Why Should I Practice Scales? (And Other Life-Altering Questions)

Category: Practice and Performance, Technique

There are certain questions I can ask myself over and over and never be satisfied with the answer, like: Why can’t I eat donuts for supper? or: Why do I have to go to work? But the most troubling of all questions is this: Why should I practice scales?

Well, I can think of a few reasons, and Google can think of a few more, so if my post doesn’t quell your curiosity, feel free to type www.google.com into your browser’s address bar. (If you need more help on using Google, you can email me, I have been called an expert. Actually, I haven’t – but I’m working on it.)

Reason Number 1: Helps to practice in a key signature

This is probably the greatest benefit to practicing scales. By practicing scales, you are essentially practicing a particular key signature. This will help greatly when playing a tune in said key signature. Your fingers have memory, and when you practice scales you are developing this memory. This will come in really handy when you want to improve your improvisation skills. I have a new post planned called “Improve Your Improv”… It’s in the planning stage – well, it has been in that stage for two years. (By “planning stage”, I mean that the post has a title.) Anyhow, you will see this theme recurring in that post. Expect great things from that post. When it comes, it will be mind-blowing.

Reason Number 2: Warming Up

Scales are a great way to warm up and get the blood flowing to the tips of your fingers. I’m sure there are ways that are more fun, but this is a PG-rated blog post.

Reason Number 3: Scales are the building blocks of music

When I practice the C major scale,  I’m also practicing half of Mozart’s Sonata in C major. You know this sonata .. think back to the days you were obsessed with Bugs Bunny… or was I the only one that went through that phase? (By the way: Thank you Musopen for providing access to this recording).

All piano music is made of chord, scales, and other interval combinations. There is no way around it.. unless you consider banging your head on the piano, “music”. So when you practice chords, scales, and other intervals, you are practicing parts of songs, although it may not feel like it – and it definitely doesn’t sound like it.

So, like it or not, these are my three reasons why one should practice scales on the piano.  And if you don’t like it, you can always go to Google.

photo credit: Pink Sherbet Photography

Lesson 32: Intervals of the Major Scale

Category: Lessons, Music Theory

Now it’s time to learn the intervals of the major scale. Just to mix it up, lets use the G major scale. Do you remember how to write a major scale? If you don’t, look here.

Here is the G major scale. As you can see, the G major scale has one sharp: F sharp. I put a lot of effort into this graphic, I might make it my facebook profile picture.

I’ll spend a few minutes explaing myself. In a major scale, there are 8 intervals based on the tonic note. The intervals are: perfect unison, major second, major third, perfect fourth, perfect fifth, major sixth, major seventh, and perfect octave.  (The above graphic does not show perfect unison.) If you remember, during the introduction to intervals lesson, I mention that each interval has a quality. The quality of basic intervals can be major, minor, or perfect. More advanced intervals can be described as augmented or diminished. We are focusing on the major intervals in this lesson.

You might be asking yourself: Why are some of the intervals described as “major”, while others are described as “perfect”? Well, there are several reasons that are floating around. One reason is that the “perfect” intervals have high levels of consonance.  The other reason is that if you invert a perfect interval you’ll end up with another (different) perfect interval. But I would like to think that a perfect interval is called perfect because it cannot be described as either major or minor. Perfect intervals exist in BOTH major and minor scales. But I’m not going to discuss minor scales right now – gotta keep you coming back now, don’t I?

Practice Method: Start at the End

Category: Practice and Performance

If you have been practicing an instrument for any significant period of time, you may be able to relate to my experience. When I sit down to practice a new song, I usually start at the beginning, and practice a single phrase. If the phrase is difficult, I may repeat it many times before I am happy and move on. Once I get to the end of a section, I will practice the section in full, repeating any phrases that cause difficulty. By the time I get past a new section, I can hear cheese calling my name from the fridge, and the call of cheese is the call I cannot ignore.

There is one critical flaw in this method, can you guess what it is? (Hint: It is not cheese-related bowel gridlock, although that is a worrisome problem.) Rather, when I practice from beginning to end, I often find that my finishes are lacking fluency and pizzazz. Quite simply, my endings aren’t practiced nearly as many times as my beginnings!

To combat the erratic-ending syndrome, one could employ the following technique: Start elsewhere. As complex as it may seem, it is actually quite simple. When you intend to do laborious phrase-by-phrase practicing, don’t always start at the beginning. Start at the end; start in the middle; just start ELSEWHERE. Work your way from the end to the beginning of the last section, or from the middle to the end of the next section.

Of course, don’t always start at the end, or you might catch the erratic-beginning syndrome, which is just as bad – probably worse than the erratic-ending syndrome.  The key is to mix it up. Speaking of mixing it up, I hear some gouda calling my name…

photo credit: PetitPlat – Stephanie Kilgast (in dolly mood)

Quick Tidbit: Inverting Intervals

Category: Music Theory

Here is something interesting that you might want to know, since we are learning about intervals. If you are learning to play the piano, it will be important that you are able to invert intervals and chords. Right now, we will focus on intervals.

What does inverting an interval mean? It means taking the bottom note of the interval and putting it on top – essentially turning it upside down. This can be done one of two ways:

• by moving the bottom note up and octave
• by moving the top note down an octave

Look at the graphic below and try to recognize which method was used to invert the interval. After you have done that, you might want to try inverting your own intervals (heehee) on paper, and on the piano.

OK, so I have a confession to make: inverting intervals isn’t that interesting… I only told you it was interesting so that you wouldn’t leave the page. I’m pretty sure it didn’t work, and I’m most likely the only one left here. Time to get craaaazay.

Lesson 31: Major Scales and Key Signatures

Category: Lessons, Music Theory

Before we embark upon this journey, you may want to review the concept of key signatures in Lesson 20: Key Signatures. You don’t have to, it’s just a suggestion. I will briefly review the basic concept of a key signature before I go on.

A key signature is a group of sharps or a group of flats that appear at the beginning of a piece of music. The key signatures tells the musician which sharps and flats are to be played throughout the piece of music. A key signature can be used instead of using accidentals. To illustrate my point, I will use the scale of D major.

As you can see, the key signature is just a grouping of the accidentals that would have appeared in the scale. It makes music simpler to read, and allows the musician to identify the “key” of the music more easily. After writing out the D major scale, we know the key of D major contains an F sharp and a C sharp. Now whenever we see a key signature consisting of 2 sharps (F sharp and C sharp) we know that the piece might be in the key of D major. (It may also be in the relative minor key of B, but we will learn about minor key signatures in a future lesson.)

That brings me to my next point. The sharps and flats in key signatures ALWAYS appear in the same order. The order of sharps is F-C-G-D-A-E-B. See Lesson 20 for tricks to remember the order of the sharps and flats. The order of flats is B-E-A-D-G-C-F, backwards from the order of sharps.

So here is the fun part: Each major key has a different key signature – a different number of sharps and flats. To find out this key signature, one may do one of two things:

First thing – Create the major scale using the magic formula discussed in Lesson 29. Find all of accidentals that you put in the major scale, and group them in the correct order. That is your key signature for that key.

Second thing – Memorize the table below or memorize the Circle of Fifths (discussed here). From the table below you can see that C major has no flats or sharps. F major has one flat, and G major has one sharp.. on and on it goes until you get into the scary keys like F sharp. Try to avoid the F sharp major key, it is nothing but trouble…

To learn the key signatures, I would recommend a combination of both things. The first thing will give you a better understanding of key signatures. The second thing is faster, and sometimes faster is better. Not always, but definitley sometimes.

Lesson 30: Chromatic Scales

Category: Lessons, Music Theory

Now that you have learned about major scales, lets take a small step back and digest. Ahhh.. feels good, doesn’t it? Now for something light.. for the entrée, we have a lovely little tidbit called the chromatic scale. It is a Greek dish, originating from the Greek word “chroma”, meaning “color”.

A chromatic scale is quite simple, as it consists entirely of semitones. No magic formula to follow here. It is a 12 note scale, and contains each and every note between the starting note and its octave. There are several ways to write a chromatic scale, I will show you a few of these in this lesson.

You can write a chromatic scale using accidentals. Just remember that no letter name should occur more than twice in a row. For example, do not use A flat, A natural, and A sharp.  Instead, you could use A flat, A natural, and B flat. You see? Same notes, different notation. Another thing to remember is that the chromatic scale must begin and end on the same letter name.

When using accidentals to write a chromatic scale, if the starting note is a natural or a sharp, use sharps ascending and flats descending. The only caveat to this rule is that the first note and the final note must be the same, so if the first note is a sharp, the last note must be a sharp as well. See the images below for an example of a chromatic scale starting on a natural note and on a sharp note.

If the starting note is a flat, you must use flats and naturals until you can switch without breaking the “two-letter-name” rule. See the scale below.

OK, so I thought I was going to show you the other way to write a chromatic scale, and I will write about it briefly, but to be honest, I don’t like it.  The other way to write a chromatic scale is to use the key signature of the major scale, and add in notes with accidentals, keeping in mind that the interval between the mediant (3) and subdominant (4) of the major scale is already a semitone, as well as the interval between the leading note (7) and the tonic (8). If anyone REALLY wants a demonstration of this technique, please leave a comment, otherwise I will leave this topic well enough alone. It’s for the best, trust me. And honestly, who really needs to know 2 different ways to write chromatic scales? It’s kindof like math, you’ll never use it in real life.

Lesson 29: Scales and Why We Need Them.

Category: Lessons, Music Theory

Well, it has officially been over a year since I posted my last lesson. I’m sure you have been waiting patiently, checking the website daily; brimming with hope that I would post the next lesson. And every day for the past year, you would have been sorely disappointed, your hopes dashed as the new lesson did not appear. And for that, I apologize. Let me make it up to you by teaching you about scales.

The first question you must be asking is: What is a scale? Well, I will answer that question for you. A scale is a series of ascending and descending notes, that often repeat from octave to octave. Scales are important tools that can be used for composition.  Ever heard of a blues (hexatonic) scale? Many blues musicians use this scale to help with melodic improvisation while playing the blues.

We won’t be learning about the blues scale today, but I will teach you about a different basic scale – the C major scale. In the C major scale the “C” is the key. The C note can also be called the “root” or the “tonic” note. “Major” is how we describe the quality or the type of the scale. Other scale types could be minor, chromatic, pentatonic, etc.. The list goes on and on.

So, how do we construct a major scale? The major scale has a basic formula, no matter what note you are starting on. The basic formula is this: Tone-Tone-Semitone-Tone-Tone-Tone-Semitone. Uh, got it? If you don’t remember about tones and semitones, you can review them in Lesson 23: Tones, Semitones, Chromatic Semitones, Diatonic Semitones.

OK, so let’s apply this magic to the C major scale so you can see what you are dealing with. A major scale has seven notes: tonic (1), supertonic (2), mediant (3), subdominant (4), dominant (5), submediant (6), and leading note (7). These are just names, most are not really that important except the tonic (1), and dominant (5) which will come up again in later lessons.

So, whats your tonic note in a C major scale? … C! Nice work, detective.

From there it gets a bit more complicated. Remember the magic formula Tone-Tone-Semitone-Tone-Tone-Tone-Semitone. This means the interval between the first note (C) and the second note is a whole tone. That would make the second note.. a D. D is a whole tone above C. So D is our supertonic note. Lets go onto the next note, which we know is a whole tone from D. That would be an E. Our mediant or third note is an E. Now, following the formula, our next note is a SEMITONE away from E… E#? Oh wait, that’s F! So our subdominant (4th note) is an F…  and on and on it goes until all 7 notes of the scale are discovered. Can you figure them out?

You may discover that the C major scale is quite.. simple. No sharps, no flats, no jack-in-the-boxes, no kicks-in-the-a$$. This is not true for all of the major scales. If you are up for the challenge, try to write out the notes of the F major scale. I’m not going to give you the answer here, but if you post the answer, I will tell you if you are right.

For now, I will leave you with a handy-dandy graphic of the C major scale with our lovely major scale formula superimposed between the notes. This might give you a better idea of how to create a major scale.

 

Oh, so I forgot to mention that major scales end on the tonic note. You can see this in the scale above.

I think thats it. See you next year.

From Classical to Jazz: Making the Transition

Category: Jazz

I expect that making the transition from classical piano to jazz piano is going to come with it’s fair share of challenges. Classical piano and jazz piano differ in areas, but they are also very similar.  I thought it would be helpful to outline the differences and the similarities between classical and jazz performance.

Similarities:

• Compositional form and structure: Every piece of music has a “form”; a term used to describe the shape and structure of the piece.
• Expression: Both jazz and classical compositions encourage the use of expression to shape the piece. The use of dynamics is very important in both genres.
• Major and minor keys: Classical music is composed of a number chords. Major, minor, and dominant seventh are very popular in classical compositions. Jazz shares these chords, while also using a variety of other chord types that make the genre very interesting and complex.
• Solo/Accompaniment: Both genres have this fundamental similarity. The piano can be used for accompaniment, or as a solo instrument.

Differences:

• Rhythm translation: Jazz can be much more liberal with the translation of rhythms, while classical music usually follows strict meter. Jazz tends to have a “swing” in the rhythm.
• Improvisation: This is very a very important part of jazz music, and is rarely used in classical music. Mastering improvisation is probably one of the more difficult challenges in the classical-to-jazz transition. Along with this comes freedom to alter melodies.
• Four-note chords: As described above, classical music uses a lot of 3-note chords (major, and minor), while jazz tends to use different, more complex chords. Four note chords are very common in jazz music.

Now that we are aware of some of the similarities and differences, what is the next step?… Well, how do we overcome the differences and utilize the similarities to master the jazz technique? Besides technical exercises to become familiar with jazz chords, what are some techniques that we can use to improve our improvisational skills? It’s all coming up.. and more! Stay tuned..

photo credit: [phil h]

Finding the Time

Category: Miscellaneous

Oh my – how time gets away from me. The older I get, the more things I want to do, but the less time I have.  On my list-du-jour:  Go to the gym more often, write in my blog more often, renovate the kitchen, learn french, go to the pottery studio more often, develop an iphone application, learn jazz piano,  and the list goes on. (I know you were wondering where the piano fit into the picture – there it is! )

I find myself saying these words a lot: “Once things settle down with x, I can focus more on y. ” Then another x comes along and ousts y from its position of importance, and y ends up being delayed indefinitely.

So does y ever happen? Sometimes. My kitchen is currently being renovated and I have holes in the wall to prove it.  On the other hand, I haven’t been to the pottery studio or the gym in months, even while paying a membership fee in both places. (That should motivate me to go, right?…)

So, how do I MAKE y happen? How do I find the time to go to the pottery studio, or to learn how to play jazz piano? I’m no expert (obviously), but this is my plan.

1. Decide what is important to me. I have a long list of things I would like to do, and goals I would like to achieve. Realistically, I can’t focus on all of these goals at once. So I have to decide what is important to me and why.

2. Identify the steps to make my goals reality. OK. I know I want to learn to play jazz piano (as well as a few other things). I’ve decided that it’s important to me to keep growing musically. Now what? Well.. where do I start? I have a plethora of resources at my fingertips already. I’ve ordered The Jazz Piano Book by Mark Levine which seems to be THE book to start learning jazz chords and theory. I’ve also ordered several other jazz chord and technical books. I’ll include reviews once I’ve received them and become familiar with them.

3. SCHEDULE TIME. I need to make this goal a priority and decide WHEN I’m going to work on it. I’m not going to wait until after my kitchen renovations are finished. I’m not going to wait until the conditions are perfect. I’m not even going to wait until my books come in the mail (although I’m really looking forward to them arriving.)

Planning and scheduling time is probably one of the most important steps in the process of achieving a goal. Well, that and following through with the plan…

** Disclaimer: I’ve been reading motivation and self-improvement books lately, and I’m afraid it has leaked into this blog. This is not a self-improvement blog…. or is it? *cue creepy music*..  As an aside, publishing your goals (by telling people about them), helps keep you accountable thereby increasing your chances of success. By writing this blog post, I’m publishing my goals to my readers.. all one of them (Hi Glenn!)… hopefully this will keep me accountable and help me succeed!

Creative Commons License photo credit: Βethan

Could this be goodbye?

Category: Miscellaneous

It’s not often that I write something personal in this blog. After all, who wants to hear the life story of an average someone-or-other that they will never meet and will most likely never impact their life in any way that is meaningful or significant? But…damn it, this is my blog. And I am going to exercise my blogger rights by writing about my life.  Before I do, I would like to remind you that you, as a reader, have the right NOT to read it.  So it all works out in the end. If you choose to exercise that right, you should stop reading…… NOW.

For those of you that are still reading… Hi! My name is Sharlene, and I’m the owner of a piano. An old piano. I don’t know what year it was made, I don’t know the model, I don’t even know the manufacturer. What I do know is this – I’m going to miss it.

To make a short story shorter: I’m moving. I’m moving and my piano is not coming with me. It’s the piano that I grew up with; the piano I’ve been playing for 25 years. It has seen my tears, my frustrations, and more renditions of chopsticks than anyone cares to remember.  I can’t even imagine how many hours I have spent in front of that piano in my life time. How many sonatas have I played? How many wrong notes? How many perfect melodies?

And as much as I have dreamed about owning a gorgeous baby grand, thinking about saying goodbye to my piano brings a tear to my eye.  Who would have thought that this contraption made of wood and metal would have the power to invoke such emotion? But I suppose it always has…

Goodbye piano..

(I probably should have named it… Missed that boat I guess..)

The Circle of Fifths: Better than chocolate.

Category: Music Theory

Oh I know I’ve talked about the circle of fifths before. But my feelings are strong, and I never tire of talking about it. So I’m feeling the need to spill my guts about the circle of fifths, right here in this post. You’ve been warned.

Here is a short list of what the circle of fifths can help you with. It can:

• help you identify the 12 tones in the chromatic scale (which we have already discussed here)
• help you identify the corresponding key signatures
• help you compose music
• help you understand relationships between different key signatures
• help you build chords
• help you change your tires
• help you get the kids ready for school

OK.. not the last two things… only in my dreams…

… Getting back on track. Ahem.

As you can see, I’ve included an image from Wikipedia of the circle of fifths. There is a lot of stuff going on. Let us discuss.

Start at the top. On the outside of the circle you see the major keys. They are organized with the simplest keys at the top. That is, the key of C has no sharps or flats. As you traverse clockwise, the key of G major (which is a fifth above the key of C) has 1 sharp. As you traverse even more, the key of D major (which is a fifth above G), has 2 sharps.. And on and on it goes until you reach 7 sharps. If you need to review key signatures, you can do it here.

You may notice that it gets a bit weird once you reach 5 sharps.. You see two key signatures (one with sharps and one with flats) instead of one. This is because the same notes can be referenced by either sharp or flat notation. I wrote about this in Lesson 19.. Feel free to go back and review it if you feel like it.  So, 5 sharps is the equivalent of 7 flats, 6 sharps is the equivalent of 6 flats, and so on..  You’ll notice that as you traverse clockwise, the number of flats diminishes. We start with 7 flats at the key of B major, and decrease the number of flats by one each time we go to the next key… until you reach the key of C again, which has no sharps and no flats.

The minor keys are on the inside of the circle, starting with the key of A minor. The same theory applies to this inner circle, so I’m not going to go into detail.

Well. There you go. It sounds more complicated than it is. Just wait until I try to explain to you how it helps me change my tires.

Lesson 28: Introduction to Intervals – type, size, and quality

Category: Lessons, Music Theory

Intervals: what are they and what are they good for? An INTERVAL is the distance in pitch between any two notes. There are two different types of intervals; HARMONIC and MELODIC. With harmonic intervals, both notes are played at the same time. Melodic intervals occur when notes are played in succession, one after the other.

Intervals also have a size. That is, how far away the notes are from each other. This is represented by a number (usually 1-8). For example, the SIZE of the interval between D and A is: D-E-F-G-A… 5 notes.  The size of the interval doesn’t change when sharps or flats are introduced. The size of the interval between D and A is the same as the size of the interval between D and A flat. Here are a few examples of interval sizes:

The last thing (and most challenging thing) we will learn about intervals is that each interval has a QUALITY. The quality indicates whether the interval is MAJOR, MINOR, or PERFECT, etc.. Often the quality will depend on the accidentals or key signatures that are present. Identifying the quality of an interval takes some practice and is beyond the scope of this lesson, but I will delve into this topic soon enough. Probably sooner than you would like.

Brief summary to wrap up: Intervals: important. Type: harmonic or melodic. Size: distance between notes. Quality: major, minor, perfect, etc. Me Tarzan. You Jane.

Why does an octave have 12 notes?

Category: Miscellaneous

Why does an octave have 12 notes? Well, it turns out that this is one of those questions that is not easily answered. There are theories; there are mathematical models; there are stories of UFOs and divine intervention. We may never know the right theory, but some seem more plausible than others.

While I generally lean towards the theory that “aliens did it”,  I’m going to offer up an alternative scenario, then you can decide for yourself what to believe.

I’m sure you have noticed that when you play two different notes on the keyboard at the same time they can either sound good together, or they can sound bad. In music, the good sounds are called consonant sounds. Bad sounds are called dissonant sounds. My theory is that the 12 notes of the octave were chosen based on their consonant tonal qualities.

Imagine you have 2 strings, one is twice as long as the other.  The longer string will produce a tone that is exactly one octave lower than the shorter string. That is, both strings will produce the same note in a different octave. (For example, low A vs high A). This must have been a pretty exciting discovery way back in the day. I don’t expect you to be too excited about it given all of the new fandangled technology that we are exposed to, but I’m going to pretend you are. Carrying on..

Well, you can imagine that the dude who just discovered octaves was curious… What would happen if he took another string, and cut it so that it was longer than the shorter string by a half? (That is, 1.5 times the length of the shorter string) And voila, another interval was discovered. The interval from the shortest string to the middle string is a perfect fifth.

What made this discovery exciting was that the perfect fifth interval sounds consonant to us. That is, it sounds good and harmonious to us. So, now that octaves and perfect fifths were discovered, what was discovered next? The truth is, nothing else NEEDED to be discovered.. from the discovery of octaves and perfect fifths, the 12 note octave may have been born… If you know about the circle of fifths, you will know why.

The circle of fifths shows the relationship between every note in the scale. You can pick any note in the scale, and end up back at the same note by using the circle of fifths. Let’s start with C:

C -> G -> D -> A -> E -> B -> F# -> C# -> Ab -> Eb -> Bb -> F -> C

Here is the same thing described in a graphical format:

You can see that no matter where you start, eventually you will end up right back where you started, but only after traversing through all of the notes in the octave.

The moral of this story is: Just because you CAN explain something with mathematical models, doesn’t mean that is how it was discovered. Sometimes a guy banging on wires is all you need.

**Disclaimer: There may or may not have been a dude banging on wires, and he may or may not have discovered the 12-note octave. I made him up. However, the circle of fifths is a real and valuable tool that I will discuss in more depth at a later time.

How does a piano work?

Category: Miscellaneous

How does a piano make noise? Well, as much as I like to imagine that there are little piano-gnomes that live behind my sheetmusic, sometimes it’s better to face reality. And in reality, how a piano works has a lot to do with physics and mechanics, and less to do with mythical creatures.

While the piano is often grouped in with percussion instruments, it actually depends on strings to make noise. The pitch of a string (that is, the high or low quality) depends on a string’s length and tension. The longer and looser the string, the LOWER the pitch will be. The shorter and tighter the string, the HIGHER the pitch will be. This makes a lot of sense if you think about sound as a series of vibrations. Long and loose strings will vibrate more slowly, so the resulting FREQUENCY of the note will be LOW. Short and tight strings will vibrate more quickly, resulting in a higher frequency, and therefore a higher note.

So, if you took a look at the inside of your piano, you would find a series of strings – each corresponding to a key on the keyboard. A keyboard with 88 keys will have 88 corresponding strings. So now that we know about the existance of the strings, how does the piano use them to make noise? With other stringed instruments the noise-production process is more obvious: You strum the guitar, stroke a violin with a bow, and pluck a harp. But in the piano, you press a key, a bunch of magic happens, and a sound comes out.

This “magic” is actually a complicated mechanism that translates the downward stroke of the key (or action) into a hammer striking a string. Rather than me explaining this mechanism to you, take a look at it here.  You’re glad I didn’t explain it to you now, aren’t you? This mechanism varies depending on whether you have an upright piano or a grand piano. This is because the upright piano strings are strung vertically, while the grand piano strings are strung horizontally.

So we’ve made it to the point where we have sound. A little bit of sound, but sound nonetheless. If the piano were only to consist of keys, hammer, strings, and nothing else, your fortissimo’s would sound a little… pianissimo. That, my friends, is why we have a soundboard. Because nothing is worse than having your fortissimo sound like a pianissimo.  Trust me. To combat that problem a soundboard collects the vibrations from the strings, and retransmits the sound, kindof like the body of an acoustic guitar.

The last thing I’m going to mention is the damper. It is a felted block that rests against the strings to stop their vibration. Without the damper in place, a key that is pressed will ring out until it gradually fades away. The damper absorbs the vibrations of the string so that it only sounds for a short time. The damper pedal (rightmost pedal) actually lifts the damper block from the strings so that the strings can ring out. Try it! Play a short note without the pedal, and then play the same note with the pedal depressed. You’ll notice that the note played while the pedal was down will last longer than the note played while the pedal was up.

That’s the piano in a nutshell. Now that the physics lesson is over, I’m going to resume my piano-gnome fantasies.

photo credit: Zellaby

Mamma Mia! Musica Italiana!

Category: Miscellaneous, Musical Terminology

In preparation for my upcoming trip to Italy, I thought it would be appropriate to teach you some of my extensive Italian vocabulary. Many Italian musical terms are used in musical composition, and in the English language.  In fact, there are SO many Italian words used in musical composition, that in this post, I’m only going to focus on a small subset of them: a few of my favourite words used to describe tempo.  And, oh my goodness, the word “tempo” itself is the first word we will learn!

Tempo

I discussed the use of the word tempo in a previous post. Basically, the word tempo is synonymous with speed. It can be used in a musical context; For example, to describe the speed of a piece of music. However, it can be used outside of the musical context as well, to describe the rate of a repeating event. For example, runners may use the word tempo in the context of describing running pace, or heart rate.

Largo

Largo is a term that you will come across quite often in classical music. Translated literally, it means “broad”. A piece marked Largo will be slow and drawn out.  A piece of music you may want to listen to is the second movement of the New World Symphony by Dvorak. This will give you an idea of what largo is. Actually, you can listen to it here! Yay, don’t you just love the internet?!

Presto

The word brings up imagery of magicians and rabbits popping out of hats… In music, it should bring up the same imagery. OK, maybe slightly different. There are no magicians, and no rabbits. No hats either. Really, all it means in music is VERY FAST. Check out this piece of music and tell me it isn’t presto enough for you!

Rubato

The literal translation is  “robbed time”… Hunh? This is my favourite tempo marking. It means that the music can be free flowing, and doesn’t have to follow a steady and strict rhythm. This means you are free to take some creative liberties with the music. My buddy, Claude used this marking in his music quite often. You may know Claude – he composed the famous piece called “Clair de Lune”, which is marked “tempo rubato” in sections. Great guy.

photo credit: David Paul Ohmer

Lesson Plans For Kids: Preparation

Category: Lesson Plans for Kids

I know I’ve touched on the topic of teaching children in previous posts, but I thought it would be fun to have a series of posts designed to help parents and teachers come up with fun ways to teach their students and children. Children are able to learn the most when you are able to keep them engaged in the material. How do you do that? Well, you make it fun!

So, I’m going to prepare some lesson plans, and hopefully some additional downloadable material that can be incorporated into lesson plans for kids.

Before we get started there may be some basic supplies that you will want to consider:

1. A whiteboard - What classroom wouldn’t be complete without a whiteboard? It’s fun to write on, and easy to erase. A great way to provide visual stimulation. Get funky with the colours.
2. A computer – The internet is wonderful for so many reasons – there is a plethora of resources available to you and your child.
3. A method book - This may be Alfred’s or Bastien, or another method. You may choose not to use a method series, but I would recommend getting the books either way. At the very least they will provide you with songs for practicing, even if you choose not to follow their method.
4. Assignment books – This could be a notebook, or journal that you would use to coordinate assignments and progress on a weekly basis.
5. Achievement Awards – Depending on the age of child you are teaching, this could be any number of things. Some ideas are: ribbons, stickers, certificates, knick knacks, pencils, erasers, etc. These are intended to reward the child for their achievement.
6. Flash Cards – Flash cards are a fun way to do musical drills and memorization work.
7. Blank Staff Paper – Blank paper can be downloaded from any number of places. For teaching children, you want to make sure the staff is big enough for them to use.

These items will probably give you a good head start in your teaching ventures. If a specific lesson requires anything extra, I’ll mention it  in the lesson plan outline. If you have any ideas that I can use for this series, please reply with a comment or email me.

photo credit: Forty Two.

Improve Your Sight Reading Skills

Category: Practice and Performance

In a previous post I discussed the importance of sight reading. That’s all well and good, but if I don’t give you any practical tips, what good am I? (Even if I do give you some practical tips, I am probably of limited use to you.) So this post is dedicated to discussing some tips and techniques you can use to improve your sight reading skills. Actually, the word “tips” makes it sound like improving your sight reading will be easy. It’s not. It requires a lot of dedication to become a good sight reader, and it won’t happen overnight. But, with time and effort, you can improve your sight reading skills to the level that you desire.

Step 1: Improve your knowledge of music theory. Know your key signatures and chords so that you can identify them in a piece of music. Know common chord progressions. And hey! it looks like you are taking a good step in visiting my blog! Good for you! Here you will find some useful (and some not so useful) information on musical theory. (<- shameless self-promotion)

Step 2: Start simple. You didn’t learn to read by picking up Tolstoy. Well, I shouldn’t speak for you. *EDIT* I didn’t learn to to read by picking up Tolstoy. Similarly, you probably won’t learn to sight read by trying to play Chopin’s Fantasie Impromptu right off the bat. A good rule of thumb is to start sight reading several grade levels below your current level. If you find that unreasonably easy or difficult, adjust as necessary. If you are a beginner yourself, you are learning about sight reading at the perfect time! Starting early will allow you to develop your sight reading skills along with your technique. And that’s a good thing.

Step 3: Start slow. When first starting to practice sight reading, you don’t necessarily need to play the pieces up to the correct speed. The elements of music that you have to worry about when sight reading in order of importance  are:

• Most important: Notes and duration. Hit the right notes for the right amount of time, and you are golden!
• Next most important: Dynamics. Make your louds loud, and your softs, soft. Put some feeling into it!
• Also important, but a little less so: Your tempo. Advanced students will want to put a little more focus on this aspect of sight reading, but for beginners, slow and steady wins the race!

Step 4: Play A LOT of music. Don’t practice it! This means playing through the piece once, and then leaving it be. Don’t repeat sections, don’t study the music. Just let it rest.

Step 5: Play a lot of DIFFERENT music. Different styles, different keys, different books, just different!

Step 6:  Try not to look at your hands as you play. Learning to sight read is learning about where the keys are on the keyboard just as much as where the notes are on the page. Looking up and down from a piece of music can be difficult. Eventually, with practice, you will just KNOW where the keys are without looking at your fingers. (Kindof like a Jedi power, but cooler.)

Step 7: Scan ahead. As you play, try to be looking at the next measure and recognizing notes, rhythms, patterns, and other goings on. Scanning ahead will prepare your brain for what it needs to tell your hands to do.

Step 8: Use memorization with caution. I think I’ve touched on this before. Memorization is not always a bad thing. Indeed, it is sometimes even a good thing! But memorization can actually hinder your sight-reading progress. Don’t memorize every song you play. Look at the book while you play, and deliberately read the music.

As a side note, I feel like I’ve used more exclamation marks in this post than I usually do. Part of me finds this to be slightly disturbing.

photo credit: »grahamblackall

Sight Reading: It’s Important!

Category: Practice and Performance

Close your eyes and imagine you are one of the world’s greatest pianists. World renowned. (Actually, don’t close your eyes – continue reading.) Now imagine that you are asked to play with the New York Philharmonic – a beautiful concerto by Chopin. You are provided with sheet music that you have never seen before. Now what?

Sight reading! It’s what we all do the first time we lay eyes on a piece of music. Whether or not we are GOOD at it is a whole different issue. Imagine, in the above scenario, that you have sub-par sight-reading skills. Not only would it take LONGER to learn the piece of music, it could be downright embarrassing. (Uh, Mr. Boico? Could you wait a second while I write letters above the notes?)

Here are a few reasons why having good sight reading skills is important:

• It makes learning a piece of music easier. A good sight-reader can identify notes and patterns without laboring over every note.
• It allows the musician to try more pieces. Being able to read music easily can allows the musician to “test out” all sorts of music. Sitting down and playing a new piece of music gives an idea of whether or not they like the composition.
• It improves versatility. Do you want to be a studio musician? A musician in a band or orchestra? Play the piano in church? Being able to sight read will allow you to be more versatile in these situations. A new piece of music will not be a major hurdle to overcome.

Now these are just some of the reasons why sight-reading skills are important for most musicians. Of course, it’s not important for every musician. There are plenty of musicians that can’t read music at all, but have excellent ear training and improvisational skills. It all depends on what your goals as a musician are. Next post I’ll introduce some techniques that you can use to improve your sight reading skills.

photo credit: m4r00n3d

Lesson 27: Accidentals – Putting it all together

Category: Lessons

Quick! What are the five different types of accidentals?! I’ll pretend like I can hear your answer…

If you said: sharps, flats, naturals, double sharps, and double flats, you are correct! If you didn’t answer correctly, just pretend you did, and give yourself a pat on the back! I won’t know the difference!

Here is a look at all of the accidentals together.. I didn’t include any labels. Try to name the accidentals and identify what their function is.

The next challenge is to put them all together. For example: You have a piece of music with 3 flats: B flat, E flat, and A flat.  In your piece of music you encounter a B with a natural sign next to it. What note do you play? Well you would play the natural version of the key – the white key!

Try to answer theses questions yourself before you look at the answers:

• What symbol would you use to raise a flat 1 semitone?

• What symbol would you use to raise a flat 2 semitones?

• What symbol would you use to raise a flat 3 semitones?

• What symbol would you use to lower a double sharp one semitone?

• What symbol would you use to raise a double flat one semitone?

• What symbol would you use to lower a double sharp 2 semitones?

Here are the answers:

• What symbol would you use to raise a flat 1 semitone? A flat is one semitone lower than a note in its natural state. Therefore, to raise a flat one semitone, we must use a natural sign.
  

• What symbol would you use to raise a flat 2 semitones? Since a flat is one semitone lower than a note in its natural state, and a sharp is one semitone higher, if we use a sharp, the note will be raised 2 semitones.

• What symbol would you use to raise a flat 3 semitones? A natural will raise it one semitone, a sharp will raise it 2. To raise it 3, we must use a double sharp. Remember, a double sharp raises the pitch of the note by 2 semitones above its natural state.

• What symbol would you use to lower a double sharp one semitone? A double sharp is 2 semitones above the note in its natural state. A sharp is only one semitone above the note in its natural state. Therefore, to lower a double sharp by one semitone, we will use a sharp.

• What symbol would you use to raise a double flat one semitone? A double flat is 2 semitones lower than a note in its natural state. A flat is only one semitone lower. We would use a flat.

• What symbol would you use to lower a double sharp 2 semitones? A double sharp is 2 semitones higher than a note in its natural state. To lower a double sharp by 2 semitones, we would use a natural.

I hope this gave you a good idea of how accidentals work when they are all put together into the same picture. I have nothing more to say about accidentals. You know just as much about accidentals as I do now. I feel inadequate all of the sudden…

Lesson 26: More Accidentals! Double Sharps and Double Flats

Category: Lessons

Oh no… More accidentals? Yes, I’m afraid so. But this is it! After you learn about double sharps and double flats you will know every accidental that exists! That should give you a feeling of accomplishment.

Let’s review. Do you remember what an accidental is? They are symbols that are located WITHIN a piece of music that modify the pitch of a note. If you need to review how accidentals work, check back on Lesson 22: Key Signatures and Accidentals. So far we learned about 3 types of accidentals: SHARPS, FLATS, and NATURALS. Each of them has a different purpose.  A SHARP accidental is used within a piece of music to RAISE the pitch of the note by one semitone. A FLAT is used to LOWER the pitch of the note by one semitone. A NATURAL symbol can be used in front of a note to change it back to it’s NATURAL state.  You can click on the highlighted words to review the lessons.

OK, on to the new stuff. DOUBLE SHARPS! You don’t see them very often, but they do exist (kindof like Big Foot .. dun dun duuunnnnn).. A double sharp is an accidental that RAISES the pitch of a note by TWO semitones (or ONE whole tone). This differs from a regular sharp which only raises the note by ONE semitone. Take a look at the image below to see what a double sharp looks like. Kindof looks like an ‘X’, and it is placed in front of the note you wish to change.

A DOUBLE FLAT actually looks like 2 flat symbols. Way too logical. I bet you can guess what a double flat does… It LOWERS the pitch of a note by TWO semitones (or ONE whole tone).  Again, peek at the image below to see what a double flat looks like. Exciting stuff.

Now you know your accidentals. All of them. It almost makes me want to sing. Next time we’ll put them all together. FUN!

Here is a fun (or not so fun) fact: Sharps and flats are not always accidentals, while naturals, double sharps, and double flats are always used as accidentals.. Can you think of a scenario where sharps and flats would be used as something other than accidentals?