OK, so this is part four in my series of tutorials
for absolute beginners on the piano. As I’ve said previously, the series is running throughout
2017 and its designed for those of you guys are who are completely new to the piano. If
you’ve just found this tutorial randomly you might like to look at the playlist I’ve
put together, which contains all of the current tutorials and which I’m adding to as I make
them. Don’t forget, too, to subscribe to my channel using the little red ‘subscribe’
button you can see down in the bottom right hand corner of the screen here. We’re going to be doing some exciting stuff
in today’s episode, including using the left hand for the first time, thinking a bit
more about managing our fingers, and learning a scale. First of all, though, let’s recap
the material we’ve covered so far. So in the first couple of lessons in the series
we learned what all the white notes are on the piano keyboard. A B C D E F G, with that
pattern repeating all the way up and down the keyboard. If you’re still at the stage
where you’re having to think about which note is which, you really really need to push
past that now and make sure you’re at the point where it just comes naturally to say,
yeah, that’s a G or that’s a D or whatever, where it is 100 percent automatic to know
the names of the white notes. We also learned about numbering our fingers – 1 2 3 4 5
right hand, 1 2 3 4 5 left hand. Then we moved on to looking at how we represent
notes on the piano keyboard using the staff or stave, call it what you like. We figured
out how to find middle C and saw how the different spaces and lines of the treble stave represent
different notes – E G B D F, Every Green Bus Drives Fast for the lines, and F A C E,
face, for the spaces. We saw that can go above or below the treble stave using ledger lines. And in the previous tutorial we go around
to thinking about beat, as represented by time signature – the numbers the follow
the clef right at the start of a piece of music - and how we represent rhythm by using
notes of different lengths, like the crotchet, or quarter note, and the minim or half note.
We also started to get our heads around the idea that the musical traditions of different
countries have different names for these things, which can be a little bit awkward until you
get used to them. But so far we’ve only been looking at the
right hand and mostly focusing on the part of the keyboard up from middle C. We know
we can represent notes below middle C using ledger lines, but we can’t go far down before
we start – you know, we’re having to start using loads and loads of ledger lines, which
would be very unwieldy and hard to read. But it’s down here that we get some of the kind
of loveliest sounds that the piano can produce, you know these fruity, deep bass sounds, yeah,
and that’s also where our left hand spends most of its time. So how do we represent music
that’s happening down here? It’s easy. We use a different type of stave and a different
type of clef – the bass clef. OK, so here, drawn out on my super-professional
whiteboard is a bass stave. As you can see, at the start, it doesn’t have a treble clef,
like the treble stave does. Rather, it has a bass clef, which looks like this. Just like
the treble stave, though, it has five lines and four spaces, but they refer to different
notes in a different place on the piano keyboard. Let’s orientate ourselves around middle
C. Now on the treble stave middle C hung off the bottom of the stave on the first ledger
line down here, OK? But on the bass stave, it’s on the first ledger line above the
stave. So that note there, in the bass, is middle C. Now working downwards it works exactly
like the treble stave in terms of lines and spaces, so this space here is B and then this
top line is A. And that’s the A below middle C just here. Then we’ve got G in the space
– it’s a bit muddy and unclear, but that’s G – then we’ve got F on the line, OK,
then E in the space, then D on the line, and as you can see working down the white notes
of the piano keyboard, so that D on the line is that D there. There’s middle C for us.
Then in the next space down is C, OK, so we’ve come down an octave from middle C. Then this
line is B, and then this space is A and this line is G, and as with the treble stave we
can go down and down and down - to F then a ledger line to E then D then another ledger
line to C and so on and so forth. Something you might notice now, if you look at the bottom
line, there, we’ve got that G, which is, you know, in the second octave below middle
C, and if we went to the top line of the treble stave we would get to that F, and that’s
without using ledger lines. So without using ledger lines, just using the two staves, we
now kind of cover the heart of the piano keyboard, you know, the notes that we play most often,
we’ve now got covered off, OK? As with the treble staff, there are a couple
of kind of slightly old school mnemonics that you can use for learning those lines and spaces.
The lines from the bottom to top are Good Boys Deserve Fine Apples – G B D F A – and
remember that that A is the A immediately below middle C and that G is this one down
here, OK? And the spaces A C E and my little really horrible, grufty squashed-up G there,
let me try and make that clearer – A C E G – All Cows Eat Grass. Pretty rock’n’roll
these things (!) but quite easy to remember. All Cows Eat Grass – for the spaces A C
E G – and Good Boys Deserve Fine Apples G B D F A for the lines. OK, so your first job is to learn those lines
and spaces just like you did for the treble stave. With that in mind, as I say, if you
at this week’s PDF using the link below the video you’ll find that the first part
of it contains an exercise to learn the notes of the bass stave. As in the exercise we used to learn the notes
of treble stave, it’s just a bunch of random notes each one with a finger indication. Now
using your left hand, and being sure to use the right finger each time, play each note,
naming it as you go. Remember that the fingers on the left hand, as on the right hand, go
outwards from the thumb – 1 2 3 4 5. OK, so it’s kind of a mirror image of the right
hand. Blast away at that exercise until you’re
– you know, and spend your own time finding and naming notes on the bass clef – until
you’re really super confident that you have those bass stave notes down. As I’ve said
before, although it’s a little bit of a grind it’s massively important that you
get this basic knowledge learned to a really instinctive level – it makes things much,
much easier later on, because when we start to deal with more complicated concepts you
don’t want to be kind of, you know, gawping at the bass stave trying to work out which
note is which. Just before we get on to the next stage of
this tutorial, just a quick reminder to subscribe to my channel if you haven’t already. If
you’re subscribed you’ll get regular updates about new material, including new lessons
in this series, and all the other types of piano tutorial I produce. Just hit that red
‘subscribe’ button you can see in the bottom right hand corner of this screen – it
won’t take you away from the video, you won’t lose your place and it will just take
a couple of seconds. You could also check out my Facebook page – Bill Hilton’s Piano
Books and Tutorials – and my Twitter feed – twitter.com/billhilton. I’ve put links
for those underneath the video. OK, having learned a little bit about what
goes on in the left hand, I want to pop back to the right hand so we can learn something
really useful, which is our first scale, the scale of C major. Now, you’ll often hear
pianists and other musicians moaning about scales and having to practise them, but they’re
really essential – nothing quite sorts the good piano players from the bad ones like
willingness to practise scales. Working on your scales on the piano helps you physically
– because it keeps your fingers loose and limber, it warms you up, it protects you from
injury, it develops fine muscle control and you know it helps you with your touch and
your expression, but it also helps you mentally, in understanding music theory. All tonal music
is built out of scales. Melody is built out of scales, yeah, chords are built out of scales,
OK – these things really are at the heart of music. So let’s have a look again at C major in
the right hand. Here it is, just a single octave. Watch what I do. Let’s do that again,
really slowly. If I wanted I could play more than one octave, using the same pattern, but
for now we’ll just stick to the single octave. Let’s name the notes as we play – C D
E F G A B C and down – B A G F E D C. Notice that I didn’t repeat the note at the top
of the scale. So I didn’t do this, yeah? Instead I went up and straight off the C and
back down again. Next, and this is really important, let’s name the fingers. 1 2 3
1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1 3 2 1. Did you see what I did there each time I reached the crossover
point between the E and the F? Going up the scale I put my thumb under my third finger
– like that - and coming down I put my third finger over my thumb. Going up, thumb under.
Coming down, third over. Why do I bother doing that? You know, why
didn’t I just carry one until I ran out of fingers, then jump? It’s because I was
trying to play smoothly, and also accurately. This is a really important concept on the
piano, so important that there’s actually a special name for it – legato, yeah? We
don’t always play legato, smoothly, and sometimes we go out of our way to avoid legato
playing, to do the exact – you know, we try to do the exact opposite. But a great
deal of piano music demands that smooth legato sound, which means organizing our fingers
well to play all the notes we have to play, without too much jumping, yeah? That also
helps us to be accurate, it means we don’t miss notes – you know, ooh ooh, jump up,
now I need to move my hand, OK – so we’re working on evenness and smoothness and accuracy,
and that means, very often, moving our fingers over and under one another. And this is yet
another thing, actually, that scales help us to practise. So first things first, practise this C major
right hand scale – you’ll find it written out with fingers marked in, all in the PDF,
which again, you can download using the link in the description field below this video.
The aim is to be as smooth and even as possible, giving each note equal weight. In particular,
and this is quite hard, try to avoid any kind of audible break or unevenness when you have
fingers going over or under each other. So, for example, going up the C major scale when
your thumb goes under your third, from the E to the F, it’s really easy to land a bit
hard on your thumb and, you know, create unevenness. Try as hard as you can to eliminate that,
yeah? It’s not easy and it’s not something that you’ll, you know, you’ll fully eliminate
ever, really. It’s really a very good pianist that can play a scale completely evenly, yeah,
all the time. But do the best you can. That all might seem a bit pointless at first, but
is, as I say – I can’t stress this enough – it is really, really important – nailing
this kind of thing, getting your scales good, is what makes the difference between a slick,
fluent, musical piano player and one who is kind of jumpy and jolty and unmusical. Now we can play the C major scale in the left
hand, too. Let’s start on the C below middle C, OK – up and down, just one octave. Let’s
name the notes again – C D E F G A B C B A G F E D C. And the fingers – 5 4 3 2 1
3 2 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5. Just compare that to the right hand scale, and you’ll see that
it’s fingered slightly differently. We’re doing third over thumb on the way up and thumb
under third on the way down, which is the other way round from the right hand, and the
switch happens between the G and the A rather than between the E and the F as it does in
the right hand. That’s basically happening because our left hand, as I say, is a mirror
image of our right – don’t worry too much about the precise reasons for now. Just get
to grips with this scale. Let’s have another look at it. OK, again, you’ll find it written
out, with the fingers marked in, in the PDF, yeah? So, as you’ve practised your right
hand scale practise your left hand scale as well. Now, if you’re feeling really brave, and
once you’ve got those to a pretty good standard, have a shot at doing this: OK, C major scale,
one octave up and down, both hands together. You can do it like that, which is what we
call ‘similar motion’, or like this, which is what we call ‘contrary motion’, OK,
starting with your two thumbs both on middle C. Before you try, make sure, as I say, that
you’ve really nailed the hands separately. Then start slowly and see how well you can
do. Again, I know you’re probably really stretching yourself here already, but, you
know, do everything you can to keep it smooth and even, yeah? Now, for a kind of super-duper double alpha
plus five-star kind of ninja boss level, you can even try to vary the dynamics – that
is, the louds and softs. Start soft and get loud as you go out and quieter again as you
get back, both hands. Or vice versa, start loud and get quieter, and louder again as
you go down. Remember, as I said, you’ll find both left
hand and right hand scales written out, with fingering, in the accompanying PDF. Do double
check that you’re getting those fingers right and practise practise practise PRACTISE
right hand and left hand separately before you even think about trying to put them together. So that’s about it for this lesson in my
piano for beginners series. I know we’ve been doing a bunch of really quite technical
stuff in this tutorial, but it’s important – work really hard at it, nail it down,
get it so it’s automatic, and then you make the next stage of the journey so much easier.
In the next lesson we’re going to be working on our first piece of piano music with two
hands together – whoa, hooray, at last! I’ll see you then.
