Piano Video 1
Piano Video 2
Fun Music Piano
Instant Piano Chord Finder
I always like to stress to
all of my students that playing music is not nearly as difficult as it seems.
It does not take a genius to be a good musician. You can learn to do
amazing things with your hands. It just takes the desire/motivation to do
so….and don’t forget practice! “Practice makes perfect.” Think about it, to
excel at any profession/activity/hobby/sport/etc. it takes a lot of practice.
For example, NFL Football stars practice like CRAZY every day of the week for hours
to maintain their ability…
Good News!
This course does not
require an insane amount of practice. By the end of this lesson you will have a
good idea of how to:
1. Play notes on the Piano/Keyboard
2. Play a simple song or
two
3. Play your ‘major’ scale
in the Key of C
4. Determine which notes
are which on a Piano/Keyboard!
Let’s Get Started!
This is a Piano/Keyboard
with the NOTES written on each key.
Let me break it down for
you. There are ONLY 12 notes in existence
and they repeat themselves
over and over again in what we call ‘Octaves.’
Pronounced (Octives). An
Octave obviously refers to the number 8 (Oct.)
Musical Notes are
identified by letters of the alphabet. The letters in music are A, B, C, D, E,
F, G. There is NO ‘H’. After ‘G’ it simply starts over at ‘A’ again (see
above). How can you have more than one ‘A’? The TONE of the note sounds the
same, but the ‘pitch’ is higher or lower. There are many ‘A’s’ on the piano and
many of the other letters as well. The lowest ‘A’ will sound extremely low like
a Bass and will not be very distinguishable. The highest ‘A’ will sound very
high pitched like a flute or piccolo. The best example of an Octave I can think
of is in the song ‘Happy Birthday.’ The
part in the middle where
you sing “Happy BIRTH-day to so and so…” The word ‘Happy’ let’s say is a ‘C’
note, the next word ‘BIRTH’ would also be a ‘C’ note but one octave above the
‘C’ that you sang for the word ‘Happy’. It’s a big stretch, a whole 8 notes! So
it’s 8 notes from ‘A’ to ‘A’ and ‘C’ to ‘C’ and so on. Thus, it’s called an
‘Octave’.
OK, back to my original point. Did you realize what I
said? There are ONLY 12 notes in existence! This makes music a lot easier than
you though eh? EVERY SONG YOU’VE EVER HEARD WAS MADE UP OF A COMBINATION OF
THESE 12 NOTES. No matter how complicated of a Mozart song it is, there are
only 12 notes to choose from:
A, A#, B, C, C#, D, D#, E,
F, F#, G, G# and then back to ‘A’.
The Black Keys are in sets
of 2 and 3. I call them ‘twins’ and ‘triplets’.
At the beginning (the left)
of the ‘Twins’ is the note ‘C’. At the beginning of the ‘triplets’ is the note
‘F’. The twins and triplets repeat themselves over and over again and the note
at the beginning of them will always be the same. In front of every pair of
twins will be ‘C’ ALWAYS. This will help
you memorize which notes
are which, without writing the notes on each key!
What do the ‘#’ signs
mean?! The # sign stands for “Sharp”.
So if you see ‘A#’ that
means “ ‘A’ Sharp.” C# = C sharp and so
on.
The Sharps (#’s) are the
black keys. The very next key to the RIGHT of any given key is the ‘Sharp’
of that note.
On the piano, the distance
between any note to the very next note (whether the next note is a black key OR
white) is called a ‘half-step’. So from ‘A’ to ‘A#’ is a half step. From ‘A#’
to ‘B’ is also a half step. NOW NOTICE ‘B’ and ‘C’. There are no sharps
in between them but they are still considered a ‘Half-Step’. This is very
important to understand because a lot of people think that if you go a
‘half-step’ from one letter the next note will be that letter ‘Sharp’. This is
true for MOST notes except for ‘B to C’ and ‘E to F’. If you look at the piano
above you’ll see that E goes right to F and they are both white keys and the
same for B to C. These are STILL HALF-STEPS. There is no ‘B#’ because ‘B#’
would just be called ‘C’. An ‘E#’ would just be called ‘F’. These are the TWO
exceptions.
If you skip a half-step and
go directly from let’s say, ‘A’ to ‘B’, it is called a
Whole Step. Remember those exceptions now! The difference from
‘B’ to ‘C’ is NOT a whole step. Remember, from ‘B’ to ‘C’ is a HALF-STEP
because they are right next to eachother. So from ‘B’ to ‘C#’ would be a
WHOLE-STEP. Same goes for ‘E’ to ‘F’ (half step). From ‘E’ to ‘F#’ would
be the WHOLE STEP.
The reason why people make
this mistake is because from every other white key to the next white key is a
WHOLE STEP. (Because there is a black key in between which is the half step).
LET’S LEARN THE ‘C’
MAJOR SCALE!
This is a very important
fundamental of music. This ‘Scale’ makes up the sounds
‘Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do.’ It’s called the ‘Major Scale’ and it is one of the
MAIN modes of music. There are ‘major’ and ‘minor’. The ‘major’ scale sounds
more happy while the ‘minor’ scales sound sad.
Every song you’ve ever
heard was either in a ‘major’ or ‘minor’ key.
OK so your RIGHT hand is
numbered as follows…Your thumb is finger number 1, index finger is number 2 ,
middle finger is number 3, ring finger number 4, and pinky finger number 5.
Your LEFT hand is the same.
Thumb is finger number one, and so on.
They go opposite ways but
the thumb is still number 1 and so on.
We are going to learn the
scale with our RIGHT hand first. The right hand is the lead hand in the piano
and plays the important lead melodies of a song.
The left hand is an
accompainiment and plays chords and bass lines.
So the ‘C Major Scale’ is
as Follows:
C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C
Moving from LEFT to RIGHT.
Finger number One will play the first ‘C’.
Then finger number 2 plays
‘D’ followed by Finger #3 which plays ‘E’.
NOW PAY ATTENTION: On the FOURTH Note which is ‘F’, you will cross your
thumb underneath your middle finger (finger #3) and play the ‘F’ with your
THUMB! This allows you to finish the rest of the scale with the rest of your
hand. Fingers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. So, in case this was confusing, the fingering for
C. D. E, F, G, A, B, C would be fingers: 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
After the third note; ‘E’
you CROSS your thumb UNDERNEATH your middle finger (which is still on ‘E’) and
play the next note to the right of ‘E’ which is ‘F’ with your Thumb.
Now, when you come back
down the scale…(to the left) you play every note that you played on the way up
the scale AND with the SAME fingers.
So, the scale would be C,
D, E, F, G, A, B, C, B, A, G, F, E, D, C.
Fingers are: 1, 2, 3, 1,
2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 3, 2, 1.
The Bold letters and
numbers are going ‘up’ the scale which is left to right. Then on the way back
‘down’ the scale, (not bold) it is right tgo left.
‘Up’ refers to UP IN PITCH.
and ‘Down’ refers to DOWN IN PITCH.
When you play notes from
left to right you will always be going UP in pitch from a LOW sound all the way
on the left, it gets higher and higher as you move to the right and all the way
on the right is the HIGHEST pitched note. So thus, when you play to the right
you are going ‘up’.
The video that I included
in this report will show you what the ‘C Major Scale’ looks and sounds like! I
play it slow at first, then medium, then fast.
That’s just the ‘C’ Major
scale. There is a Major scale for EVERY key.
There is an ‘A Major Scale’
a ‘B Major Scale, even for the #’s. ‘A# Major Scale, starts on a black key
‘A#’).
They ALL sound like
‘Do-Re-Mi…’ but they just start on a different pitch.
But don’t worry, I HAVE
A SECRET WEAPON!
Everyone loves the ‘C Major Scale’
because it is ALL white keys.
Every other scale has a
black key in it, whether it’s one, two, three or more!
Instead of memorizing EACH
of the 12 Major Scales which would take a lot of time, you can use my secret
formula that will allow you to play any major scale based on a pattern.
Anything you can do in one spot on the piano, you can do
Remember I talked about
Whole Steps and Half Steps?
Well, if you look at the
‘C’ major scale you can see that the pattern is as such:
After the starting ‘C’, the next note is ‘D’. The distance between these notes
is a Whole Step.(because you skip over C# and go to D) Lets call a Whole Step
‘W’ and a Half Step ‘H’. The pattern of the C Major scale is
W, W, H, W, W, W, H. Pretty
easy to remember if you see the pattern: two whole steps and then a half step
followed by threee whole steps and a half step. This holds true EVERY MAJOR
SCALE!!! Whoa. That makes it A LOT EASIER.
Let’s test this out…The
next Major Scale, the ‘D Major Scale’ would be
D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#,
D.
This obeys the rule!
After the first note ‘D’ it follows the pattern:
W, W, H, W, W, W, H.
D, E, F#, G, A, B,
C#, D
1st W, W, H,
W, W, W, H.
The first note can not
be a whole step or a half step because you need to be referring to the
distcance between TWO notes to have a whole step or a half step.
Check out the video to see
how the ‘C Major Scale’ looks and sounds!
This scale is so important
because EVERY song that is in a ‘Major’ key will be made up of ONLY THE NOTES
OF THE MAJOR SCALE. So, if the song is in ‘C Major’ such as THOUSANDS of songs
are…the song would consist of ONLY THE NOTES OF THE C MAJOR SCALE!
Example:
The song ‘Mary Had a Little
Lamb’ is in the key of ‘C Major’. This means that every note in this song will
be a note in the ‘C Major Scale’.
Here are the notes for
‘Mary Had a Little Lamb.’
3, 2,
1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 2,
2, 2, 3, 5, 5
E, D, C, D, E, E, E, D,
D, D, E, G, G
3, 2,
1, 2, 3, 3, 3,
2, 2, 3, 2, 1
E, D, C, D, E, E, E, D,
D, E, D, C.
The numbers are the
fingers you should use.
The letters are the
notes on the piano. The numbers
are right above the
corresponding letter.
Congratulations!
You have learned the
basics of the piano/keyboard, the Major Scale and your first song! This is the
end of Lesson 1. In the next lesson, you will learn how to play the ‘Minor’
Scale, the ‘Blues Scale’ and How to Play Chords! Also, some more songs that are
a little more sophisticated.
Thanks for Reading…Don’t
forget to PRACTICE! ;)
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