Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman.
Did you know that pentascales can start on a black key? That's right.
They can and in this unit we're going to learn several of these new black key pentascales.
So let's come to the piano to learn the dark side of the pentascale.
It's really important to remember that DO can move depending on the song.
Way back a long time ago we learned about the C major pentascale.
Where C is DO.
You can kind of think of C as like an address, where Mr. DO lives with his family.
But, do you always have to live in the same house? No.
DO can move his family to D where he's on D and
the relationships in his family stay the same. So RE's a step up.
MI is another whole step up from RE.
MI to FA is a half step of course, and then FA to SO another whole step.
Remember the letter names on the piano are fixed they will never move.
Just like when you move, your address doesn't move with you.
So the letters are like the address, but Mr. DO can move wherever he wants
depending on the song.
Wherever DO moves though it's always the same formula to build a major pentascale,
and that formula is: whole step, whole step, half step, whole step.
Now here's a little secret hand sign you can do to remember that.
Can you make this shape with your right hand?
Notice how I put my fingers 3 and 4 together.
That's to remind you where the half step is.
So here's DO RE MI FA SO
You can see there's a whole step here, a whole step, then a half step, and then a whole step.
If you ever forget how to build a major pentascale, just make this hand sign
and you've got it. Remember that MI and FA are best friends. They're the half step.
Now we can use this to figure out how to move DO to a black key.
Let's try it now. What if Mr. DO wanted to live on D-flat.
Remember a flat takes you to the nearest key to the left.
A half-step below wherever you were before.
So here's D-flat. Now let's use our hand sign.
Remember that from DO to RE is a whole step. You can remember that because there's this gap here.
That gap tells you we have to skip over one key, black or white.
So we're going to skip over this white key and land here.
That's a whole step because there's one key in between.
Okay, now from RE to MI is also a whole step.
Can you point to a key that's a whole step above E-flat?
If you're pointing here you're correct.
Remember, we always have to skip one key, black or white to make it a whole step.
Now we're up to MI, and we're ready for the half step.
Can you point to a half step above F?
If you're pointing here to G-flat you're correct.
Now we could have called that an F-sharp,
but here's a little trick:
In music we try to avoid having the same letter twice in the same scale.
So we're going to call this F.
We're going to call this G-flat.
Technically it could be an F-sharp, but F and F-sharp in the same scale
is a little awkward. So we'll call it a G-flat.
And then, were from FA to SO. Once again we need a whole step.
Can you point to a whole step above G-flat?
If you're pointing here to A-flat you're correct.
Now this builds our major pentascale.
Now if we wanted to keep going, remember that in songs like
"Lavender's Blue", sometimes we need a LA. We have DO RE MI FA SO
but if we need a LA, we just go another whole step up and that gives us LA.
And if we need a TI, we go a half step below DO.
So we could go there.
Now that's for our more advanced songs where we need to go beyond the pentascale.
But if we want just the pentascale, we've got this great pattern of black
two black keys, white, and then two black keys on top,
which I call an Oreo cookie position because we've got our black cookie, the white cream in the middle,
and then the black cookie on top: Oreo cookie.
Now can you name these keys with me?
D-flat
E-flat
F
G-flat
A-flat
Now, you might have noticed we could have called this C-sharp,
but because we already decided that we needed to call this G-flat to avoid clashing F, F-sharp.
If you have some flats, you want to use all flats.
In general, we try to stick with either all
sharps or all flats within the same pentascale.
That's why we chose D-flat in this case. D-flat E-flat F G-flat A-flat.
Now when you play a black key pentascale, you'll notice that to reach the black keys
your thumb's going to need to come forward. Don't twist your hand,
just move your whole hand up into the black keys.
You'll notice my finger 3, all my fingers are playing deep into the keys
so all of my fingers can comfortably reach
DO RE MI FA SO
Now your turn.
Now let's try stepping back down: SO FA MI RE DO
Your turn. Play and sing.
Now let's try with our left hand.
Go ahead and find the D-flat major pentascale with your left hand.
DO RE MI FA SO Your turn.
And stepping down: SO FA MI RE DO Your turn.
Now how would you play the arpeggio?
Now we're going to skip: DO MI SO, Your turn
Now, I'd like you to pause the video,
and try finding the D-flat major pentascale in four different places on your piano using your right
and your left hand,
and play stepping up, play stepping down.
You can try staccato, you can try legato,
high and low on your piano in four different places.
Press pause to do that, and then press play to go on.
Here's what the D-flat major pentascale looks like on the grand staff.
Let's point and name these notes together. We've got D-flat, E-flat, F, G-flat, A-flat
Same thing down here in the bass clef
D-flat, E-flat, F, G-flat, A-flat
Now let's talk about chords in D-flat major.
Remember, to build a I chord,
we skip over RE, and we go straight from DO to MI
to SO. So we also skip FA.
This builds our I chord DO MI SO which we can play together like this.
Now, for the V7 chord you know that DO steps down a half step to TI,
and MI goes up a half step to FA,
and then we get TI FA SO together that makes our V7 chord.
Let's try that with both hands.
Ok play the I chord.
Good now try the five seven chord.
If you like you can try one hand at a time.
If you want an extra challenge you can try both hands together.
Remember for smaller hands if you want to modify to just playing these two keys
that's okay. If your pinky can reach
and that's the full chord, then back to the I chord.
Pause if you need more practice with those two chords,
otherwise, let's look for our IV chord.
So to play the IV chord what happens is you
think of starting from a I chord, and then SO steps up to LA.
Remember SO to LA is a whole step.
MI goes up to FA.
This would be the IV chord in D-flat major.
So with the right hand you play it with fingers 1 3 5.
Again, for smaller hands you can leave off the bottom note and just use these two notes.
If your hand can reach that, great.
In the left hand you use fingers 1 2 5. Remember, with the IV chord use finger 2 in the middle.
Okay, with both hands.
That's the IV chord. It's good to practice going from the I chord
to the IV chord.
A little exercise I used to do when I was a kid in piano lessons would be I chord,
IV chord, back to the I chord, to the V7 chord, then back to the I chord.
See that pattern? I IV I V7 I. That's a good little chord exercise or a chord progression you can play every day.
Now why learn these chords?
Well it's helpful for transposing. Like what if you wanted to play
"Lavender's Blue" in the key of D-flat major?
In fact, why don't you try taking some of your old songs, and this week
transpose them to D-flat major. You can try "Lavender's Blue", you could try "Spinning Song",
you can try "Ode To Joy".
Also, every day I'd like you to work on the 'Stepping and Skipping' finger exercise
I call it 'Finger Power' sometimes.
Remember to keep your fingers in a nice curved shape. Even on these black keys play near the tips.
With a nice little bounce in the wrist to keep your wrists and fingers relaxed.
And if you want to do this more advanced chord progression at the end that's great.
You can also do contrary motion.
That'd be a great finger exercise for you every day.
Finally you can improvise something in D-flat major.
The whole point of learning different keys in different positions is so
it gives you more tools for creating music.
I just made that up.
You can make up melodies using these chords.
You can go high on the piano, low, just have fun being creative in the key of D-flat major,
and see what you can do.
For some extra theory practice with drawing the D-flat major pentascale and finding it on the piano,
don't forget to download and do our theory page from our website.
Great work learning your first black key pentascale: D-flat major.
Happy practicing, and see you at our next lesson!
So if D-flat major is an Oreo cookie position, then what would D major be?
Well, let's try and find out. Help me out!
Okay.
These to the white keys.
This one goes up to F-sharp.
These two down to the white keys.
Hmm.
Look it's a blackberry jam sandwich!
Huh?
White bread on the bottom, blackberry jam in the middle,
and more white bread on top!
so does that mean D minor would be a mayonnaise sandwich?
Yuck! I think I'd prefer a marshmallow sandwich.
Really? marshmallow with mayonnaise?
No Scooba, just marshmallow.
Oh, right, or maybe it's just one giant bowl of vanilla ice cream!
With whipped cream all over!
And white candy sprinkles!
With a glass of milk to wash it all down.
Mmmmmm
You know, piano lessons make me hungry.
Yeah, me too.
I know, let's go make a sandwich.
Great idea, I'll get the mayonnaise!
I'll get the marshmallows!