If you are a beginner or an intermediate pianist and you want to know what are some
technical things you should focus on to take your playing to the next level, this video is for you.
Aside from the beautiful pieces I'm sure you're practicing, here are five technical things I
think you should work on alongside your pieces. I'm gonna count them down from number five to
one. So make sure you stick to the end to find out what number one is. Before we get into what these
five technical things are, make sure you like and subscribe to this channel to stay in touch with
more of these free piano lessons and tutorials. Technique number five is PEDALING. Pedaling is a
really amazing effect that you should learn to do well because it really enhances your
music. It sustains the sounds. There's a rich and sustained sound that comes from pedaling,
so it's important to learn the exact coordination and timing of this damper or sustained pedal...
...start again
Let me really break this down for you in slow motion. This is what you do
when you change your chord. You would strike the chord first,
before you then lift up and press it down again. I'll just show you very quickly in slow motion. So
one chord and as I move to the next chord...
I quickly come up and change this. Listen to this again...
and...
Where I see a lot of beginners make mistakes is they sort of
change the chord and come up at exactly the same time.
You know and you sort of get this massive cut in
in the music. You don't want that. You want to always have a sustained sound at all times so...
ready... so strike first. And then change very quickly after. Strike first...
Strike first and then come up and change. Number four on the list are your SCALES.
Now there are many different types of scales. There's your majors.
There are your minors. There are your chromatics.
There's even things like blues if you're into that.
I advise all beginners to pay extra attention to scales. Because
practicing scales not only improves in your technique, but it also helps you to understand
sharps and flats really, really well. For example, if you practice E major a lot,
next time when you are tasked to play an E major piece, the fact that there are
four sharps - F sharp C sharp G sharp and D sharp. That doesn't scare you because you've
practiced the scale a lot. And you're quite used to playing music with those four particular
sharps in there. So work on those scales. Third technique I think you should focus on
are OCTAVES. There are lots of things you can use octaves to work on. And I want to actually
tie this back to the point number four, Scales. You can use octave to play scales, for example...
or let's say even chromatic scales...
I personally like using my fourth finger for the black keys. Some people use the fifth finger for
the black keys. Let me know in the comments - do you use your fourth or the fifth finger
for black keys in octaves? You can also make up different patterns to practice
your octaves. For example, you can do something like...
Just really getting used to that length and shape of that octave. And also playing with as little
tension as possible. A really great thing to work on, Octaves. Moving on to number two. The second
technical thing you should work on in piano are CHORDS. Without getting into too much detail,
there are a few types of chords on piano. There are the major chords, for example.
There are minor chords
which sound much sadder than the first one. There are the diminished chords
and also the augmented chord.
My challenge to you regarding chords is to learn how to play. For example, all the majors, all the
minors, all the diminished, all the augmenteds in all keys. For example, a really simple exercise
that I can give you right now is to play with both hands the majors. So let's say we start on the C.
And I want you to travel up and play d flat major. And just keep traveling up. See if you can do
this. Every key, play the major version of that. And just to really show you really quickly that,
how I'm doing it is playing C major which I think most people know how to play. C - E - G
and then just travel up one semitone for all notes and travel up one again.
And just try to get used to all the shapes... travel down as well.
Sometimes, I even add patterns, for example, like...
...so on and so forth. We can also do it for the minors, for example.
This one sounds like Star Wars to me.
To really play around with chords, another idea for working on chords is
to play a simple chord progression. But try to do that progression in more than
just one key. For example, in the previous progression that was shown in this video...
So the original was in G major. Let's say, I want to do it in A major. Now
just keep experimenting with playing chords in different different keys. And this actually
relates also to the fourth point we talked about today - scales. Playing all these chords and
different keys also gets you used to the different sharps and flats that happen in each key.
Over time, you built this library in your head of what all the sharps and flats are.
And it improves everything: it improves your sight reading and your listening,
and playing by ear. It improves everything. So make sure you are practicing and familiarizing
yourself with chords. Moving on to our final technique for today. I think the number
one thing that beginners and intermediate pianists need to focus their attention on
is FINGERING. One of the common mistakes I see beginners do is they learn music from "Synthesia"
which doesn't give you the fingerings. And they learn the notes okay. But then they sort of do
it with very, very weird fingering that doesn't produce an efficient and flowing way of playing...
Without going into too much detail today, I recommend all beginners to actually take the
fingerings they see on their sheet music quite seriously. Sometimes, if I feel the fingerings on
the page doesn't really agree with me, what I'll do is I'll go and search up two or three other
editions on the internet. And I'll just compare the different sheet music and just have a look at
what other editors' fingerings are. I'll try them all and I'll just pick the one that I feel is most
comfortable. But I do recommend you take piano fingerings more seriously. Because my mistake
in the past was I would learn pieces; don't give too much attention to fingering. I would use my
own sort of weird fingering. And because I've then played it two or three times my own way, I find it
hard to then change. But the problem was, my way of playing the piece was extremely inefficient and
doesn't flow well to the next passage. So a really important thing I try to do with students is to
learn the fingerings right from the start. Pay attention to fingerings, guys! And there you go,
those are five techniques I think you should be working on alongside your piano pieces. They are:
PEDALING, SCALES, OCTAVES, CHORDS and finally FINGERING. Of these five things, which one of
them causes the most problems for you? Let me know in the comments below. Let me know also
if you have any other piano questions. Enjoy your practice, I'll catch you in the next one.