Hello, Login

X

to start. Not a member? Join Today!

Archives

Piano, a new piece to learn to play (part 3)

Studying the most difficult points

When people start learning the piano, they often try to do it from start to finish with the result that they contine to make the same mistakes. In this way, they never really learn to play that piece and lose a lot of time.

Why is this?

For a very simple reason. Learning to play a piece on the piano does not mean to play it hundreds of time from start to finish, wasting precious time.

To learn to play a piece, it is usually enough to identify the most difficult points and study them more in depth. Therefore today I will show you exactly how to study those difficult points.

With time, you will see that just like me you will be able to spot these points and study them in a more correct way.

In this way you will rapidly learn to play the pieces you want including the more difficult ones.

Learning material of this lesson

5 videos	30 mins
1. Learn to play the first row hands together 1	5m 11s
2. Learn to play the first row hands together 2	6m 09s
3. How to study the second row	9m 36s
4. We get to the last row	5m 47s
5. A general rule to link the various rows of a piece	3m 20s

... to continue this video lesson

The access to this lesson is reserved to Premium Membership subscribers.

If you are already registered you can simply log in.

Not a Premium Member yet?

Register today, or upgrade if you are already a free member, to access this and all the other lessons of the premium membership.

Free Access

With a Free account you gain immediate access to 15 lessons of piano, theory, harmony, music reading and composition (36 videos).

Free Registration

This content is for members only.

Why D sharp and E flat are two different notes with the same pitch

The equal tempered system

In starting to study music theory, many people try to apply it to the keyboard or a piano but find themselves faced with difficulties.
It is important to understand that the same black keys have different names, for example G sharp and A flat.

You may have even wondered the reason of this, especially in studying the theory of intervals. Perhaps you have also asked yourself if the C – D shrp interval is the same as C – E flat interval.

In the lesson today, we will try to give an explanation to this and find where this ambiguity comes from.
In this way we will explore the world of music systems that have been used throughout the history of music.

Most importantly, we will introduce a new and very important concept:

The Equal Tempered scale

Learning material of this lesson

4 videos	17 mins
1. The problem of black keys and how to determine the pitch of notes	4m 23s
2. The first two musical systems	4m 03s
3. How can G sharp and E flat have a different pitch?	5m 20s
4. The equal tempered system and the main consequence of its introduction	4m 03s

... to continue this video lesson

The access to this lesson is reserved to Premium Membership subscribers.

If you are already registered you can simply log in.

Not a Premium Member yet?

Register today, or upgrade if you are already a free member, to access this and all the other lessons of the premium membership.

Free Access

With a Free account you gain immediate access to 15 lessons of piano, theory, harmony, music reading and composition (36 videos).

Free Registration

This content is for members only.

Piano, a new piece to learn to play (part 2)

How to study hands separate

In the previous lesson, we analized in depth all the part relative to the sheet music of the new piece and mostly we learned to read the notes in a corret way.

Today we wil transfer all this knowledge to the piano!

Other than the fingering which as you know is fundamental to play a piece well, we will learn to play hands separate.

We will also try to understand how to move along the keyboard when playing a piece in which the black keys have to be used.

Since the piece we are studying starts to show new difficulties, it will be necessary to learn how to use the metronome correctly.

Learning material of this lesson

5 videos	30 mins
1. Identify the notes on our keyboard	7m 19s
2. Learn the correct fingering	4m 51s
3. How to set the hands correctly to play this piece	7m 20s
4. How to play hands separate and learning to use the metronome correctly	6m 55s
5. A trick to use the metronome when studying with a very slow tempo	3m 43s

... to continue this video lesson

The access to this lesson is reserved to Premium Membership subscribers.

If you are already registered you can simply log in.

Not a Premium Member yet?

Register today, or upgrade if you are already a free member, to access this and all the other lessons of the premium membership.

Free Access

With a Free account you gain immediate access to 15 lessons of piano, theory, harmony, music reading and composition (36 videos).

Free Registration

This content is for members only.

The 52 essential music reading exercises (part 1)

Music reading exercises

Today we begin to practice some very important exercises.

In several lessons, we will learn to do exercises which progressively become more difficult and which in short time will give you the basis to learn music correctly.
Firstly, we will learn how to use the audio files which are found in each lesson.

Furthermore, if you follow fhe lesson which I show you, it will be like doing real reading music lessons with a teacher beside you.

Today we will do some very important exercises based on conjunct motions.

Enjoy your lesson!

Learning material of this lesson

3 videos	16 mins
1. Essential exercises of music reading	4m 38s
2. How to get the most of audio files	4m 55s
3. How to do exercises correctly	6m 28s
+ 1 pdf file
+ 5 audio files

... to continue this video lesson

The access to this lesson is reserved to Premium Membership subscribers.

If you are already registered you can simply log in.

Not a Premium Member yet?

Register today, or upgrade if you are already a free member, to access this and all the other lessons of the premium membership.

Free Access

With a Free account you gain immediate access to 15 lessons of piano, theory, harmony, music reading and composition (36 videos).

Free Registration

This content is for members only.

Piano, a new piece to learn to play (part 1)

Let’s learn to play the second piano piece

Today we will start a new cycle of lessons in which you will learn to play the second piece at the piano.
Thanks to the study of this, we will put into practice many things that we have already learned

So let’s see which are the main new things. We will:

learn to play new figures such as the quavers
also use the black keys
get used to changes of rhythms of the melody
learn to develop a greater hands independence
introduce new graphic signs (the fermata..)
learn to use the metronome in the study of piano pieces

These are only some of the things that you will learn studying this new piece, other than the great satisfaction of playing a new piano piece

So I will stop talking and have a good lesson!

Learning material of this lesson

4 videos	31 mins
1. Presentation of the piece	5m 39s
2. We analize the sheet music, learn to interpret the accidentals in key signature and other new things	4m 40s
3. Reading the notes with their correct duration	9m 42s
4. Now we are able to read the single parts	11m 20s
+ 1 pdf file

... to continue this video lesson

The access to this lesson is reserved to Premium Membership subscribers.

If you are already registered you can simply log in.

Not a Premium Member yet?

Register today, or upgrade if you are already a free member, to access this and all the other lessons of the premium membership.

Free Access

With a Free account you gain immediate access to 15 lessons of piano, theory, harmony, music reading and composition (36 videos).

Free Registration

This content is for members only.

Music reading: do you want to practice in a very effective way?

Music reading practice

Today we will introduce a new level of music reading practice.
It is a very important new type of exercise, which if done correctly will enable you to read any music sheet at first sight and play it immediately on your instrument.

In reality, despite music reading often being said to be boring and useless, it can be as interesting and exciting as playing the piano or guitar.

The important thing is to understand the basics from the start, combining them with the concepts we have learned up to now. In this lesson you will also learn a very important way to keep time in order to distinguish beats.

This will be very useful if you study music reading more in depth and most importantly of all if you want to write music on paper.

Moreover, before taking a look at all of these topics, we will finish what we started in the last lesson, that is learning to identify beats when the time signature is 3/4 or 2/4.

Learning material of this lesson

4 videos	22 mins
1. How to identify beats in 3/4	5m 06s
2. How to identify beats in 2/4	3m 26s
3. How to keep time in order to distinguish beats	8m 48s
4. A new way to keep time and an exercise to learn how to do it	4m 35s
+ 1 pdf file

... to continue this video lesson

The access to this lesson is reserved to Premium Membership subscribers.

If you are already registered you can simply log in.

Not a Premium Member yet?

Register today, or upgrade if you are already a free member, to access this and all the other lessons of the premium membership.

Free Access

With a Free account you gain immediate access to 15 lessons of piano, theory, harmony, music reading and composition (36 videos).

Free Registration

This content is for members only.

What consonances and dissonances are and how to recognize them at any time.

2 Replies

What are consonances and dissonances?

Music is made of continuous alternating between moments of tension and rest.
We have already mentioned how in the scale some notes have a dynamic role (dominant and leadin tone), while others have a function of rest (tonic). When overlapping sounds, we can create either a sensation of stability or of tension and thus create a harmonic interval.
Depending on the possible combinations, we are able to obtain very different sensations of hearing.

Today’s lesson includes various things:

We will see in depth consonances and dissonances
We will introduce an important concept, the resolution of a dissonance.
We will learn to classify different intervals and when an interval is consonance or a dissonance

At the end of the videos you will find a pdf table classifying the consonance and dissonance intervals.

Learning material of this lesson

4 videos	22 mins
1. What consonances and dissonances are	3m 46s
2. The way to classify intervals in consonances and dissonances	4m 56s
3. Practical examples of consonances and dissonances	6m 04s
4. What is ‘resolution’ and its important consequences in studying harmony	6m 50s
+ 1 pdf files

... to continue this video lesson

The access to this lesson is reserved to Premium Membership subscribers.

If you are already registered you can simply log in.

Not a Premium Member yet?

Register today, or upgrade if you are already a free member, to access this and all the other lessons of the premium membership.

Free Access

With a Free account you gain immediate access to 15 lessons of piano, theory, harmony, music reading and composition (36 videos).

Free Registration

This content is for members only.

Piano – here are the exercises to learn to play the black keys (part 2)

Learning to play the black keys

What are the risks of learning to play the piano from videos and without a master?

The only risk is the one of not doing the exercises learned correctly as there is no-one to check and correct you.

However if you know in advance which are the most common mistakes made in starting to study these exercises, you can avoid this by making sure you don’t make the same mistakes yourself!

The first thing that I will show you today is exactly which are the most common mistakes to avoid in begining to study the exercises which we learned the last time and how to correct them.

But this is only one of the several things you will learn today, including:

How to do the exercises studied in the last lesson as best as you can thanks to the use of different angles
How to do a new exercise with the black keys
How to organize as well as possible the study of all exercises when you have little time available.

Learning material of this lesson

4 videos	24 mins
1. The most common mistakes: exercise on white keys	7m 33s
2. The most common mistakes: exercise on black keys	4m 51s
3. A very important variant of the black key exercise	6m 16s
4. How to do all exercises on pianoforte having little time available	5m 51s

... to continue this video lesson

The access to this lesson is reserved to Premium Membership subscribers.

If you are already registered you can simply log in.

Not a Premium Member yet?

Register today, or upgrade if you are already a free member, to access this and all the other lessons of the premium membership.

Free Access

With a Free account you gain immediate access to 15 lessons of piano, theory, harmony, music reading and composition (36 videos).

Free Registration

This content is for members only.

Here is how to read pitch and duration of notes at the same time

How to read pitch and duration of notes at the same time

In the last lesson we saw staf and clef which represent graphically the pitch of a sound and are very important.
If we put together both pitch and duration of notes, we are able to read written music perfectly.

Today we will see how to read pitch and duration of notes at the same time, firstly through theory and then with some practical examples.

After this lesson today, you will be able to make the big step which will bring you into the world of music reading.

Learning material of this lesson

5 videos	24 mins
1. How to read pitch and duration of notes together	1m 48s
2. How to find the beats on staff	4m 22s
3. Time signature: how to use it	2m 52s
4. Practical exercises for identifying beats 1	7m 06s
5. Practical exercises for identifying beats 2	8m 09s
+ 1 pdf files

... to continue this video lesson

The access to this lesson is reserved to Premium Membership subscribers.

If you are already registered you can simply log in.

Not a Premium Member yet?

Register today, or upgrade if you are already a free member, to access this and all the other lessons of the premium membership.

Free Access

With a Free account you gain immediate access to 15 lessons of piano, theory, harmony, music reading and composition (36 videos).

Free Registration

This content is for members only.

Piano – here are the exercises to learn to play the black keys (part 1)

How to play the black keys

Up to now, in our piano lessons we have used only white keys which correspond to natural notes (corresponding to C major scale).

Obviously we often have to play a written sheet music with some sharps or flats key signature. Even if these accidentals are not written in key, they may sometimes appear during the piece.

This happens very frequently.

It is necessary to begin to play the black keys immediately in order to make sure that in the future we don’t find ourselves not being able to play something in which the use of these is required.

As you will surely have noticed, the black keys are very different from the white ones. It is therefore necessary to understand how to use them and most importantly of all to have an exercise which applies the technique of using black keys

This is what we will learn in this lesson although it will not be the only topic.

I will in fact teach you another important exercise to be applied to the white keys and which will enable you to start playing more notes with the same hand and at the same time.
Moreover this excercise will allow you to avoid the main mistake which people make when starting to play the piano.

Learning material of this lesson

4 videos	17 mins
1. Two new exercises	3m 47s
2. The white key exercise to practice playing more notes with the same hand at the same time	4m 49s
3. The exercise to learn the correct technique of playing black keys	5m 00s
4. Some considerations on new exercises	3m 32s

... to continue this video lesson

The access to this lesson is reserved to Premium Membership subscribers.

If you are already registered you can simply log in.

Not a Premium Member yet?

Register today, or upgrade if you are already a free member, to access this and all the other lessons of the premium membership.

Free Access

With a Free account you gain immediate access to 15 lessons of piano, theory, harmony, music reading and composition (36 videos).

Free Registration

This content is for members only.