You just bought your keyboard and you're really excited to start your first piano lesson.
If you're an absolute beginner this video will be great for you. I'm going to explain
some concepts you'll need to know in very simple terms to help you get started in this wonderful
piano playing journey. We're gonna talk about fingering. note names, reading sheet music
learning some chords and by the end of this video you will be able to play this little song.
I'm sure you're getting super excited to start. Do you see that subscribe button down there?
Make sure you are subscribed to this channel to stay in touch with more of these free
piano lessons and tutorials. Let's talk very quickly about fingering. So in piano playing,
you'll be using all 10 fingers. Now if you can raise your hands up like that with me, I'll get
you to do a short little exercise. If you can just wiggle this thumb, this is our number ones
in piano - number one. And that's where we go our number two. Now so these are the index fingers.
See if you can wiggle these fingers without wiggling other fingers. I know it's a challenge
but give it a try. And let's wiggle the number three. This is our middle finger. Again
try your best to not wiggle anything else. This one is not entirely possible because
it's very connected to your fourth finger. You can see I'm struggling a bit as well
but try your best. Let's go to number four now. These are your ring fingers.
And finally your pinkies at number five. Just make sure you remember these finger numbers
because we'll be referring to them a lot in your piano studies. Now that we're pretty good
with your finger numbers, let's jump into the keyboard. On first glance the keyboard is a bit
intimidating. It's filled with so many white notes and so many black notes. Let's look at the black
keys first. There's a whole bunch of two black key groups - three black key groups and two and
three and two and three. And if you look up and down of your keyboard, you'll see that it's all
in groups of two and three black keys. Once you understand the groups of two and three black keys.
you'll realize that the piano is just a series of repeating notes again and again. For example,
this particular group of two black keynotes: if i were to play this one to the left
that is actually the same note as this one, which is the same note as this one. They're
the same note but they are just higher or lower in frequency but it's the same C sharp note.
Give it a try now. Why don't you go and find all the two black key groups
and play the one to the left like what i just did. Okay,
next up we are going to look at some white keys. I want you to first find this note.
This note is called the A. Now how do you find the A? You basically look at the three black key group
and it's right in the middle of the second and the third one. That's called an A, You can play that
very quickly now with any finger is okay. Now each of these notes are an alphabet letter in music. We
go from A to G there is no H. After G, it repeats A to G again. So this is what it is. So A, B, C,
D, E, F, G, there's no H. So, if you look here we're starting on A again.
If you can notice this particular note is actually that same note that we started before.
It is in the three black key group right in the middle of the second and the third one, A.
So, A B C D E F G. A B C D E F G. This is a little chart i always give my students. It's a little bit
of a cheat sheet. So if you want to, you can maybe take a screenshot of this to help you not only
with finding particular notes on the keyboard, but I also like that this chart syncs it up to the
exact position it is on the sheet music notation. Speaking of sheet music. we're going to talk about
that in just a second. If you're finding this video helpful, don't forget to subscribe to this
channel. Now reading sheet music is one of those topics that sometimes puts people off. When I was
young, I detested reading sheet music. I would always just use my ears to figure things out.
And as I grew older, I realized how much of a mistake that was. And if i could do things again
i would really prioritize learning how to read and analyze this sheet music language. What is sheet
music for? I always tell my students once you learn how to read sheet music, you actually have
learned how to read another language. Because sheet music does the same thing as any other
language does, which is to communicate ideas. If I were to play a very simple piece of music for you.
Now listen closely again because I've got some questions for you after you hear this again.
Now let's imagine there's no such thing as sheet music notation. How would you describe
this particular music excerpt? And you might say "Oh Jazer, I think it seems like it's going up
and then it sort of comes down."
And I would say to that well done! That's a really great point. If you look at the
sheet music I have on the screen now. You'll see that the music is going from
a lower frequency to a higher frequency.
And then it goes from that top note...
...back down. And if you notice something in that little song as well, not all the notes
were the same length. If they were all the same length ,it would have sounded like this.
Now i know that sounds pretty close to the original one but there is something that doesn't
quite sound right. I'm going to play the wrong version one more time. Have a listen to this.
The correct version should have been...
I hope you can notice by now that there is a note in the middle that was longer in length than the
other notes. It happens also for the final notes as well. So you can probably intuitively just tell
from looking at the screen, now the ones with the shaded dots are the ones that are shorter
and the ones that are not shaded are longer in length notes. I use this little example
to show you that sheet music helps us to communicate two very important things.
Number 1 is the pitch of the notes. So how high or how low the frequencies of these notes are.
And number 2 is the rhythm which is how long or how short these notes are played. For as you play
more and more music and read more and more music, you'll get exposed to different kinds of pictures
and different kinds of rhythms. But basically sheet music is for these two main things.
Lots to take in, very well done so far. Let's now move on to actually playing our song. For this
first piano lesson, I'm gonna first teach you what a chord is. A chord is basically
two or more notes that are played simultaneously at the same time. Early in the lesson we figured
out where A was. So, for example, this A. If I play this A and let's say I added another
note. For example, like this. The fifth up. 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5, so 5 spaces from there. So A,
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5. And I played that one, together that will make a chord.
Give this a try now.
Using the same position we're gonna play four chords today.
Now remember, you just need to learn one position and just move around in the different
areas of the keyboard. Let me show you what I mean. So this is the A chord, A minor chord.
Don't worry about the minor part for now. But I just know that I'm going to call this A minor.
Okay, let's move to the F now. Let's move to the C now. So you're moving up to the C.
Very nice! And finally to the G.
I'll just play that one more time for you.
If you can do that, congratulations! You have just learned four chords.🤓 I'm going to give you
now three challenges to add to that. if you can now play the same thing again but with your left
hand. Please play the root of the notes. The root of the note basically is the letter that you see
in the actual chord name. It's the most important part of that chord mix. So if we play now...
to F...
to the C...
I'll just show you that one more time. So you're playing the A and the E together in the right.
And the left hand you're just playing whatever is on that bottom of the right hand. Okay so
going to F.
going to C. Go into G and just repeat that.
Awesome! With that little exercise, let's now move on to the actual song for this lesson,
which is "All of Me" by John Legend. It sounds like this.
If you notice left hand is playing the same thing but right hand has a couple of different parts.
Let's look at what the right hand is doing. For the first A minor chord,
you're doing the same thing - A and E.
And next, you're actually keeping this A here and moving your pinky to the top to this F.
Okay, next one you're going to move both of these down.
And last but not least, you're just gonna keep that G there and move this E down to this D.
To just show you that one more time from the start, it sounds like this,
both move down.
And once that's good, add the left hand in.
Now this is quite a big step of what I'm asking you to do here.
It's you're basically playing with two hands coordinating different
movements. You might find yourself wanting to do something like this.
So where you imitate both movements - right and left hand doing the same thing.
But see if you can do this,
where only the right hand is moving and the left hand
is just holding A really long note. And there we go. That concludes your very first
piano lesson. Let me know which parts of this video you want more clarification or more
in-depth videos for. Happy practicing and I'll catch you in the next one. 🤓