Speed up that slow-poke hand! If you're a right handed person, the left hand often lags behind. The remedy?  Start by practicing a very easy five note exercise. Hands an octave apart, start on C D E F G F E D C.  Do this five times slowly and evenly (preferably with a metronome, if you have one).  Then move your hand position up to D E F G A G F E D x 5.  Then move up to E, and so forth until you reach the next C. As you do this, only go as fast as your left hand will allow at a good even, steady pace.  Concentrate on the left hand - the right will follow. Have the same attitude when practicing scales.  Even, steady, only as fast as your left hand will allow.  Include scales in similar motion and contrary motion.  Begin slowly and well controlled.  Only when you feel confident increase the tempo, but always keeping even and steady. Vary your touch from legato to staccato. Practice scales for at least ten minutes before you practice your pieces. When sight reading, always play hands together.  If this is difficult, start with some really easy pieces.  Sight read through them once, and then proceed to the next piece.  Sight read through that piece, and then go on to the next etc. Aim for slow but steady progress.  Work out what the weaker hand is (usually the left) and make that hand do extra work by itself, and then when working both hands, go at the pace of the weaker hand.   Time for practice? Make it count! Have you noticed lately just how much practice your teacher is setting?  And have you also noticed that by the time you practice everything you need to THIS week, the pieces you have learned a month or two ago are practically forgotten?  What about scales and arpeggios and all that other technical work—when are you supposed to practice that?  Here’s a schedule you can follow.  It’s based on a thirty minute practice session. Try it this month and see how you go! Warm up (2minutes) Technical Work: scales, arpeggios, sight reading (5 minutes) Learn: this section is for your very latest pieces you’re working on (10 minutes) Polish:  for the pieces you need to get up to performance standard (8 minutes) Review: pieces you already know and play well. (5 minutes) Remember, it’s not the AMOUNT of time you practice; it’s what you DO with the time! Use the time suggestions as a guide only. Jazz it up! Have you ever heard jazz musicians playing together?  Do you know that, for most of what they play, they make it up right on the spot!  This means that, every time they play something, it’s always different.  They sound pretty good together, but how do they know WHAT to play?   They follow a lead sheet.  What’s that?  It’s like a map.  Gives them directions on where to go, but it’s up to them how they get there.  This is called improvising, and it’s heaps of fun to learn. The first step in learning how to improvise the way jazz musicians do, is to learn chords.  Pick three chords: the tonic, the subdominant and the dominant.  You can choose any key you like, but if you’re just a beginner, stick to C major for a while.   These are the chords you’ll need to learn: C7 = CEGBflat.  F7= FACE, G7= GBDF.   Spend some time practicing these chords. Harmonically:  all together: a solid sound.  Both hands doing exactly the same thing. Melodically: as an arpeggio, one note at a time, like a harp.  This is a prettier sound. Practice playing these chords with your metronome.  Treat the piano like a set of drums, beating out rhythms using the notes in the chords.   Try and change from chord to chord, jumping and landing on the strongest beat.  For example, using simple quadruple time (4/4) count 1 2 3 4, make sure you land on beat 1. When you have the hang of this, write up your own lead sheet.   Draw bar lines on a piece of paper, and write the chords in the bars.  Use any combination you like.  Then, put your lead sheet on the piano stand, and try to change chords when your sheet tells you to!  Mix the way you play the chords—and voila! You’re improvising!  Let yourself go with the rhythm.  After a while with practice, the less you think the better you improvise! So eaSy you can do it with your eYes closed! How do you memorize a piece of music? "n"sp;A Little at a time. "nbsp;First, divide your piece into it’s f/rm.  Epample, af it’s in binary, you'll haVe thele A and theme B.  If it’c  te2nar, AA( Rojdo form AbA#A.  Ask your teacher for help if yOu nee` to. Prtend that each theme is a piece all in itself.  First you’re goi.g to learn theme A.  Once you have memorized theme A, work on theme B, and so on. Do you have theme A there?  Great. Divide this theme into sections so that you concentrate on only two or three bars at a time.  Play these bars four times in a row, singing along with the notes as you do so.  The fifth times you play these notes, close your eyes—but continue to sing!   How did you go?  Did you get it right?  Great!  Close your eyes again, and this time, play the piece three times in a row.  That’s right, with your eyes closed!  Singing.  The third time, play without singing.   Now if you had troubles, don’t worry.  Go on to the next two or three bars and give these a go.  Play hands separately.  Don’t play too fast.  Remember to sing.  Remember the pattern: 4 times, eyes open.  5th time, eyes closed.  Singing the notes as you play. THEN 2 more times eyes closed, singing.  3rd time, eyes closed, not singing. Move on.  Even if you made mistakes.  Why?  Because you’ll be working on this for at least a whole week.  You don’t want to beat yourself up about getting it wrong.  It will only make you anxious next time you try that part.  So stick to the pattern.   Two or three bars at a time.  And remembering to sing the notes as you play!  Then just like a jig saw puzzle you can slowly put the pieces together. A picture is worth a thousand words (or notes)! Do you ever get a piece of music written by some dead guy you’ve kind of heard about, but don’t really know anything about.  Does it matter?  Do we have to know anything about the composer to play his music? You could probably get away with not knowing anything.  But you know what—it’s so much more interesting practicing his music if you know what he looks like, when he lived, what sort of clothes he wore, what expression he may have had on his face when playing a particular section of music. So what can you do about it?  Say you’ve been given a piece by Henry Purcell.  Ask Mum or Dad if you can go on the internet.  Find a search engine, like Google or Yahoo, change the setting to ‘images’ and type in his name:  Henry Purcell (for example).  You’ll probably get a selection of pictures to look at.  Download them if you like.  Print them out even.  Then, look really closely at his face.  What color eyes do you think he had?  Is he wearing a wig, or is that his real hair?  Do you think he looks happy?  Do you think he looks angry?  Why do you think he looks that way?  Do you think you would have been scared of him, or do you think he would be someone you would have liked to have met?  Now that you know what he looks like, go back to your search engine, change it back to ’web’ type in his name together with history.  Now you’ll have plenty to read about him.  Just find simple things, like, what country did he live in?  When was he born?  If he was still alive today, how old would he be?  Was he married?  Did he have kids? How old was he when he died?  Was he rich, or poor? Of course, there were female composers too.  Look up Clara Schumann.  She was a great composer.  Perhaps you could ask your teacher to learn one of her works. Would you like that Beethoven with a side of Chopin? Have you ever been asked to play the piano for someone and are completely stumped to think of what, even though you’ve been going to lessons for over a year now?  You need to make a ‘Repertoire List’. Go through all your piano books and write down the pieces you really like to play, even if it’s really simple stuff. You can make simple pieces much more interesting by repeating them either an octave lower or higher, picking out an ending phrase and using this as an introduction. Now they’re good enough to play for people. Keep your list somewhere handy so you can add to it. And remember to play those pieces on your repertoire list often! As you learn new pieces you like, you can add them to your list, too. Think of your list as a menu in a really expensive restaurant. Next time someone asks you to play, you can even give them a choice on what they’d like to hear, just as they would get a choice of what they would like to eat! Psst! Don't tell your piano teacher we said this! Music is great, isn’t it? But learning the piano can be hard work.  You want to do it, of course, but sometimes … (sigh) ... you need a break.  I know how you feel!  Have you ever thought of teaching yourself another instrument?  A really easy instrument you can play just for fun—no having to practice scales, no having to learn hard classical music that makes your brain tired sometimes.  Ask Mum or Dad if they would buy you a recorder, an ocarina, a tin whistle, a xylophone/glockenspiel or a second hand guitar next time they’re looking at buying you a gift.  Better still, save your pocket money to buy one of these cheap, easy instruments yourself.   Most of these instruments come with fingering charts, and are easy enough to play right from the beginning.  The guitar is a little harder, but if you buy a chord book and persevere with developing calluses (ouch!), you can accompany yourself singing.   Sometimes a break from all our serious hard work is refreshing.   And then we can get back to the ‘real’ stuff with new enthusiasm! Start practice by cutting the cards! Sometimes it’s hard to play pieces without the help of our teacher because those notes are just so hard to read!  No one could blame you for just giving up and playing basketball or watching TV instead.  Except your teacher.  Oh yeah.  Your teacher will want to know how your practice went.  So turn off that TV, put down that ball, and head back to the piano.  But forget about the piece you’re supposed to be practicing.  That’s right.  Don’t worry about it just yet.  Instead, you’re going to make up your own flash cards.  You’ll need some cardboard, some pens, some scissors (check with Mum or Dad first) and a ruler.  Ready? First, rule up your cardboard.  If you use 5 cm x 5cm (2 in. x 2 in.), you’ll get about 30 small cards to one A4 piece of cardboard.   Now you have to rule up the 5 lines for the staff in each square.  The quickest way is to hold the ruler across the top squares, draw all the top lines first, then move the ruler down, draw the second lines.  Keep going until you have the fifth lines.  Then move down to the next lot of boxes. Next, draw the clefs, the top lot of ’cards’ for treble, the bottom lot for bass. Now add the note.  Use semibreves (whole notes).  They’re quicker to draw.  Don’t use the notes you already know really well.  Use the ones you get stumped with all the time.  And include ledger lines, especially if you have to play these notes in the piece you have to work on. It’s time to cut out your cards. You’ll have about thirty separate cards.  One by one, look at the note you drew, and write the name of it on the back of the card.  Make sure it’s correct! Now you’re set to play a game every day this week before you begin your practice.  You can test yourself, or get your Mum or Dad to flash the cards for you to guess.  What’s better though, is if you invite a piano playing friend over for a game!  You can take it in turns to see how many you get correct in one minute.   Now that you know those notes better, try and find them as quickly as you possible in your music you have to practice.  Say the notes out loud.  See where they are on the piano.  Now, practice! Open and sing ahh! Here’s a game you can play to help you develop a good ‘ear’ for sounds.  Sing a note to yourself.  Just one long one.  Then, try and match that note with one on the piano.  Hint:  Keep around the middle C section, three notes below and about six or seven notes above—that’s where the human voice is most comfortable singing.  Keep pressing the piano keys until you get one that sounds just like your voice.  When you get good with finding one note, try two notes in a row, then three, then a complete phrase you make up yourself.  Pretty soon, you’ll be able to work out melodies just by hearing them! Make the music yours! Hey kids!  Do you roll your eyes and think, “what century does my teacher think we’re in?” every time you’re assigned a new piece for the piano?  Are you silently bored with what you have to learn, but don’t have any idea what to do about it? Try this.  For the next two weeks, listen to the radio every night—of course, make sure it’s okay with Mom or Dad first. You can choose the channel.  But you know what would be even better?  Pick a different channel every night!  Listen to it for about an hour.  If a song comes on that you REALLY like, write down the name of it, and make sure you also write down who wrote it, or sang it.  The next night, you can even phone the station and request that song again, just to make sure you really do like it.  When you have a list of at least five songs, bring the list to your teacher, and when you have the chance, ask politely if it’s possible that you could learn one of them.  Make sure you know which one you want to learn first, just in case you’re asked.  It would be even better if you already have the sheet music! Maybe your parents could buy it for you if you do extra chores around the house—or cook Mom a breakfast for her to have in bed! Pull out the Props for Proper Piano Practice! Your teacher has said again, ‘you have to do more practice’. Well, you already play all your scales, arpeggios and assigned pieces once through every day, what more could she possibly want? How ‘bout five times through each day?! Yep. That might satisfy your teacher. Here’s how to do it so that you don’t lose count. First, you need to grab some props. Five props to be exact. It’s more interesting if they’re different colours. What to use … how about plastic pegs, or game counters/tokens, or those coloured plastic paper clips? You can even use coloured pencils or pens. Now, we’re going to put these colored ‘props’ in order. Least favorite color, to most favorites. If you’re using pegs or paper clips, attach these to the top of your music page. Make sure they’re all together on one side of the page. If you’re using something else, lay these on top of one side of the piano. Okay. We’re set. Each time you play the piece, you move one of your colored objects to the opposite side of the page, or piano. Keep doing this until each prop is on the opposite side. Then, do the same with your next piece. You can do this for scales too! You can give each color a special purpose. Have you got your five different colors ready? My five colors are orange, yellow, green, purple and blue. Orange: The first time we play the piece is going to be SLOW and steady. We’re going to make sure we take our time thinking about what note is on the page, where it is on the piano, and how many counts it takes. We’re going to make sure we don’t make any mistakes, even if this takes a long time. You can look at your hands if you need to. Yellow. The second time, we’re going to do the same thing, only this time, you’re not allowed to look at your hands! Concentrate. You’ll be able to do it. Green. We’re still playing slow. This time, we have to include any expression marks, like soft and loud, and make sure we bring these out in our playing. Purple. Now we have to look carefully at the touch and phrasing. Do you have to play legato, or staccato? Concentrate on this. Blue is the last one. (Make sure you use your favorites color last because it represents your best performance.) We have to make sure we’re concentrating on all of the above! Tomorrow, do the same thing. Use different colors, or different props to keep things interesting.

 

The following graphic indicates which keys on the piano keyboard correspond with the notes on a staff of music. There is no need to know the names of the notes. Just press the key on the piano that corresponds with the note on the written music, as shown on the following image. The black image represents the piano keyboard while the red image represents the notes on a sheet of music overlaid on the piano keyboard. (The notes that correspond with the black keys are not displayed.)

If the written note has a in front of it, play the note immediately to the right on the keyboard. If the written note has a in front of it, play the note immediately to the left on the keyboard. For example:

Try to touch the piano keys lightly and gently. If your fingers are rigid, stiff, with the anxiety of trying to get the right notes at the right time, it will be much more difficult to get it right. A relaxed hand is much easier to get the the right place at the right time.

Play something you like and that you are familiar with. In time, you will be able to look at any sheet of music and play something close to what is written, but there is no sense adding the burden of playing unfamiliar music on top of learning to press the right key. When we learned to type, we learned by typing familiar words. We didn't learn to type obscure chemical names or technical jargon. The same applies to the piano. When starting out, play what is fun for you. Anything you play will develop your skill.

If you are practicing to play by ear, play what you are familiar with: advertising jingles, TV theme music, popular folk songs, etc.

Do you play by ear? I recommend you try it. I found that my fluidity went up greatly when I started playing by ear. Or in other words, without any music, sit down and play the melody to some songs that are very familiar to you. Add some harmony as appropriate. This should be music that you have not previously played from a printed page.

Since I started learning to play by ear, the music I play from a printed sheet sounds better. My fingers just seem to anticipate where the next note is going to be, even if my eyes haven't quite caught up. You don't have to become an expert at playing by ear, but if you practice until you can do it a little bit, it will greatly improve your sight reading capabilities!

Another idea that has more to do with biology than anything else, is to play the piece you are learning immediately before going to bed. It should be the last thing you do before laying your head on the pillow. During the day, our brain stores many things in short term memory. These memories are transferred to long term memory during sleep. If you are doing anything after your practice, the memories of your practice session will tend to get overwritten by the events you do later in the day. Playing the song one time just before bed, will bring these memories to the foreground. They will be transferred to long term memory more efficiently.

The trick is to play what you play in the proper rhythm, even if you only play a portion of the song. In other  words, practice keeping the rhythm going at the expense of everything else. Don't play the cords, or play one or two notes in the cord rather than the whole thing.  Before long, you will be able to get more and more notes included in the cords, or you will learn which notes are optional. In most cases nobody but you will realize that there is a note missing.

For scales:

The orthodox technique, for example if you are going up the scale with  the right hand, would be to play the first three notes starting with your thumb, and then after playing the note under your middle finger to play the next note with your thumb again. (The thumb crosses under.) Going back down the scale, starting with the pinky on your right hand, you would play five notes, and then your middle finger would cross over the top of the  thumb to play the next lower note.

Playing with the left hand is a mirror image of what the right  hand does.

For regular music:

The same sort of arrangement applies, but it is also common to just pick up your hands and move them so that they span the next sequence of notes you are expecting to play.

(Nearly always) play with both hands, don't try to separate them.

Don't worry about skipping a note here or there in the harmony. If you don't get there in time,  just go on to the next one, or make up a harmony! Few listeners will be able to tell. After a while your left hand will develop a feel for where the notes might be expected to be. After a while, your right hand will be able to pick out the melody essentially by ear without having to pay so much attention to the notes on the page, thus allowing you to pay more attention to the left hands harmonies. These two trends will combine together to  make playing easier and easier. Doing a little bit of playing by ear, and a little bit of sight reading new music, will help to strengthen these trends.

So often, a parent will say, "Don't touch the piano", or "Quit making such awful noise on the piano", then the parent wonders why the children don't want to play the piano when formal lessons start. Children learn best by doing. Let them goof with the keys while you play. (It's less intrusive if you put them on the right side of you!) Or let them make horrible sounds by themselves, and if they accidentally play something that sounds good, be sure to acknowledge it, so it will be more likely to occur in the future. My son by the age of 8 was playing well both by reading music, and by ear, without ever having had a lesson. He just tinkered around. Not saying that there aren't some pretty unmusical things coming out of the piano, (even now), but overall the joy of listening to him play compensates for any bit of patience that was required.

To make learning sheet music easier, take a staff of music, cut it up into little pieces, and tape the pieces to the appropriate key on the piano, right up next to the body so they won't be in the way. Here's some notes if you want to try this at your place. You can tell where they go by looking at the staff at the top of this page.

The library is a great place to find music. Especially if you are learning to sight read. You can check out a book, play the songs in it a few times, and then go on to another book. This way, you always have a fresh challenge and don't get bored with the same old stuff.

Sheet music in PFD format may be downloaded from Shopping.Lofthouse.com.

Another fun book to play from is called a fake book. They typically come with just the melodies of the songs, and perhaps recommendations for what cords sound good with a particular part of the melody. You make up your own accompaniment as you feel best. To the uninitiated, it sounds like full blown sheet music, but the pianist knows what's really going on.

The grand mystery to playing by ear is deciding which note to start out on. If you choose that note properly, the rest of the music is greatly simplified. It also helps if you play the music in the key of C (no sharps or flats). To choose the first note, hum the last note in the song as a C. Then hum the first note in the song, and match it to the piano. This is simplified, because the starting note will typically be one of the notes in the base cord of the last note. (see drawing below)

The cords illustrated below, on the bottom staff, are the most typical cords in the key of C, which is the simplest key to play in. The notes on the top staff are typical of what notes you might be playing at the same time as playing the cord.

I usually go about it the other way around. If I'm playing a C note in the melody, I will typically form a C cord with the left. If I'm playing a D with the right hand, I'll typically form a G cord with the left. There's no hard and fast rules, play what sounds good. (The small grids above the staff are for guitarists.)

They're all played about the same way. On the piano, folks will often use the sustain pedal so that the note can be played, and then your fingers immediately leave the note and go onto another note. On the organ, you will need to keep your fingers on the key for as long as you want it to make a sound. Synthesizers may allow you to set this behaviour.

And finally, relax. It's so easy with quick moving songs to let the fingers get all tensed up with the challenge of being on the right key at the right time.