How To Play Piano for Beginners, Lesson 12 || Rhythm Reading And New Scales
Hey everyone, welcome to part 12 in my series of piano tutorials for complete beginners. Now if you’ve missed any of the tutorials in the series so far, just have a look down in the description field right underneath this video and you will find there a link to the series playlist which I’m updating as I make every tutorial.
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patreon.com/billhilton. OK, enough advertising, on with today’s tutorial. OK, you’ll recall that in tutorial 11, the previous tutorial, we learned three new pieces. Now, we don’t have a new piece to look at today because I’m going to assume that you’re still working on those three pieces from tutorial 11.
Instead, we’re going to do a couple of things. First of all we’re going to work on our knowledge of notes and rests, OK, and then secondly we’re going to learn a couple of new scales that I’d like you to add to your practice routine. OK, first of all notes and rests, and let’s start by just recapping what we know so far.
We’ve actually met quite a few different types of note: we’ve met the semibreve, or whole note; the minim, or half note; the crotchet, or quarter note; and the quaver, or eighth note, and each of those notes has its equivalent rest. You’ll remember that a rest is just a gap or a silence in whichever hand it appears, OK, and it lasts for the same amount of time as its equivalent note would, OK? So if we’re in 4/4 time and we come across a crotchet - a quarter-note - rest in the right hand, then we take our right hand fingers off the keys and have silence for the length of a crotchet, which is one beat in 4/4, OK? If we come across a minim rest, we take our fingers off the keys and have silence for the length of a minim, which is two beats in 4/4 time.
We don’t necessarily pull our hands away from the keyboard entirely because something else might be coming up soon, and you can actually use the time that rests give you to get yourself in position for whatever’s coming up next, OK? But that’s basically how it works. Things can get a little bit more complicated because as piano music gets more advance you’ll find that sometimes you can have more than one voice in one hand.
So, you know, your right hand can be playing two different melodies or something at once, and you can have a rest in one but not in the other, OK. But for now we don’t need to go into that. What a rest means, as far as we’re concerned at the moment, is just silence in one hand. Now we’ve also learnt that notes can be dotted, and if the dot appears right after the note head – not anywhere else because dots in other places can mean other things, but if a dot appears right after a note head – it lengthens that note by half.
So a regular crotchet in 4/4 time lasts for a single beat, but a dotted crotchet lasts for a beat and a half. A regular minim in 4/4 time lasts for two beats, but a dotted minim lasts for three beats. So adding the dot has added 50% to the note length. Now here’s a really important concept, yeah? As well as applying dots to notes, we can apply them to rests, and they have exactly the same effect.
If you stick a dot after a crotchet rest, then instead of lasting for a beat in 4/4 time, suddenly it lasts for a beat and a half, yeah? If you stick a dot after a minim rest in 4/4 time then right away, instead of lasting for two beats, that minim rest lasts for three: the dot has lengthened it by 50%.
Let’s just look at a couple of very, very simple examples to make that clear. In this first example you can see we’ve got two bars, two measures, of 4/4 time, and in each bar there is a dotted minim rest, OK? So if we just look at the first bar, what we can see we’ve got a single crotchet on beat 1, and then three beats of silence… and then in the second bar we’ve got 3 beats of silence and then a single crotchet.
So let me play it, I’ll count in one bar, OK? 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4. OK? Let me do that again, I won’t count in this time. 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4. OK? So in the first bar we had that crotchet on beat 1 and then 2 3 4 of silence, because a dotted minim rest gives us 3 beats of silence, and then in the second bar we have 3 beats of silence, 1 2 3 4, and then that crotchet on beat 4, OK? Here’s our second example.
As you can see this is just a single bar and this is just a tiny bit more complicated because we’ve got a dotted crotchet rest. So we’ve got a rest there that’s crossing a beat. So on beat 1 and the first half of beat 2 we have silence, then on the second half of beat 2 we have a quaver, and then on beats 3 and 4 we have a minim.
Let me just play that through, I’ll count a bar of 4 in and then play the bar. So, 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4. OK? Let me just play you the bar again, just counting nice and slowly. 1 2 3 4. Can you hear how that quaver came in half way through beat 2? So beat 1 and then second half of beat 2 is silent because of the dotted crotchet rest that lasts for a beat of half, and then that quaver comes on the second half of beat 2, and then the minim on beats 3 and 4.
Let me just do that again. 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4. It takes a little bit of practice and judgement to come in halfway through a beat, OK, and that’s one of the things that we’re going to be working on in the exercise that we’ll look at shortly. But that’s basically what’s happening: the dot is – just as it would with a note – adding 50% to the length of the rest, and the rest is now crossing a beat.
So as you can probably imagine, when you’re just getting used to dots on notes and on rests, it can take a little bit of effort to work out the exact rhythm that you’re supposed to be playing. Now with that in mind, I’ve created an exercise that you’ll find in this tutorial’s accompanying worksheet, which as usual you can download as a PDF using the link in the description field right underneath this video.
The exercise is basically just a dozen little snippets of music, like the ones we’ve just looked at as examples, which contain dotted notes and dotted rests, and should help you to practise getting your rhythms right as you read along with music, yeah? The first few are all in the right hand and use single notes, but as you progress through the list you’ll find I’ve included a couple in the left hand and I’ve started to use some different notes.
I’m not especially interested in you getting the notes right here, what I’m really interested in is you getting the rhythms right. So for each one, set yourself a fairly steady tempo, look at the time signature, are you in ¾ or 4/4? And then just work out the rhythm really, really carefully. Now if you struggle with any of them – and don’t worry if you do because this is hard when you first start doing it - then a good thing to do is to print out the worksheet and literally draw in the beats, yeah? Draw them in on the worksheet so you can work out where they are.
I’ve actually worked an example for you here, and you can see what I’ve done is put each beat in and I’ve, for example, the first beat line between beats 1 and 2 actually goes between the first crotchet and its dot, which if you think about it kind of makes sense because we’re in 4/4 time so a dotted crotchet lasts for a beat and a half.
So beat 1 is the crotchet and the first half of the second beat is the dot, so the line of the beat there is splitting that dot and the crotchet from each other, OK? So have a go at those and then in the first half of the next tutorial, tutorial 13, we’ll go through them to make sure you’ve got them right.
Getting this stuff right now is going to be… you’re going to find it really useful because in the next few tutorials we’re going to be looking at things like even shorter note lengths – semi quavers – and also new time signatures. So it’s going to be really handy if you can start to master reading these more complex rhythms now.
OK, the second thing I want to do in this tutorial is just teach you a couple of new scales that I’d like you to add to your practice routine. Right now as part of your regular practice you’re working on C, G, D and F major scales, and A minor in the form of A natural minor and A harmonic minor, and you’re practising all of those two octaves, right hand and left hand, and where you can – don’t worry about this too much if you’re struggling – you’re doing hands together as well.
Today, we’re going to be learning A major and D minor. This is D harmonic minor that I’m playing OK? We’re going to learn D natural minor as well. Let’s start off with A major. Now you’ll remember that obviously C major has no sharps in it at all, let’s forget flats for now, let’s just think about sharps.
C major has no sharps in it at all, G major has one sharp, it has F sharp in it, OK? D major has two sharps, F sharp and C sharp. A major, which we’re going to look at now, has three sharps: F sharp and C sharp, just like D, but also G sharp. Just take a moment to notice the interesting pattern that we’ve got going on here.
So we’ve got C, no sharps, 1 2 3 4 5 – number 5 is really important, don’t worry about if for now, it just is, I’ll come on to why in the next tutorial. We’ve got G with one sharp, 1 2 3 4 5, again, and we’ve got D with two sharps, 1 2 3 4 5, again, and we’ve got A with three sharps. Now if you follow that pattern you can even predict which major scales we’ll be looking at next: 1 2 3 4 5, it’ll be E, and yep you’ve guessed it, it will have four sharps.
Now that pattern is really important, and all I want you to do for now is notice it, because we’re kind of brushing up against a really important idea in music theory, part of kind of the deep underlying structure of how music works, yeah? So just kind of register it for now and move on. But for now, for today, let’s just stick at looking at the new scales, and in particular let’s start with A major with its three sharps, OK? Now as I said, three sharps, C sharp, F sharp, G sharp, OK, and in terms of the fingers you’re going to use it’s very, very much like G and D major.
Let’s just play it through two octaves… and in the left hand. OK, you’ll find it fully scored out with full fingering in this month’s PDF. The only thing really to watch out for there – and it’s the same as in D and G to an extent – is in the right hand going up where you have this fairly awkward swing under with your thumb to get back up to the A to do the second octave, OK? So just make sure that when you play that it’s really nice and smooth or as smooth as you can make it.
You don’t have it at the top obviously because you’re using your fifth, but then as you come down you come across it, OK, and less of a problem in the left hand. Again, take it steady, one hand at a time, and don’t worry for now if you can’t get the two hands working together. Let’s move on and look at the D minor scales.
Here’s D natural minor in the right hand… and in the left hand. OK? D harmonic minor, right hand… left hand. OK, just watch out for that really big gap you’ve got there, especially in the right hand, in the harmonic minor. So we’ve got third on the B flat then big leap onto the C sharp, and then up to the D, OK, and those are quite awkward fingers, 3 and 4, to be doing that on from the B flat to the C sharp… and as we’ll see as we’re beginning to do more minor scales, that gap is a feature of the harmonic minor scale.
So we need to get used to it for now. Just let’s explore a little bit of theory. D minor is what we call the relative minor scale of F major. It has the same key signature as F major. So here’s the key signature of F major, you’ll remember that the scale of F major has a B flat in it, and it’s the same key signature for D minor because the D minor scale has a B flat.
OK, and when we play it in its natural form we just have all the white notes apart from the B which becomes a B flat. It’s only when we play the harmonic minor that we sharpen the seventh note, but that doesn’t appear in the key signature. A has a key signature as well, let’s pop back to A, you’ll remember three sharps in A.
So we have a key signature with three sharps in, so if we have a song or a piece of music in the key of A that’s that key signature we would see because that piece of music would be largely drawing its notes from the scale of A major. What I’ve done in this month’s PDF – and it’s a fairly chunky PDF this month – is include the key signatures for all the scales we’ve covered so far, because in the past few tutorials I’ve actually skipped over key signatures a little bit in favour of just showing you how the scales work on the piano keyboard.
But it’s important that you know those key signatures because we’re going to be doing more work with key signatures in the next few tutorials. So just have those there as a reference. For now, add A major and the two D minors to your scale practice. Remember that they are fully scored out in the accompanying PDF if you just need to check the fingers, and remember on the A, OK, that awkward thumb under, and on the D minor, D minor harmonic, just remember you’ve got that big gap there.
So really practise keeping that smooth and even in each case. OK, so there we go. Homework for this tutorial is to work through those rhythm exercises and practise all your scales: C, G, D, A and F majors, and A and D minors, both natural and harmonic. Plus keep working on the pieces from tutorial 11 and any previous pieces that you’re still working on.
So you’ve got plenty to be getting on with there, I’ll let you get on with it. As I said at the start, do please check out my Patreon crowdfunding campaign, that would be fantastic, and also don’t forget to follow me on Facebook and Twitter, yeah, I’ve put the links in the description text underneath.
I’ll look forward to seeing you in tutorial 13, next time. See you then.
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