Teach Yourself Piano!

Introduction:

By the end of this article, 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

Sounds Good, isn't it?

Let’s Get Started!

This is a Piano/Keyboard with the NOTES written on each key.

There are ONLY 12 notes and they repeat themselves over and over again

in what we call ‘Octaves.’

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.

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’.

There are ONLY 12 notes.

EVERY SONG YOU’VE EVER HEARD WAS MADE UP

OF A COMBINATION OF THESE 12 NOTES.

No matter how complicated of a 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.

Let's 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.

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 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.

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, for example, ‘A’ to ‘B’, it is called a Whole Step.

Some people make a mistake E to F or B to C as a whole step, 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’.

There are ‘major’ and ‘minor’ scales.

The ‘major’ scale sounds more happy while the ‘minor’ scales sound more sad.

Every song you’ve ever heard was either in a ‘major’ or ‘minor’ key.

Let’s talk about finger number for piano playing.

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 accompaniment 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 to go 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’.

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, A # Scale, starts on a black key.

They ALL sound like ‘Do-Re-Mi…’ but they just start on a different pitch.

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 the formula

that will allow you to play any major scale based on a pattern.

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 three whole steps and a half step.

This holds true EVERY MAJOR SCALE!!!

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.

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!