always start with C. What we need to do is figure out a perfect fifth. By default, we already know what that is. It's G. So that's our next step. Now that we know G-major scale, what is the perfect fifth from G? It's a D. That's our next step. Now let's scrutinize this a little bit more. How many sharps or in C Major? Know how many sharps are in G major? One? How many sharps are in D major? To those it goes on. So if I were to show you a purely purely one way diagram of the circle of beds. I could probably fit about eight comfortably onto it. So every time we move up a fifth, we add a sharp to the key signature, just one sharp to the key signature. Now, note that C-sharp major has a whopping seven sharps, but don't panic, we're not there yet. We're not going to get anywhere near that in this course, nowhere in there. But it's something that can be easily developed an now, now that you have the basics is something that you can work towards. Now you have the basics. What sharps are always written in the order of appearance as they appear in the circle of fifths. So if you are writing in the key of a major, e.g. you would always specify F, C, and G sharps in the key signature in that order. The old acronym, fast cars go driving around everywhere was always a favorite when I was at school. Anyway, I really want you to study the circle of fifths more and practice those new scales before you move on. 34. Quiz: How many sharp notes are in the key of B major? There are five. F, C, G, D, and a. Play a left-hand G major scale. Play a right-hand D major scale. What sharp notes in order or in the key of E major? The notes are F, C, G, and D. What key signature is this piece written in? It's in a major. 35. Key Signature: F Major and the Circle of Fourths: Welcome back. One more key signature for you, F-major. This is a nice one to welcome you into a key whereby we using flattened node as opposed to a sharp node. F major has one flat note, B-flat. So an F-major scale is F, G, a, B-Flat, C, D, E, F. And we can play that using the same thing as in the left hand. Right hand. And hands together. As I remember, scales. And try that a few times until you feel confident. A flat sign looks like a lowercase b, but a little bit pointier. So if you were to be writing your key signature for a piece in F major, it would look like this. Now I'm going to welcome another trick to you. Remember the circle? Well, it has a younger, less Amos stippling. The circle of fourths. If I were to show you a one-way circle of fourths, which as it always will, starts on C. It will look a little like this. So can you work out how the circle of fourths words, it's remarkably similar to the circle of fifths. You start on C. Perfect fourth from C is an F. F has one flat. Perfect fourth from F is B flat. Remember we're in the F major scale now. B-flat major has two flats, and so on. Again, the flats are always written in order of appearance on the circle of fifths, which for four letters is as nice as it spells out the word bead. After this, however, we have to get creative. You can do it however you want. But one such recognized acronym is battle ends and down Goes Charles father. Apparently. Anyway, there's not much more I can say on this, but what I will do is show you a much, much, much more commonly used Circle which splices the two together. One way raises the circle of fifths, and the other way reads as the circle of fourths. The bottom, we have a bit of a switch or router. And this is fine because it's the circles way of telling us to get a grip and not to get too complicated. E.g. moving anticlockwise as the circle goes, as the circle of fourths, G-flat major, which strictly go to C-flat major. Now this is harmonically the same as B major, which is just a far more straightforward key. So what it's saying is just use B major instead. Get it. Anyway, study the circle of fourths and the whole thing and you'll be well on your way to understanding key signature and how it works. And don't forget to keep practicing those scales. 36. Quiz: How many flattened notes are there in the key of a flat major? There are four. B-flat, E-flat, A-flat, D-flat. What notes in order are the flood notes in the key of D-flat major. They are B, E, a, D, G. Play an F major scale, hands together. What key signature is this piece written in? It's in B flat major. 37. Relative Minors: E Minor, B Minor and D Minor: Now for this video to read it off the sections on key signatures, we're just going to explore G, D, and F Major. I touch more. Firstly, can you work out the chords of the relative minors at G, D, and F Major? Well, respectively for g we have E minor. For D, we have B minor. For F, We have D minor. One of those codes, at least as certainly brand new to you. Now, let's identify the fourth and fifth of G, D, and F major. G. You'd have c and d. In d, you'd have G and a. And an F, you'd have B flat and C. So now you're learning more and more about chords and how they work. And every single one of these can be arpeggiated. Try it. When you try one, keep in mind why, you know the cord, which key it is in, which other chords work with it. It will really help you develop your ear for music. You're even at a stage now where you know exactly how to invert these on your own. So keep going. You Nellie back nearly at the end of the course, make sure you really understand the core words and have a really competent streak plating them. At the end of this video, I'll play through all the scales and arpeggios and you can copy from them. I can't wait for you to reach your grand finale. 38. Grand Finale: "Greensleeves": Grand finale. Welcome back to the grand finale. We have covered a lot together, haven't been scales, arpeggios, key signatures, reading music cosmetic cause arpeggiation, I bet in walking baselines, finger independence and all the wild lending a couple of pieces to play. Well now it's time for a third piece which is going to throw out the robot could touch, but that's okay because you are ready now. And you'll know this piece. I'm sure you're well, none other than the wonderful traditional Greensleeves. Let's explore the score together. Clips are the same. Our hands are in normal position. We have something between that, however, the time signature, It's our key signature. So it's not in C major or a minor. What is it in? Using your knowledge of the circle of bits? So perhaps just memory from, from us having done this in a previous video. Can you deduce the key? Well, it's either in G major or E minor. Given that the first node of the left hand is an E plus the cord noted above is E minor. We can probably safely assume it is in the key of E minor. However, from a performance point of view, we just need to realize that all of the apps are now going to be F sharps unless otherwise notated. Now let's look across to the time signature. We now in 68 and in being so we need to create a little rise and fall. Okay, So technically 68.34 are the same thing. 34, if you might remember, is a waltz beat 123123. That would imply we're counting the 12 threes is very precise hit. So 12312. But because we're now in 68, we really want to make something of those quavers, the notes 1-2 and three. But we don't want to count it like that. 68.12, eight or so, but we're we're in 68. So we'll stick with that were designed for the rise and fall. So how do we actually want to count it is like this, 1.2 and 1.2 and 1.2 and then 68. Now this is fairly easily achieved by our left hand, which is quavers throughout. So 1.2 and 1.2. And don't forget how to count the rhythm in the right hand, e.g. the rhythm for the right-hand in B2 would be, if you need a reminder on how dotted notes and rhythms work, just, just hark back to an earlier video and younger me, we'll be glad to show you again. I left hand isn't quite arpeggiation so much as a broken chord is, we basically split the triad into its three nodes and no top note to complete it. With arpeggiation, you would at least tease with another octave. But that's okay. Now, I haven't given you anything in numbers this time as I think you'll be okay by now. Whether you start on finger phi of all think for, for the E is absolutely fine. But I personally would opt for, for as then you will have at least one smooth transition down to the d as finger five can then take, can take it as it's already there. This then works down to C and then to be as the basket one. So two things. Firstly, note that we have accidentals and a B, B major is not a chord that you would normally associate with the G major or minor keys usually. But that's fine. That's where accidentals come into play. Now, if you remember, an accidental is just when we sharpen our flatten a node as a one-off, that is to say, not noted in the key signature. Once it's been played, it will remain as that accidental for the rest of that bar only. And then resume to normal for the remainder of the piece unless marked as an accidental. Again, if it does result back to its natural note in the same bar, it does so by using a natural sign, but we don't have any need for that in this particular school. Secondly, think about fingers again, and now I'm currently using 532 to achieve this B major chord, which is absolutely fine, but ideally, I need to create a smooth transition to resolve back to E minor in the next bar. In order to do this, I'm going to play the first year of bar six with finger three instead of four so that my hand doesn't need to move too much. Understand. This double bar line here simply means a new section. And because this is a song that effectively is made up of a verse and chorus, this is a perfect time to use it. My left hand is kept very similar, except I am now in G. What I've done here is actually modulator to the major key. So even though my key signature style suggests I haven't changed key as I haven't strictly. It has strictly moved from E minor to G major. This quaver rest just before the modulation is very handy for me to move my hand into a new position. And from then on I will modulate downwards in a similar way. And the first GI will play in bar 14, I shall play with finger one. Just because when I finished the broken or be called in the bar before, I'll otherwise have run out of fingers and it'll be easier to cross my handover during this bar than the cross someday during the previous bar. So all in all, I have this. And now you can do it starts slowly if you need to build up, then at the right hand, I have every faith and then from here on out, you'll be good to do the right hand on your own. But no, you have not the D sharp accidental, but a couple of slides sharps to play through it slowly at first if you need to, lightness. And then put both hands together. And you'll be well on quiz. And you are well on your way. And congratulations on making it to the end of this course. And you understand so much now about music and whichever direction you want to go with, you'll find you have a much more improved style or understanding of notated music and music. And having all three of these girls as valuable as the returned to a monk comes into play with the other. That has been a joy taking you through this course anytime I will be releasing a follow-up to be a little bit more advanced. However, fit now, go fall. Thank you so much for choosing my course and I hope to see you again soon.