Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman.
Today we're learning a finger exercise that I call 'Stepping and Skipping'.
Let's take a look at the notes to 'Stepping and Skipping' on the staff.
Here I have all the notes to 'Stepping and Skipping' dictated on the staff.
We've got our treble clef here. So, can you tell me the letter name of this note?
If you said C or middle C you're correct.
Now, taking a look at these first few notes, the blue notes,
tell me what you notice about how the notes are moving.
If you said they're stepping you're correct.
First, they first step up all the way to G.
DO RE MI FA SO
And the way you can tell they're stepping is because they go:
line, space, line, space, line, and then what?
They step right back down. SO FA MI RE DO
Let's sing all of that together in solfège. Point with me and sing.
Go.
DO RE MI FA SO FA MI RE DO
And then what do these kind of pinkish purple notes do?
That's right they skip up,
and you can tell that because it goes:
Line, line, line, so it skipped over the space notes. So we have: DO MI SO
Then what would the solfège be for these two notes?
If you said MI DO you're correct. Now let's put that all together starting on this blue DO.
DO MI SO MI DO
And then here with these red notes,
you notice how they're stacked over each other, and whenever notes
align stacked like this, that means to play them together in a chord.
So here you're going to play DO and SO together in a chord.
Now, let's sing the whole thing together in solfège, go.
DO RE MI FA SO FA MI RE
DO MI SO MI DO
Chord
Next we're going to take 'Stepping and Skipping' to the piano,
but first I wanted to mention why we do finger exercises like this anyway.
Finger exercises are a great way for you to develop agility and technique with your fingers
to prepare you to play more advanced music in the future.
Whenever we learn a finger exercise,
it's super important that you use your very best piano posture as you practice it.
Otherwise, you're training bad habits instead of correct habits.
If you practice the wrong way long enough,
you could actually become an expert at doing it wrong.
That's no good.
So, always make sure you are building good, correct habits with great piano posture
every time you practice.
So, let's do a quick rundown of our piano posture checklist,
and then we'll learn how to play 'Stepping and Skipping'.
Number one: your bench position.
Make sure you're not too close to the keys, or you'll get those Tyrannosaurus Rex arms.
Your bench should be positioned so your
elbows are slightly in front of your torso, just comfortably floating out there.
Number two: tall back, shoulders down.
Number three: let's test your arm weight,
and today let's try it this way. Float both of your arms up,
pretend like you're a puppet, when you have some strings holding up your arm, and then when I say, cut!
The strings get cut and your arms, because you can't control yourself since you're just a puppet,
just fall. Try it with me. Someone's pulling those strings up, and then cut the strings.
Your arms drop.
Good.
And then number four: check in with your hand and finger shape.
Make sure your fingers are relaxed and curved.
Okay, go ahead and hold up your right hand with me,
and we're going to move our fingers to 'Stepping and Skipping'.
Remember thewords of the song are just going to say exactly what your fingers are doing.
Like this:
♫Stepping up, and stepping down, and skipping up and down♫
And then chord.
Now, try it with me starting with right hand finger number 1.
Ready, go:
♫Stepping up, and stepping down, and skipping up and down♫
Chord.
Good, and remember there are no repeating notes in this,
so unlike 'Chocolate', when you get to the top not going to play this finger again, it just goes:
As soon as you play that finger 5, it immediately starts stepping down.
There's not a single repeated note in the whole thing.
Now, this time let's try singing the finger numbers as we go.
So we're starting with 1, sing the finger numbers with me, ready, go.
1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2
1 3 5 3 1
chord
1 and 5
Okay, let's try it with our left hand, and this time let's
again sing the finger numbers, and remember what finger number are we starting on
starting on with the left hand?
If you said 5 you're correct.
So it will go: 5 4 3 2 1 2 3 4 5 3 1 3 5
Okay, try that and see if you can keep up with me.
Start on finger 5, ready, go:
5 4 3 2 1 2 3 4
5 3 1 3 5
chord
Good.
Right, now bring that nice piano posture, relaxed hand shape
up to the keys and find the C pentascale,
and we're going to try 'Stepping and Skipping'
using the right hand in C major like this. I'll demo once.
We have: ♫Stepping up, and stepping down, and skipping up and down♫
chord
All right, now will you try that with me?
Start with finger 1 on C. Let's sing the words and give it a try. Ready, go:
♫Stepping up, and stepping down, and skipping up and down♫
chord
Good,
now let's try singing the finger numbers this time.
Remember, it's 1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1 3 5 3 1, chord.
Ready, go:
1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2
1 3 5 3 1
chord
Good.
Now, let's try it with our left hand.
So take left hand, our finger 5 is on C.
And let's say the lyrics stepping up and down.
♫Stepping up, and stepping down, and skipping up and down♫
chord
Good, and then to do it hands together, we're going to do it like this:
♫Stepping up, and stepping down, and skipping up and down♫
chord
Now, I'd like you to press pause, practice it one more time with right hand, one more time with left hand,
and then try it a few times hands together until you can do it comfortably.
Remember to keep your great piano posture the whole time, keep your wrists relaxed,
let it kind of bounce a little bit on each note
that will help you use your arm weight to sink, drop, fall into each note.
Press pause, practice that on your own: right hand, left hand, then hands together.
Then press play when you're ready to go on.
Okay, now let's try 'Stepping and Skipping' in the D major pentascale.
So bring finger 1 to D,
and this time for an extra challenge, let's try singing the solfège as we do it. Ready, go.
DO RE MI FA SO FA MI RE
DO MI SO MI DO
chord
Good, now let's try the left hand.
Bring hand into the D major pentascale, and once again let's sing the solfège. Ready, go.
DO RE MI FA SO FA MI RE
DO MI SO MI DO
chord
Good!
As you're practicing 'Stepping and Skipping', or for that matter any of your songs,
I want you to make sure that you're keeping this nice shape
as you strike the key. Sometimes with new students I see this happen.
You notice how that's bending backwards?
I call that hula fingers.
You want it to stay in a firm enough position
that this happens. Otherwise, you're losing some of your energy and your fingers are a little bit wobbly.
Which isn't good for playing the piano so this
So this is what you want to see, not this.
So, I'd like you to press pause,
and play 'Stepping and Skipping' one more time,
and watch for that joint, and make sure it's staying firm.
Not claw shaped, I don't want you to curve it tightly.
Just firm enough to keep that nice round shape as you play.
Press pause and try that right hand and left hand, then press play to go on.
While we're talking about piano posture today, I want to mention your finger 5,
your pinky. It's very common I'll see
students a lot of times collapse on their pinky and play it
near this joint way back here with a very flat pinky.
One should always play your pinkie near the tip otherwise your
hand kind of collapses, and it can take your other fingers out of position.
So remember, pinky plays
on or near the tip just like all the other fingers
like this,
and your thumb also plays on its side tip.
It doesn't need to worry about curving as much like the other fingers,
but it also should stay relaxed like the other fingers. Should always
kind of feel floppy and loose.
Not stiff.
Nice work. Now, if you'll practice all of these pentascales every day with
great piano posture, you're going to be building great
finger agility and strength and coordination,
so you'll be able to tackle really cool songs in the future.
Nice work learning how to play 'Stepping and Skipping',
which we could call your very first finger exercise.
To accelerate your progress and to help make your fingers awesome at playing piano,
please continue to review 'Stepping and Skipping' every day.
Always using your very best piano posture.
Happy practicing, and see you next time!
Since Mr. Hoffman mentioned trying to avoid certain bad habits that you want to avoid.
Like practicing with bad piano posture.
We thought we'd mentioned a few other bad habits we recommend you avoid.
Bad habit number one:
Widemouth yawning when mosquitoes are near.
Bd habit number two:
Practicing your juggling with breakable objects.
Oh, perfect! I could practice my juggling before I make breakfast.
Bad idea.
Bad habit number three:
Inviting animals who want to eat you over to your house to play
That's ridiculous.
Who would invite over an animal who wants to eat you?
Well, maybe I did?
Huh?
Hello.
Aaah! Run! Sorry Scuba.
I think I have a bad habit of coming over at a bad time.
I know, next time I'll call and make an appointment before I come over to eat him.
Hey, Scuba!