Learn To Play Piano Instantly: #1 Beginning Training (Pro Shortcuts)

hi this is Tim from instant piano genius comm and I've been a professional keyboard player for 20 years I've been on stage about 7,000 hours total playing piano and I've been in rehearsal and recording studios with top-notch musicians who've also played with Journey Rick Springfield Billy Idol Melissa Etheridge Alice Cooper Richard Marx Michael Jackson Boz Scaggs Barry White Nancy Wilson Aretha Franklin Michael McDonald Kenny Loggins Elvis Costello Macy Gray and dozens of others I'm a working musician not a piano teacher I know exactly what you need to know to become a professional keyboard player or just how to sound like a pro as quickly as possible professional musicians don't talk about chords very much they use a number system that your piano teacher probably won't even show you in the next few minutes I'm going to quickly teach you more about how to actually play the piano then you've probably learned taking lessons for months here's why I say if you can count to eight you can become an instant piano genius in fact if you're not using this numbering system you're wasting your time and effort I'm going to move quickly so watch this multiple times if you need to let's get started first hand fingering when I talk about fingers I'm going to count thumbs as being one then the next finger out being two three four and little fingers being five so just keep that in mind when I'm talking about fingering one two three four five one two three four and five next on the piano there's white notes and black notes but they're all the same just think of them as being equal and a half step is going from any one note to another note that's right next to it so here to here is a half step from here to here is also a half step from here to here is also a half step so it doesn't matter if it's white or black just adjacent notes are a half step now a whole step means that there's a note in the middle so from here to here is a whole step because this note is in the middle from here to here is a whole step of course because there's a note in the middle here to hear just a half step and from here to here is also a whole step because this note is in the middle so just ignore the fact about some being white and some being black a whole step means there's a note in the middle a half step means there is no note between the two notes now recognizing the notes on the piano you probably already know that it goes from A to G but just in case you don't in order to find where the a is you look for any cluster of three black notes and draw a line from the center black note out and the a is right to the right of that line so this is a now it just counts up sequentially in white notes a-b-c-d-e-f-g and once you get to G then it comes around back to a and you can tell this is an a because there are the three black notes again let me draw the line out that's the a so as you can see right there this is an a this is an a this is a B this is a C and this is called this is C it's also called the the Center C and C is found by either counting up from the a or taking the two black notes and then going to the left of the left one and that's a C and the reason that people use middle C is that a major scale in C uses all white notes so it's a good place to start so more importantly than the notes I just showed you and now let's get into the numbering system now instead of going ABCD efg if we're playing an A I'm going to think of it as one two three four five six seven and once we've gone from A to G and this is seven we come back to a so this would be eight so this a is a 1 and this is an 8 and that's why I say if you can count to 8 you can be an instant piano genius now you can also think of this 8 as a 1 if you're going to continue on up 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ok so now let's take middle C this is the C and if we were going to play AC major scale it's in all white notes so now because we're talking about C we're going to make this C 1 so this is 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 and now I'm going to show you how you can play any major scale easily ok a major scale is all whole notes meaning you're going from here to here that's a whole step because there's a note in between here to here is a whole step so the only time in a major scale where there are half notes is between the 3 and the 4 and the seven and the eight okay besides the three and the four and the seven and the eight every other note is a whole step so once you know three four and seven eight are the only half steps to play see you go one two three and then from three four is a half step and then you go a whole step whole step whole step and then from seven to eight is a half step now you can apply that to anything so let's play a major scale in D there's going to be black notes in it but we know that the only half steps are between three four and seven eight right so we're going to go whole step whole steps we're going to go one two three and then from three to four we're going to do a half step so we know it goes to here then we're going to go whole step whole step whole step and then we know that from seven to eight is a half step so we're going to go from here to here so as long as you remember three four and seven eight are the only half steps in a major scale you have just learned how to play any major scale now minor scales a minor scale is all whole notes except between two and three and five and six between two and three and five and six so the a minor scale happens to be all white notes so let's take a look at that so we're going to play a minor scale it sounds sadder than a major scale okay so we're going to make this one because we use the one for wherever we're starting with so two and three and five and six are the only half steps so we're going to go 1 2 and then from 2 to 3 is a half step and then we're going to go for 5 and then from 5 6 is a half step and then it's all whole steps 7 8 now that we know that we can play any minor scale so let's let's do it in E ok so this is an E so we know is whole steps except between 2 3 & 5 6 so this is e minor 1 2 and then from 2 to 3 is a half step then for five now we know between five and six is a half step six and then seven hey now that's how you play any minor scale now here's some excellent news you don't really have to play those skills very much I'm not going to push you to be able to play those skills but now that I've shown you that you can do it so you know how to find that information so let's move on do you know the difference between a major and a minor chord is a major chord sounds happy and a minor chord sounds sad can you tell the difference okay so here's how to play any major chord we're going to use C because C is all white notes it was easier to see but a major chord uses the 1 the 3 and the 5 so you're going to use your 1 3 and 5 fingers and also you're going to use the 1 3 and 5 notes in a major scale so we can find out the note notes in this major scale and see our 1 2 3 4 5 so we're just going to use 1 3 & 5 alright so here's how you can figure out how to play any major scale just look at how many notes are in between each of these chords between the 1 and the 3 there are 3 notes 1 2 3 and between the 3 and the 5 are two notes one and two alright so now that we know that we can play any major scale it's just the 1 3 and the 5 and you're going to be leaving three notes between the 1 and the 3 2 notes between the 3 and the 5 now once we can play C playing F and G are exactly the same they're all white notes so if I leave my hand like a claw and slide up I can play F 1 3 5 3 in between 2 in between and I can play G I know it's G because that's what the note that my thumb is on that's a G it's a G major now we can play any major chord so let's try to play ad major ok we know our thumb is going to go on D and then if we don't know what notes to find we're just going to count up 3 1 2 3 put our third finger there then we're going to count up to 1 2 and put our fifth finger there ok so that is AD major now that we know the D if we make our fingers hand like a claw we can also play an E and an a because they're exactly the same slide up and move that's an E chord we know it is because that's where my thumb is and slide up again that's an a chord I know that because that's where my thumb is all right you can do that with any major chord just leave three notes in between your first and third two notes in between your third and fifth easy as that now how to play any minor chord the only difference between a major and a minor chord is that the third finger plays one half step lower okay so to change a C major chord into a C minor chord you just take your third finger and you move it down a half step so when you look at the spaces in between from a minor chord you've got two keys in between your first and third finger and three keys in between your third and fifth finger now that you know that you can play it any minor chord if you can play C minor by freezing your hand in a claw you can slide up and play F minor you can also play G minor now an a minor has no black notes in it we know this is an a minor because our thumb is on the a there's two spaces in between the first and third finger and there's three spaces in between third and fifth finger now that I can play a minor I can play D minor I know that's a d because my thumb's there and E minor I know that's an E minor because my thumb is there and that's how you can play it any minor key just put your thumb on the first note that you're trying to play and then pick out the spaces is as simple as that you

Channel: InstantPianoGenius

Views: 16,216,362

Rating: 4.8574176 out of 5

Keywords: learn, play, learn piano, learn to play piano, learn piano online, piano tutorial, Learn to play piano, lessons, learn piano songs, beginner piano, learn to play the piano, learn piano online free, learn piano fast, learn piano keyboard, learn piano by ear, learn piano chords quickly, beginners piano, piano for beginners, Piano Lesson, Play Piano, Learn to play piano course, Piano Instruction, Free Piano Lessons, teacher, free

Id: _Hj9v6pwTf8

Length: 10min 40sec (640 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 17 2010

Reddit Comments

[u/SteveTheBear907]

This is definitely useful for an intro to music theory, especially if you are looking to play pop music, or with a band. A lot of those songs will just be written as chord sheets, with a key (D for example), and numbers to represent the chords to be played (I.e. a 2 chord in the key of D would be an E minor).

However, because there are only 12 different keys, it is much easier to just practice all your scales so you can do them without thinking, rather than counting out every half step and whole step.