Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman
and in this lesson we're going to learn an old folk song from England
called "Oranges and Lemons". Let's have a listen:
No one knows for sure, but this song probably started in London England where there are many churches.
In the song you probably heard names like St. Giles, St. Peters.
All those are different churches, and when the bells would ring in all the different churches' steeples,
sometimes people would use their imaginations to come up
with some things that they thought the bells were saying.
So someone might be walking along the streets of London and, oh look,
there's the church of St. Clements and suddenly the bells ring
Bong bong bong bong bong
and to them they would imagine the bells were saying to them:
♫Oranges and lemons♫
which maybe someone was selling in the street right there.
Now, let's get started learning this song by coming to the staff.
The song "Oranges and Lemons" is in the key of F major,
so let's review our F majorpentascale. Can you point to an F on this keyboard down here?
If you're pointing here or here you're correct. Let's go ahead and go with this one.
And we've got an F.
Let's name these notes together: F G A
B-flat
What's this?
C
So there's our F major pentascale.
Now let's draw it on our staff.
For F
we can use our guide note G, and then just think one step down and that gives us F.
and then we need a G,
then an A. Now how do we draw a B-flat?
Well we place a B, and then we need to put a flat symbol right in front of it and that makes a B-flat,
and then C.
Can you point and name these notes with me?
Go: F G A B-flat C
Now, it's most common in music
that so we don't have to draw a B-flat every time we use the note B,
we use something called a key signature,
which you've probably heard me mention before. Where
we place the flat at the beginning right next to the clef
and that automatically makes all the B's on that entire staff B-flat.
So let's use a key signature today and can you point and sing with me? Let's do it in solfège.
Ready, go: DO RE MI FA SO.
Great, now let's try the arpeggio where we just skip.
DO MI SO
Now point and sing with me, go: DO MI SO
Now let's take a look at the first five notes of "Oranges and Lemons".
We start up here on SO.
Then what do you notice?
What can you tell me about these five notes?
You might notice that they're all space notes. None of them are on a line,
and so that tells us that we're in this skipping pattern. If this one's SO,
then we have: SO MI SO MI DO
And that's ♫Oranges and lemons♫
This is why I did orange and yellow of course.
Now, can you point and sing the solfège with me?
Starts on SO, ready go:
SO MI SO MI DO
Alright, go ahead and hold up your right hand and let's try moving our fingers in this pattern.
Remember we're doing all skips here so we have:
SO MI SO MI DO
Now your turn.
Great let's come back to the staff.
Now the next four notes are:
♫say the bells of♫
How are these notes moving? Let's say it in steps, skips, and repeats.
We say start, now try it with me, point, step up, step up, then what happens here?
It's a skip down.
We can tell because it skipped over this space note all the way down to the next line.
And in solfège that's: RE MI FA RE.
And on the piano keys that would look like this: RE MI FA RE
Okay, hold up your right hand again,
and this one let's see if you can figure out. I'll give you a clue that
RE starts right here on finger 2. Can you figure out how to move your fingers for:
RE MI FA RE
Try it.
It goes like this: RE MI FA RE
Let's try that together. Ready, go: RE MI FA RE
Good, now back to the staff.
Now, the next three notes are ♫St.Clements♫
BA BA BA
What do you think that would be in solfège?
Can you tell me what's happening?
Listen one more time: BA BA BA
In solfège that would be SO MI DO
Now can you point in sing with me?
Starts on SO. Ready go:
SO MI DO
On the piano keys of course that would be SO MI DO.
Let's see if you can figure this one out too.
Can you show me how to move your fingers for: SO MI DO
It should be: SO MI DO
So let's put that pattern, let's back up a little bit to the: RE MI FA RE SO MI DO
You try that with me. Ready, go:
RE MI FA RE SO MI DO
Great let's try it on the piano.
So for "Oranges and Lemons" we'll start with our right hand in the F major pentascale.
Can you find F major and sing and play:
DO RE MI FA SO
Now your turn, go.
Good, now remember "Oranges and Lemons" starts on SO
and then we skip down to MI.
Now, I'm going to stop there
and see if you can figure out how to play the first five notes without help from me.
Can you play: ♫Oranges and lemons♫
Now you try. Sing and play.
Good, it should sound like this: SO MI SO MI DO Let's try it in solfège this time.
Play with me and sing the solfège. Ready, go:
SO MI SO MI DO
Good, now the next part goes: RE MI FA RE
Can you try to figure that out by yourself? Play it.
It should have sounded like this: RE MI FA RE
Which in finger numbers would be: 2 3 4 2
Can you sing and play it with me, using finger numbers? Ready go:
2 3 4 2
Good.
And then the last three notes of this first phrase go:
SO MI DO
Can you play that?
You should have gone: 5 3 1
Try sing it with me using finger numbers. Start with 5, go:
5 3 1
Good, when we put it all together we get:
♫Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clement's.♫
Good, now pause the video and try that first line a few times
until you feel really confident. Sing with yourself while you play, and then press play to go on.
Now take a look at line two. What do you notice about this first measure?
It's the same pattern we had before right? SO MI SO but then as we go to measure two,
now here it changes. We do a double skip down to DO,
and it's a half note this time, which means how many beats? Can you tell me?
2 beats. We get: SO MI SO DO RE MI FA RE SO DO
And there's another half note at the end of that line.
So this time, instead of whenever we had that SO MI DO pattern, we just go all the way from SO
down to DO, and that gives us: ♫Brick-bats and tiles, say the bells of St. Giles'.♫
Good, now pause the video and I'd like you to work on line two on your own.
Sing while you play, and then press play again to go on.
Good, now that we know lines one and two, let's try putting themtogether.
It should sound like this:
1 2 3 ♫Oranges and lemons say the bells of St. Clement's.♫
♫Brickbats and tiles, say the bells of St. Giles'.♫
Now, pause the video and try putting lines one and two together, and then press play to go on.
Let's check out the score for "Oranges and Lemons".
Remember, you can always download this from our website so you can have a copy at home too.
We've got our grand staff.
Our treble clef and bass clef.
And remember this flat is called our key signature,
which reminds us that since we're in the F major pentascale,
any B is automatically going to be B-flat.
We have our time signature of 3/4,
that means we'll have groups of 3 beats in every measure: 1 2 3 1 2 3
Now how do these two notes fit here? Remember two eighth notes can share a beat.
So these two share beat 3, TI-TI and then TA TA TA TA TA REST
Can you say the rhythm words with me as we point?
and whenever you get to the first note of a measure,
anytime we have beat 1 let's make that note extra strong.
Point and say the rhythm words with me, ready go:
TA TA TA TA TA TI-TI
TA TA TA TA TA REST
Good, now let's try these rhythm words. Here we have a half note.
How many beats does a half note get?
2 beats, so here we'll say TWO-OO
Let's try. Ready, go:
TA TA TA TWO-OO TI-TI
TA TA TA TWO-OO REST
Now, we've already learned how to play these notes, so let's check out the notes down here starting on line three.
Can you tell me the letter name of this first note?
It's one of our guide notes it's on that G, that treble G line
and it's asking for a finger 5, interesting...
because we were the F major pentascale and here we have a clue in the music.
We're going to shift our hand to the C major pentascale here.
Now, in C major, G is not DO but SO.
Remember, before we were in F major and so SO was up here on this treble C.
SO MI SO MI DO
but now we're in C major and what patterns do you see?
Now G is SO
You notice anything interesting going on here?
It's the same pattern, but transposed to C major.
Remember up here we had: SO MI SO MI DO RE MI
FA RE SO MI DO
Now we're in C major and we have: SO MI SO MI DO RE MI
FA RE SO MI DO
The exact same notes as before, but transposed to C major.
What about line four?
What do you notice about this line? Is it similar to anything else you've seen?
It's the same patterns as line two, but once again transposed to C major.
SO MI SO DO RE MI
FA RE SO DO REST
Then we get to this funny-looking double bar line.
Funny because usually we see a thin line and a thick line to say the songs done,
but the strange thing is here the songs not done because there's more music.
You actually ignor this Fine, double bar line the first time through,
you keep going. The D.C. al Fine a is a teleporter,
which you might remember from "Dinah", it teleports you back to the start.
D.C. teleports you back to the start, al Fine
activates the Fine, so now when you come back to here the second time boom, you're done.
So the path of the whole song is:
Teleport back to the start, one, two, Fine, you're done.
Let's try to play line three on the piano.
So now we're getting more advanced,
we started this song in the F major pentascale, but in the middle of the song
our right hands going to have to shift down to the C major pentascale.
Okay, so let's practice that. Just come up here
on your piano to an F major pentascale,
and then just practice gliding down. You'll have to do it fairly quickly,
but don't be stressed about it, just give yourself a moment and come on down.
Because after you play ♫bells of St. Giles'♫ REST
That quarter rest is your opportunity to take a beat to move down
♫Giles'♫ REST. and during that rest you slide down to here.
♫Pancakes and fritters, say the bells of St. Peter's.♫ REST
♫Kettles and pans, say the bells of St. Anne's.♫ REST
And during that rest you move back to the F major pentascale. The D.C. al Fine takes you
back to the start and we play the first two lines again, okay?
So now, I'd like you to press pause and practice
shifting your right hand down to the C major pentascale and work on lines three and four.
Remember it's the same patterns as before just now in a new pentascale.
So practice lines three and four, and then try playing the whole song all the way through,
and then press play and we'll try it together.
Now that you've had a try, I'll show you how to play the entire song together.
If you'd like to try playing along with me for a challenge you can or you can just listen.
Here's "Oranges and Lemons" from the start.
I'll count 3 beats and then away we go.
1 2 3
♫Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clement's.♫
♫Brickbats and tiles, say the bells of St. Giles'.♫
♫Pancakes and fritters, say the bells of St. Peter's.♫
♫Kettles and pans, say the bells of St. Anne's.♫
♫Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clement's.♫
♫Brickbats and tiles, say the bells of St. Giles'.♫
Great work learning how to play "Oranges and Lemons" today.
Happy practicing and see you next time!
Here are my own words I came up with:
♫Popcorn and candy, say the bells of St. Andy.♫
♫Apples and grapes, say the bells of St. Kate's♫
Now you try to come up with your own words. Have fun, bye!