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Piano, let’s learn to play a piece (part 2)

How can we read the pitch of the notes?

In today’s lesson we will see more depth our piano piece!
We will try to understand how to read notes on the sheet music before playing them on the piano.

As playing is often difficult, it is better, before sitting at the piano, to know exactly which notes to play. In this way we learn where to place the beats which are the basis of reading notes. Once we have placed the beats, it is very easy (thanks to what we learnt in the music reading lesson) to know how to read the notes with their correct duration.

Since to play our music piece we need to know the pitch of the notes, we will learn to read the same notes in treble clef, which are normally used to indicate the notes played by the right hand.

So after today’s lesson, you will have learnt something very important in order to play many music pieces at the piano.

Preview of this lesson:

Learning material of this lesson

5 videos	38 mins
Intro	3m 22s
1. The second step of our study method: simplify as much as possible the sheet music	3m 17s
2. How to place the beats	11m 51s
3. We determine the exact duration of the notes	10m 13
4. How to learn the exact pitch of the notes in treble clef.	10m 27s

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Reading notes: are you sure that you know quavers and semiquavers?

Quavers and semiquavers

Do you know the meaning of quaver? Do you know exactly what semiquavers are and how they are represented graphically?
They are two notes that need to be known perfectly in order to read music notes with their correct duration.

Today I will explain why quavers and semiquavers are introduced and how they are used. We will learn how to read these notes in a bar.
So after today’s lesson you will be able to recognize the principal symbols that express the duration of a sound, essential in learning to read a piano sheet music or of any other instrument.

In order to put into practice what we have learnt so far in these lessons, we will do many exercises by combining notes of different duration. Thanks to the new interactive didactic system, you will be able to practise on your own and later check your answers.

Just like a real lesson!

Preview of this video lesson

Learning material of this lesson

5 videos	35 mins
Introduction	2m 35s
1. What are quavers and how to read them	9m 54s
2. What are semiquavers and how to read them	8m 27s
3. Practice pt.1	8m 10s
4. Practice pt.2	7m 09s
+1 pdf file

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The first exercise to start developing your hands independence

Start developing your hands independence

Today we are going to introduce a very important exercise to start developing your hands independence.

As you see, it will be very easy, since our starting point is the first essential exercise we learned in the previous lessons.

So, in this way, thanks to some variations, we’ll obtain some new versions of the exercise, allowing you to start developing your hands independence.

Preview of this video lesson

Learning material of this lesson

2 videos	13 mins
1. Introduction	2m 29s
2. The exercise to start developing your hands independence	10m 52s

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Why are there three types of minor scales and how to find all the notes (Part 1)

The minor scales

Up to now we have only discussed major scales. Of course, scales aren’t limited to major scales, there are minor scales too. Minor scales are often a hard obstacle for those starting out in the study of music.

There is a very precise reason for this: while there is only one type of major scale, there are three types of minor scales.
And this often creates great confusion. It’s difficult to understand how this can happen.

In today’s lesson I will show you why there is the need for three minor scales instead of one. Through a logical path I will try to explain how these scales are created.
You’ll see, by the end of the lesson everything will be more clear and I hope, more interesting.

That’s because musical theory, if studied to understand the reasons that are behind the origin of all these rules, which are sometimes overlooked and made to study by heart, can be a very interesting and captivating subject.

Also, I believe that studying theory in depth may allow to have the tools to approach the subject of harmony and composition more easily, other than allow you to play a piece on the piano or the instrument you play with more ease and simplicity.

Now I don’t want to lose myself in all talk. I’ll leave you to the video lesson.

It all begins when we introduce the concept of a “relative minor”…

… but what is this relative minor?

Relative to what??

Have a nice vision!

Learning material of this lesson

3 videos	32 mins
1. The relative minor scale	10m 21s
2. The natural minor scale and the harmonic minor scale	9m 35s
3. The melodic minor scale	12m 15s

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Piano, let’s learn to play a piece (part 1)

How to play a piece at the piano

Today we start the journey that will finally take us to play the first piece at the piano!
As I have already told you in the presentation of this lesson cycle, this is only one of the many things you’ll be learning.

The first thing we will focus on today will be studying the sheet music of the piece we want to play quite deeply.
A sheet music indeed contains a lot of info that are essential to play the piece in the best of ways.
First off we must understand how to read the notes with their correct duration and pitch.
And then we must know the meaning of all the symbols that the sheet music holds.

How to read the sheet music

After the first video, then, in which I will explain the intricacies of how this lesson cycle will be carried out, we will step into the music and we will learn to read the sheet music so that we understand every symbol and sign that it holds.
We will also be seeing the first of the study method that I will be teaching in these video lessons that will also come useful when trying to play any other song in the future.
It doesn’t end here!

An ineractive learning method

In fact, starting today, we will use a new teaching and learning method to make these lessons even more interactive: thanks to this new method you’ll be able to play the keyboard or the piano during the video lesson, so that you can play live what I’ll be showing you from time to time.
Before saying goodbye, let me remind you that you can find the sheet music of the piece which we will study in a pdf format.

To better understand this and the following lessons I recommend you watch this lesson first:

The duration of sound: the bar and its’ beats, the first notes, rests

Learning material of this lesson

4 videos	37 mins
1. How to learn to play a piece at the piano. Introduction to the video lessons	9m 54s
2. The first step of our study method: analyzing the sheet music	9m 56s
3. How to read the dynamics	8m 49s
4. Slurs and fingering	7m 54s
+ 1 pdf files

Preview of this video lesson

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Reading notes, today I’ll be explaining the first essential concepts you must know

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Reading notes

One word you probably heard uttered hundreds of times is rhythm.
But what is rhythm exactly?
Rhythm is that aspect of music that deals with the duration of sound through time.

The duration of sound is the first property of sound that we want to depict graphically.
This is the first thing we have to learn to understand how to read and write music.
In today’s lesson, starting from a series of intuitive and common concepts, we will be able to understand how to represent the various sounds and their duration through time.

How can we graphically respresent the silence?

And it won’t end there: music is also made up of silence, the alternating presence of silence and sound.
But since silence has a duration too, we have to understand how it can be graphically depicted.

After today’s lesson you’ll have seen the basic knowledge necessary to begin reading (and writing) notes, among others;

What a bar is in music, and its’ beats
What notes are and how to distinguish them by their duration
What we mean when talking about crotchet, minime and semibreve
What rests are and how to graphically depict them on paper

But you’ll especially have taken the first step into learning to read music, which is the first step to being able to play it on piano or any other instrument from the music sheet.

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Learning material of this lesson

3 videos	27 mins
1. What does it mean to keep time and what is a bar?	8m 27s
2. The first graphical symbol to represent sound: a quarter note	8m 07s
3. Other notes of different durations and musical rests	10m 39s

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Musical alterations (second part): you’ll know them well from today on

Double alterations

Before presenting the second part of the lesson regarding alterations, I want to highlight just how important knowing them is: this will allow you to completely understand the topics of harmony, chords, and composition in general.
Today we will dive deep: after having introduced, in the previous lesson, the most simple accidentals, today we will understand, for example, where the need for double alterations come from.

We will examine how to alter the degrees of the scale in any situation, at the piano.
In this way we will need to introduce more graphical symbols, that will allow us complete contro lover the alterations.

Aftert this part you’ll be able to understand:

the difference between temporary alterations and permanent alterations
how to cancel the effect of alterations that are already present
how, why and when to use double alterations

After this lesson, basically, musical alterations will not be a mistery for you anymore!

For a better under standing of today’s lesson, I’d reccomend, if you haven’t yet, to watch the first part of the lesson: Alterations (part one), here is a simple way to really understand them.
If you already watched the first part of the lesson, to help you keep up with today’s topics I added a video, the first, in which I summarized the content of the first lesson.

You can access the complete lesson after logging in.

Learning material of this lesson

3 videos	21 mins
1. Where did we leave off last time?	5m 10s
2. Temporary accidentals and permanent accidentals	6m 45s
3. What are double accidentals?	9m 11s

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Piano, here is the essential exercise to start playing hands-together

The first exercise to start playing hands-together

Thanks to today’s lesson and the next piano lessons, you will finally be able to start playing by using both hands from the beginning.

In fact, in this lesson I will show you in a very clear way the exercise that forms the basic of all piano technique: this exercise will let you learn, through practice, the shift of weight between one finger and the other, using both hands at the same time.

Thanks to today’s video lessons and the exercise shown within you’ll be able to;

Put into practice what you’ve learned up to today, finally playing the piano or keyboard.
Get the hands used to the weight shifts between one finger and the other (a technique essential to the playing of a succession of notes)
Develop a perfect coordination between the two hands from the start, since the exercise is done “hands-together”. (This is expecially important if up to now you have been playing with the right hand more than with the left hand, and you feel the latter to be weaker, this exercise will help you equalize the two hands’ technique)
Learn how to keep a steady tempo from the start, without picking up the pace or slowing down (tank to the way the exercise is carried out)

My advice is to do this exercise as often as possible, even for a few minutes every day.

Consistency and regular practice are fundamentals to developing any kind of musical technique: you’ll see that if you follow my advice, in a short time your hands will be set in the right position and ready to play the first songs at the piano.

And this will be an enormous satisfaction!

Learning material of this lesson

3 videos	31 mins
1. Two preparatory exercises	10m 24s
2. …the real exercise, finally!	12m 43s
3. Let’s make the exercise wholesome by adding all combinations	8m 00s

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Here is the key to learn to read musical notes

How to read musical notes

Today we start our path into the world of reading musical notes.
If you will follow the path where I will lead you, musical writing will not appear as obscure as it probably was for you up to now.

To try to progressively under stand these concepts, we will try to put ourselves into the shoes of those who listen to music and want to find a musical aplhabet to represent it graphically.

With the videos that follow you will learn some fundamental concepts that will allow you to learn to read musical notes.

Learning material of this lesson

2 videos	11 mins
1. How to graphically represent music	4m 13s
2. The properties of sound	7m 04s

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

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Alterations (part one), here is a simple way to really understand them

Musical alterations

Alterations, chromatisms, accidentals, sharps… how often have your heard these terms without really understanding them?
Yet the concept of musical alteration is extremely important to start understanding music and to be able to play the piano or any other instrument.

As with every other musical theory concept, alterations are born from essentially practical needs.
This is the path I will use to try to explain these concepts in depth, by explaining where and how these thoeries are born.

Since this lesson is pretty long and demanding, it has been split into two parts.
In today’s lesson we will try to understand the two main reasons why introducing musical alterations is an absolute necessity.

This way you will finally be able to completely understand the function of those graphical symbols that are calleds sharps and flats, and generally speaking of all the other “musical accidentals”.

Enjoy!

Learning material of this lesson

3 videos	12 mins
1. The accidentals (sharp and flat)	3m 17s
2. Diatonic half-tones and chromatic half-tones	2m 51s
3. The A major scale case	5m 44s

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

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