Hello Friends,
I would like to share with you that to learn play piano is actually easy if you receive the right instructions. To learn how to play piano you need to read this article which shows you 4 fundamental goals you need to achieve to master the basics of piano playing. You can learn more about playing piano by enrolling in the best online course and learn how to play the piano and save hundreds of dollars.
Just like in any sports , for instance golf, the legendary Tiger Woods is able to master golf because of the mastery of the mental game and psychology of winning. Similarly, you need to have the right mind-set and to allocate time to practice playing the piano with your new found techniques.
Practice time is a personal choice but do yourself a favour and allocate specific times to practice sessions to learn play piano everyday. You have to practice more intensively at first. Practise at least 45 minutes every day initially until you improve.
This short lesson needs some degree of participation and practice from you so that you will be able to achieve the following by the end of the tutorial.
1. Playing notes on the piano keyboard.
2. Playing a few simple songs
3. Playing your ‘major’ scale in the Key of C
4. Be Able to differentiate the notes on a piano keyboard!
Let us commence our first lesson without further ado.
The above diagram shows a piano keyboard with the NOTES written on each key.
Let me explain to you step by step. There are basically only 12 notes in the piano and they sort of repeat themselves over and over again in what we assigned as ‘Octaves’ pronounced as [Octives]. An Octave actually has reference to the number 8 (Oct. as in Octagon)
Musical Notes are identified by the letters of the alphabet. The letters in musical notes are A, B, C, D, E, F, G. There is NO ‘H’. After ‘G’ it simply starts over again at ‘A’ (see above diagram). How is it possible to have more than one ‘A’? Although the TONE of the note may sound the same, however the ‘pitch’ can be higher or lower. There are many ‘A’s’ on the piano as well as many of the other letters . 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 a piccolo. The best example of an Octave would be found in the song ‘Happy Birthday.’ The part in the middle where you sing “Happy BIRTH-day to someone …” 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’.
Let us now go back to my original teaching . Did you remember what I emphasized previously? That there are ONLY 12 notes in musical piano! This makes music so much easier than you imagine! EVERY SONG YOU’VE EVER HEARD WAS MADE UP OF A COMBINATION OF THESE 12 NOTES. No matter how complicated even in great composer Mozart’s song , there are only 12 notes present in the composition of the musical song.
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. I 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. This will help you to remember the order of the notes , without having the notes written on each key!
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 Sharps (#’s) are the black keys. 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’. This is very important concept to understand because the majority of people thought that if they go a ‘half-step’ from one letter, the next note will be that letter’s ‘Sharp’. This is true for MOST notes with the exception for ‘B to C’ and ‘E to F’. If you look at the piano keyboard diagram 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 you need to remember.
Hence, if you skip a half-step and go directly from let’s say, ‘A’ to ‘B’, it is called a Whole Step. Remember those exceptions now! The difference is that going from ‘B’ to ‘C’ is NOT considered a whole step. Remember, from ‘B’ to ‘C’, it is a HALF-STEP mainly they are right next to each other. So from ‘B’ to ‘C#’ would be a WHOLE-STEP. Same goes for ‘E’ to ‘F’ (half step). From ‘E’ to ‘F#’ would be the WHOLE STEP.
The reason why most people make this error is because from every other white key to the next white key is considered a WHOLE STEP. (Reason being that there is a black key in between which is the half step).
The NEXT IMPORTANT CONCEPT IS ‘C’ MAJOR SCALE !
This is a very important fundamental element of music. This ‘Scale’ makes up the sounds ‘Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do.’ It’s called the ‘Major Scale’ and it is one of the MAIN modes of music. There are ‘major’ and ‘minor’ scales. The ‘major’ scale depicts a happier tone while the ‘minor’ scales portrays a sadder event.
Every song you’ve ever heard in your life before has to be either a ‘major’ or ‘minor’ key.
Next, so your 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.
Let us 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 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. Hence , when you play to the right you are going ‘up’.
The video that I included once you subscribed in will show you what the ‘C Major Scale’ looks and sounds like! I play it slow at first, then medium, then fast.
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, even for the #’s. ‘A# Major Scale, starts on a black key ‘A#’).
They ALL sound like ‘Do-Re-Mi…’ but they just start on a different pitch.
But you dont have to worry, I POSSESS A SECRET WEAPON which I will share with you ! There are a lot of step by step methods to help you to master to learn to play the piano when you enrol in the online course called “Rocket Piano”.
Well, 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 my secret formula that will allow you to play any major scale based on a pattern. Anything you can do in one spot on the piano, you can do in Whole Steps and Half Steps which you will recall I talked about earlier on.
Well, 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 for EVERY MAJOR SCALE!!! WOW . This pattern once you recognize it makes the whole sequence so much EASIER and to remember !
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.
The first note can not be a whole step or a half step because you need to reference the distance between TWO notes to have a whole step or a half step.
Check out the video to see how the ‘C Major Scale’ looks and sounds!
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’ in which THOUSANDS of songs are…the song would consist of ONLY THE NOTES OF THE C MAJOR SCALE!
For Example:
In the song, ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ it is in the key of ‘C Major’. This means that every note in this song will be a note in the ‘C Major Scale’.
Here are the notes for ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb.’
3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2, 3, 5, 5
E, D, C, D, E, E, E, D, D, D, E, G, G
E, D, C, D, E, E, E, D, D, E, D, C.
The numbers are the fingers you should use.
The letters are the notes on the piano. The numbers are right above the corresponding letter.
Congratulations to you !
You have just learned the basics of the piano’s keyboard, the Major Scale and your first song! If you want to master to learn play piano ,then Rocket Piano , which is the best online piano learning course , will help you to learn piano step by step.
Thank you for reading …Please remember to PRACTICE! at least 45 minutes daily 
James Hau
info@bestlearningpiano.com
to learn play
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