Music usually begins and is centred on a note near or on middle C. The music may then moves up to a higher octave or down to a lower octave. It usually ends back in the middle octave. A piece of music often covers three ocatves but sometimes more.
Play chord Fmaj7 with the right thumb on the note F above middle C, then crossover down an octave to Gmajor7 with the thumb on G below middle C, using the T to 5 cossover. That crossover covers all the notes usually played in a song and most popular music.
This drawing shows how the notes are written on a staff.
Practise sight reading and playing the notes on that staff.
Read and play the notes in these drawings below.
Two notes bridged together are eighth notes, each being half as long as a quater note. The duration of two eighth notes here is one beat.
Piano music is written on two staves which are bracketed together like this.
The higher stave or staff is mainly for notes played in the treble clef by the right hand. The lower staff is mainly for playing chords with lower notes in the bass clef. This drawing shows the higher and lower staffs, the treble clef sign, the bass clef sign and the bracket.
Any note on the bass clef staff looks lower than the same note on the treble clef staff. To translate a note from bass to treble, imagine it one line or space higher up. So a note on one bass line is the note one line higher and a note on one space is the note one space above. For example, a note on the middle line of the bass staff is not B but is D.
The two staffs are like one big staff which joins where the ledger lines meet between the two of them. Notes go from the higher staff to the lower without a gap or repeated note where they join.
This book shows bass and treble notes and chords as they are or can be written in the treble clef.
Sharp or flat signs written beside a clef sign at the start of a stave are a key signature which tell what key the music is in. The signature also tell which notes in the music are normally played sharp or flat. Examples of key signatures are Fsharp for the key of G and Bflat for the key of F.
Numbers near the clef sign tell what time the music is in. Two-four time 2/4 is two beats in each bar, 3/4 is three beats to the bar and 4/4 is four beats to the bar. Vertical lines on the staff show the beginning and end of each bar or measure of music.The drawing above shows 4/4 time, four quarter notes to the bar. The lower number after or below the slash / tells the duration of the beat.The duration is often a quarter note. So 3/4 is three quarter notes to the bar.
Music is made of notes of different pitch and duration and rests of different duration. The next drawing shows note C written to be played for different lengths of time, duration. Each note is written beside a rest, or silence, of equal length.
As the drawing shows, a whole note or rest lasts for a whole measure, a half note or rest lasts for half a measure, a quarter last for a quarter of a measure, an eighth an eighth and a sixteenth note or rest last for a sixteenth of a measure.
Some tutorials call whole notes semibreve, half notes minims, quater notes crotchets, eighth notes quavers and sixteenth notes semiquavers.
Practise playing some notes with rests between them. Then play some half notes with half rests between them while you count four beats to the bar.
By practising the exercises in this book, you have already begun to read music.
Find some sheet music of a tune you know well. Read the notes while slowly humming the music or singing the song.
Listen to the easy rhythm in this song. Daisy
While you are learning to read and play tunes, keep the harmony simple. Play notes with the right hand. With the left, play chords with the duration of just one whole note or four quarter notes for each measure.
If some sheet music does not have a bass staff or letters saying which chords to play, you can work out which chords by looking at the notes of the melody. On a copy of the music, look at the notes in one measure. Think what chord is made up of those notes. Write in pencil the letter for that chord above the measure on the staff. Do that again for every measure of that piece of music.
Say notes C, E and G, in that order, are in the first measure. C is the first letter of the piece and E and G are in chord C. So the music is in the key of C. Other chords for this piece will belong to the key of C. Say notes G and B are in the next measure. Then chord C is alright for the second measure too, because note B is in chord C. Say the third measure has notes A, C and F in it, in any order. A and F are not in chord C but they are in chord F. So write F above that measure.
Sometimes one of the notes in a measure will not belong to the same chord as the other notes. Then choose the chord that fits best. If a note sounds off key, change it to a note that belongs to the chord.
Some keys need sharp or flat notes. The flat of the third interval sounds alright in most keys. The sixth interval sounds alright in chord G.
Some notes that do not belong will sound alright when played in aphabetical order with notes that do belong.
Read a piece of sheet music measure by measure to see whether the notes belong to the chord.
