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Beginner Course Resource Pack

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Lesson 1: Posture & Positioning

Getting the correct posture is very important when you start learning the piano. If you ignore it from the beginning you will create bad habits which will be harder to break in the future. After a short while, you will have this posture & position without having to think about it. Key Points To Remember

• Make sure bench / stool is correct distance from the keys. You should not be pulled up really close and should not be so far away you have to stretch your arms. Your arms should be relaxed.

• You should be able to reach the very top and bottom of the keys, allowing yourself to slightly lean in either direction.

• Your feet should be flat on the ground.

• You should be sitting in line with the two black keys at the centre of the

piano.

• Your back should be straight.

• Your hands should be slightly bent, almost as though you were holding a wine glass. It should feel very natural.

• The area between your arm and hand should be fairly straight

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Lesson 2: Learning Where The Notes Are

C D E F G A B

Db C#

Eb D#

Gb F#

Ab G#

Bb A#

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Lesson 3: Introduction To Theory

This lesson aims to give you an overview of how songs are written, and some fundamental points about music theory. Although you may not know what a scale or a chord is, you do not need to know that information to understand this lesson.

• A major scale consists of 7 notes, each of which has a chord built from it.

• The sequence of chords are the same for EVERY major scale.

• Songs are written by taking any combination of the chords built from one of the major scales.

• The ‘key’ of a song is the scale that the combination of chords has been

built from. Using a C major scale as an example, the sequence of chords are as follows: I II III IV V VI VII

C D E F G A B Maj Min Min Maj Maj Min Dim

*Maj = Major *Min = Minor *Dim = Diminished

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Lesson 4: The Circle Of Fifths

The circle of fifths has many uses such as working out key signatures, showing us what keys are closely related to each other and also as a tool for practicing material in all 12 keys. Your knowledge of what the circle of fifths is and how to use it will increase as your playing progresses. The outer circle shows us the major keys, and the inner circle shows the relative minor keys.

C G

D

A

E B Cb

F Bb

Eb

Ab DbC# GbF#

Am Em Bm

F#m

C#m G#m Ebm Bbm

Fm

Cm

Gm Dm

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Lesson 5: The Major Scale

Scales provide the foundation of all musical harmony and learning the 12 major scales is a fundamental step in becoming an advanced musician and playing more complex genres such as jazz. When we play a piece of music using the notes from a particular scale, we say that we are playing in that key. For example, if we are playing a piece of music just using the notes from a G major scale, we are playing in the key of G.

C Major

G Major

D Major

A Major

E Major

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B Major

F# Major

Db Major

Ab Major

Eb Major

Bb Major

F Major

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Lesson 6: The Natural Minor Scale

The natural minor scale is essential to understand in order to construct minor chords and arpeggios. It is one of the three types of minor scales and is the easiest one to learn. You should be comfortable with the major scales before moving on to the natural minor scale. Each natural minor scale contains the exact same notes as its relative major scale, just beginning and ending on a different note.

A Minor

E Minor

B Minor

F# Minor

C# Minor

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G# Minor

Eb Minor

Bb Minor

F Minor

C Minor

G Minor

D Minor

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Lesson 7: Triads

• A triad is the simplest type of chord that exists.

• It is made up of three notes.

• There are four types of triads: Major, Minor, Diminished & Augmented. To construct a major triad, we take a major scale and take the first, third and fifth notes. For example, to construct a C major triad we would take a C major scale:

Then combine the first, third and fifth notes of the scale to create a triad:

• To construct a minor triad, we repeat the exact same process but use a natural minor scale instead.

CMinorTriadCMajorTriad

CDiminishedTriadAdiminishedtriadcanbe

constructedbytakingaminortriad,andflatteningthe5th

CAugmentedTriadAnaugmentedtriadcanbe

constructedbytakingamajortriad,andsharpeningthe5th

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Lesson 8: Arpeggios

• An arpeggio is a ‘broken chord’ where the notes from a chord are played separately.

• They can be in any order, ascending or descending.

• An arpeggio may span over more than one octave.

• Arpeggios can be used to transform chords into interesting melodies.

• They are also used extensively in jazz when improvising. Example:

Here is a C major triad. If we take these notes and separate them, we get a C major arpeggio:

• This can be applied to any chord to get the equivalent arpeggio. • The notes can be in any order, and over any number of octaves.

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Lesson 9: Your First Song

A chord progression is a particular combination of chords. The following chord progression is one of the most common and can be heard throughout a countless number of songs. It can be used to apply all of the material learnt so far. In this case, we are playing it in the key of C major. The chords are as follows:

Things To Try Out

• Practice playing chords in right hand with the root note in the left hand.

• Try experimenting with different rhythms.

• Incorporate arpeggios by separating the notes from the chord, try using a

variation of different patterns.

• Try improvising using the C major scale by adding in a few extra notes in-between the chords.

• Write your own ‘piece’ using these chords and adding in as many different

ideas as possible.

• Use the video for ideas

|:| C | G | Am | F |:|

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Lesson 10: How To Practice Quite often when people are learning an instrument they get to a stage where they can play a few songs, scales and chords and then they tend to stop learning new information and just play what they already know. The problem with this is that they don’t really improve, they may be reinforcing what they do know to a deeper level, but their overall progress almost comes to a stop. The most efficient and productive way to practice and improve is to create a practice schedule. It can be however long suits you, anywhere between 30 minutes and 3 hours per day is most suitable and realistic. You want to split up the allocated time between different areas of your playing. Depending on what you want to improve on the most, different areas could include: scales, arpeggios, chords, transcribing, improvising, composing and even playing along to backing tracks. Make sure when you sit down to practice, you spend each designated time slot practicing a different area of your playing. Some other key points to remember when practicing are:

• Consistency – Practicing as many days of the week as possible will be much more beneficial than spending the same amount of overall time squeezed into one day.

• There is no talent – Everyone has the potential to be a great musician. It just requires dedication, motivation and persistence.

• Don’t look for results – It can be very hard to see the progress in your own

playing within short time periods. This can be very demotivating! Every now and again you will have a ‘breakthrough’ and really notice the difference.

• Don’t be judgmental – Don’t compare yourself to other players. Even the

best players in the world didn’t know what a scale was when they started.

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Lesson 11: How To Learn A Song

• When learning a song, it is normally beneficial to practice what each hand is doing separately and then put them together afterwards.

• Learn each part and then practice very slowly. Play it over and over again as slow as you need and make sure you can play it all at a consistent tempo. There is no such thing as too slow!

• Slowly increase the tempo and practice until you are comfortable with each

part.

• Once you have done this, you can begin to put the two parts together. Reduce the speed back down to as slowly as you need.

• Once you can play both parts together, slowly increase the tempo until you

can play it up to speed.

• Practicing faster than you can comfortably play it will only result in taking longer to learn it.