Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman.
Today I'd love to teach you a piece that I composed called "Dragon Night".
When I composed this song, I intended for it to be performed on a digital piano so I could use a drum loop
and an auto accompaniment feature which is common on many digital pianos.
For example,
we've got this kind of drum loop:
Or this:
Fun, but for "Dragon Night", this is what I wanted:
Now,
an auto accompaniment feature on a digital piano allows you to just play a chord using your left hand on the lower part of the piano.
The digital piano figures out what chord you're playing and adds an accompaniment automatically like this.
All I have to do is play an E minor chord, and you get:
Here's the sheet music for "Dragon Night".
Take a look, and what do you notice?
You might have noticed these chord symbols in the music today.
The chord symbols we will look at at a later lesson. So we can kind of ignore those for now.
Up here, you'll see these rests,
and that means we're not playing a melody here during this intro. Oh, hello Mr. Dragon.
And our melody starts here, and so today that's where we're going to start.
So let's figure out this first note. Can you tell me the letter name?
If you said F-sharp you're correct. Now,
as we get to more advanced music, I'm not always going to be telling you, oh it's in this pentascale or that pentascale.
You're going to be figuring out on your own where to put your hand,
and what positions you're going to be in, and
as we get to more advanced music, it's not going to stay in a pentascale. You're going to be moving around,
but this line does fall in a pentascale, and let's figure it out.
Can you find the lowest note that you play on this line?
And tell me it's letter name.
If you said E, you're correct.
E is the lowest note we play on this phrase, and what's the highest note?
Point to it,
and tell me it's letter name.
If you're pointing right here and said B, you're correct.
So now we've got a lot of clues. We need to figure out the pentascale.
Our lowest note is E. We know we have an F-sharp. I see a G, I see an A, and we have a B.
What pentascale is that?
If you said E minor, you're correct.
Now one note at a time can you practice saying the letter names?
Starting with F-sharp, say them out loud for me, go.
The correct answer is F-sharp, G, E, F-sharp, G, B, A, G, A, A, A, G, F-sharp, F-sharp, G, E.
Now let's practice the rhythm once. Can you count the beat out loud with me?
And we're going to tap the rhythm.
So we'll just count 1 2 3 4, but whenever we have eighth notes we'll add an &. 3-& 4, like right here.
Let's try it together. I'll count 4 beats, then let's tap and count. 1 2, ready, go.
1 2 3 4, 1 2 3-& 4, 1 2 3-& 4, 1 2 3 4.
Great, now I'd like you to pause the video and on your own place your right hand in the E minor pentascale,
and see if you can figure out how to play this on your own, then press play and we'll check it out together.
Here's what the first phrase should sound like. I've got my finger 2 on F-sharp.
1 2 3-& 4
Now, if that matched what you played, great job.
If there are a few little things you need to fix, feel free to pause and fix anything so you can play
line one just awesome like that, and then let's go on when you're ready to check out line two.
Now let's check out line two starting here in measure seven.
What do you notice about line two?
You might notice that a lot of the notes are the same. We start on an F-sharp,
we have this E half note, we have another F-sharp, but there's some things that are different too.
I would call this a parallel phrase, but with some slight variations.
So let's go through and find those variations and circle them. In your own music,
can you circle any notes that are different from line one? Pause and find anything that's different to circle in your own music at home,
then press play and we'll check it out together.
Okay this is what you should have circled in your own music.
Basically, every time we had a G on beat 2 that's been replaced with an F-sharp G.
I wanted to add a little variation to this composition instead of TA TA TWO-OO, this time we have TA TI-TI TWO-OO
TA TI-TI TI-TI TA
Now, pause the video and I'd like you to work on line two on your own, then press play and we'll check it out together.
Here's what the second phrase should sound like:
1 2-& 3-& 4, 1 2 3-& 4, 1 2-& 3 4
Did that match what you played?
If so, great job.
If you need a little extra time to practice you can always pause to work some more.
Now let's check out line three.
So far we've had a phrase that we could call A,
and then this phrase because it's very similar with only slight variation we could call it A prime.
It's a parallel phrase.
Now let's look at line three.
Would you call this another A or something different which we could call B?
If you said different, I completely agree. Now the notes are different enough that we'd call this a whole new
phrase idea, which we could call B.
Now, we start on a B in fact. The letter B on the keyboard,
and this time it's a finger 3, and you'll notice whereas before b was the highest note. Now it's not anymore.
I'd like you to look at this phrase and find the highest note and point to it.
If you're pointing right here, you're correct. What's the name of that note?
If you said D, you're correct.
Now let's find the lowest note on this phrase and point to it.
If you're pointing here, you're correct, and tell me the letter name.
If you said G, you're correct.
I don't see any sharps or flats, so what pentascale is that?
That's G major.
So we move finger 3 up to B, and we'll be in a new position on this line.
Now that's the only help I'm giving you. I'd like you to pause the video now
and figure out how to play this line on your own.
I'd like you to watch the rhythms carefully, make sure you give the half notes 2 beats for example.
Make sure you play these eighth notes correctly.
Follow everything you know about reading notes and try and figure out line three,
and then press play and we'll check it out together.
So remember, for line three we move our hand so finger 3 is now on B,
and we fall in this G major pentascale. So with finger 3 on B we get 1 2 3 4,
1 2 3-& 4, 1 2 3-& 4, 1 2 3 4
Did that match what you played?
If so, great job.
Now, back to the sheet music to check out line four.
Now we're ready for line four here in measure fifteen.
Tell me what you notice.
Is this line an A or a B?
It starts off the same as our A, but remember in music it's important to check every note.
Can you find if there's anything different from this A or this A prime, or if there's any change?
If you find something different, point to it.
If you check every note, we're matching this first A until
right here.
We get two notes that are different
from our original A, so yet another variation we could call this a double prime.
So we've found a new way
to change this original melody.
Now instead of playing F-sharp G E,
this time we come down, D F-sharp E, for a special ending.
Now because D goes below our E minor pentascale position, let's look at how to handle that on the piano.
Now that we're getting to more advanced music,
like I said we're not always going to stay in one pentascale or sometimes it won't be a pentascale at all,
like here in the last measure our finger 1 is going to have to just scoot down to D.
Finger 2 is going to stay on the F-sharp,
and then we're going to come back with finger 1 on E. So your thumb, or finger 1, is going to have to just kind of scooch back and forth.
D F-sharp E. Try that, ready go.
One more time, finger 1 on D,
F-sharp E, now your turn.
Good, now let's see that all the way back to measure fifteen. I'll take a turn once.
Now pause the video and work on line four starting in measure fifteen,
and then press play when you're ready to go on.
Now let's talk about your practicing this week.
I'd like you to get confident playing just the right hand alone.
You'll notice there wasn't a bass clef part, and that's because this is written in lead sheet style
with chord symbols which we'll learn in a later lesson.
So for now, just work on the right hand part, and when you're ready you can try playing along with the backing track.
The backing track will be a lot of fun. You'll hear an introduction,
and then when you hear four clicks, then you start playing in measure three.
Listen for those four clicks.
Then you get to improvise.
Then we play the melody again.
and then you're done.
Music fades.
So you'll notice when I improvised, I was using the E minor pentascale, and also the G major. Either pentascale will sound good
with this improvisation. Basically, you could go anywhere on the piano just remember, whenever you have an F,
make it an F-sharp for it to sound good in this key.
Nice work learning the melody of "Dragon Night".
Remember, that as always you can download the sheet music from our website as part of the complete materials for this unit.
Happy practicing, and see you next time!
Hey Scuba! You want to do another pictogram puzzle?
You bet!
Try this one!
Hmm
It says secret secret secret
with this arrow pointing to the top one... oh! I know.
Top secret!
Good job!
Here's the next one!
Hmm
Let's see if you at home can figure this one out.