Easy Piano Lessons

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What is the difference between a Music Tie and a Slur?

The curved line connecting the heads of two notes of the same pitch is called a tie and indicates that the two notes must be played as a single note with the same duration as the sum of the individual notes.

The following illustrates a tie

You might tie two notes which could be written with a single note value, such as a quarter note tied to an eighth note (the same length as a dotted quarter). One example of when you would use a tie is because a barline is in between the notes.

A tie is similar in appearance to a slur.

A slur in piano music is two or more notes played together, one right after the other, in a smooth fashion. A slur marking, indicated by a curved line that begins at the first note of the slur and ends at the last
The following illustrates a slur

If you have been looking for beginner piano lessons, but gave up because you could not fit attending regular lessons into you busy life, then the following will overcome this problem.

You can now purchase and download a complete set of beginner piano lessons over the Internet that will teach you everything you need to know to become an excellent piano player. These courses are offered at a fraction of the cost of taking private piano lessons, and you will learn all the proper skills necessary to become an expert at the piano.

Will it be hard to do beginner piano lessons on my own?

Learning to play the piano using a good quality downloaded beginner piano lessons course can be easier than taking lessons from a private tutor. Such courses are written in an easy step-by-step approach so that you can follow along follow along at your own pace. They can be so simple to follow that an older child can teach themselves to read music and play the piano. The piano lessons will have been developed by professional piano teachers that understand that most people that begin have no idea about the basics of the piano, or even about music itself. If, however, you already have some basic piano knowledge, you can start the lessons at a higher level so that you can begin making progress right from the start.

Will beginner piano lessons take a long time to learn?

We are all different so it will depend on your personal factors, such as do you already have some musical knowledge, how much time you have available to learn and practice. However, a student with no musical background will find that they will learn quickly because the lessons are structured to get you playing fast. One of the benefits of these beginner piano lessons is you go at your own pace, and can keep going back over the same material until you have it mastered.

What in included in a downloaded beginner piano lessons course?

A good downloadable beginner piano lessons course must contain written material usually in the form of ebooks that will lead your learning process. There must also be video and audio files to accompany the written material to show you how to play and how it should sound. The better courses also have software that will help you to learn to read music, and practice you knowledge in a fun way.

For an example of a downloadable beginner piano lessons course that is very popular check out the easy piano lessons.

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Learning to play jazz on the piano is really fun and exciting. However, to learn to play jazz piano you will need some special jazz piano lessons as part of your piano course.

The difference between playing jazz piano and other forms of piano music is that you can interpret the music in your own individual way and so play the music in a different way every time. There is a different beat found in jazz that cannot be found anywhere else, and this kind of beat is totally fun and alive.

Jazz is so interesting because when you play it the music will sound different each time depending on your mood or the mood of the audience. If you get together with a few musicians you will find that jazz takes on a life of its own, and the mood of every individual performer will help decide how a particular piece is performed.

With jazz you are given more freedom to improvise and be creative. You are able to change the timing the melodies and the harmonies according to your own personal style and abilities. There is a lot of creativity involved when playing jazz, but the best thing about it is you can change the tone every time you play the same piece of music.

Jazz piano lessons

In order to play jazz properly you will need to have a basic understanding of the piano and reading music. It is also important to learn how to play some music by ear to help you improvise. There are jazz piano lessons available that can instruct you on everything you need to know to become an incredible jazz player.

If you want to be able to play jazz piano then make sure that there are specific jazz piano lessons in any course you take.

For more information on playing the piano correctly, check out the easy piano lessons which also include jazz piano lessons.

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When you are first being taught to play the piano it is important to let you know which finger on which hand should play a note on the keyboard. That is why the standard way to explain this is to number your thumbs and fingers, the thumbs are number one the next finger is number 2 thought to each of the little fingers being number 5.

So if I wanted you play a key with the index finger on your Right Hand I would say R.H 2, if I wanted you to use the little finger on your Left Hand I would say L.H 5.

Now put both your hands on the keyboard so that the thumb and fingers of each hand are over or just resting on five adjacent white keys, you hands need not be together in fact they might be separated slightly. Don’t worry about which white keys you fingers are on just that they are on five adjacent white keys.

You can now try these easy piano lessons exercises

Play with both hands at the same time and repeat the following an number of time
RH: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2
LH: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2

Try putting your hands in different starting positions and see how that sounds, hopefully you will notice sometimes it sounds good and sometimes it sounds bad. If you think it sounds bad just move one of your hands to the left or right by one key position and try again, if it is still no good move your hand again.

Now try playing the following with both hands at the same time and repeat it a number of times
RH:  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2
LH:  5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4

Again if it doesn’t sound right try putting your hands in different starting positions and see how that sounds.

Well that was another easy piano lesson that I hope you found useful. Don’t forget there is a full course of easy piano lessons you can download.

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In this Easy Piano Lessons article we will learn about Sharps (#) and Flats ().

As you may have read in an earlier article on this web site the white keys are labelled A, B, C, D, E, F and G. The black keys also use these labels with one addition they are either Sharp (#) or a Flat ( ) of the note name. So for example if you locate the C white key there are 2 black key to its right, the first of these black keys (the one actual next to the C key) is called C# (C sharp). The next black key just to the right of the D white key is called D# (D sharp). The sharp therefore meant raise a note by half a step.

The Flat symbol means lower a note by half a step, so the black key to the left of the white D key is called D (D Flat). This means therefore that the black keys actually have two names in this example C# is also D (up a half step from C or down a half step from D).

All sharp and flat notes are played on the black keys with the exception of B#, C, E# and F. As you will know there is no black key between the B and C white keys and the E and F white keys. There is in effect only a half step between these notes, so for example a B# is actually the C white key.

When a note on a sheet of music is a sharp or a flat the sharp or flat symbol appears before the note.

There are different scales that you can play on the keyboard. The C Major scale is played by playing the 8 white keys starting from the C key.

Another scale is the G Major scale, when you play this scale you start on the G white key, but you play F# and not F. When a Composer writes a piece of music in G Major rather than put a sharp sign in front of every F, they write a Key Signature after the Clef sign.  So the G Major Key Signature just has a single # on the F.

As there are no sharps of flats in the C Major scale there are no sharps of flats in the Key Signature after the Clef sign.

This was another easy piano lesson in which we learnt about sharps and flats and is another step in learning how to read piano music. But we have still only scratched the surface and for a full teach yourself piano course, click the following for a full set of easy piano lessons.

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In an earlier post on how to read piano music, I told you about the Bass and Treble Clef, and how the names of the different notes on the piano keyboard relate to the lines and spaces on the Grand Staff. We are now going to understand how to read the Time Signatures written on the Grand Staff.

The Time Signature of a piece of music is given by the two numbers written by the Treble Clef, as you will see in the pictures below. To understand what these numbers mean you must also notice that on a sheet of music there are vertical lines draw across the Bass and Treble Clef at regular intervals, dividing the music up into regular blocks, which are called Measures. The vertical line is called the Bar.

Each individual Measure lasts for the same time duration, and can consist of a combination of notes and rests.

The time signature, also known as a “meter”, tells the musician how many notes are in a measure.

When playing music musicians learn to count beats; a beat is the name for a unit of music.  Some musicians use a metronome, a device that ticks out beats, and will tick according to which timing you have set. Counting beats starts when the first note is played.

Let us now look at some timing signatures to understand what they mean.

This is the two four time signature, which means that there are 2 beats per measure and the 4 indicates that a quarter note gets played on each beat.

This is the three four time signature, which means that there are 3 beats per measure and 4 indicates that a quarter note gets played on each beat.

This is the four four time signature, which means that there are 4 beats per measure and lower 4 indicates that a quarter note gets played on each beat.

This is the six eight time signature, which means that there are 6 beats per measure and 8 indicates that a eight note gets played on each beat.

There are more time signatures. A common time signature is the 4/4 time signature as it is easier to count.

The following are the rules of the 4/4 time signature:

• There are 4 beats in one measure.
• When you play a single whole note, count out 4 beats.
• When you play a single half note, count out 2 beats.
• Play a quarter note, on each beat.
• Two eight notes fit into 1 beat
• Four sixteenth notes fit into 1 beat

When learning to play the piano / keyboard, count aloud to get used to the rhythm. Also some keyboards come with a built in digital metronome that will tick at the rate you can set.

Well done you have learnt about time signatures part of the process of learning how to read piano music, for a full teach yourself piano course, click the following for easy piano lessons.

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In an earlier post on how to read piano music, I told you about the Bass and Treble Clef, and how the names of the different notes on the piano keyboard relate to the lines and spaces on the Grand Staff. We are now going to understand how to read the notes, written on the Grand Staff.

Just like reading this text, you read music from left to right along the Grand Staff. The notes you play are indicated by the different dots (the notes) you see on or between the lines. However, there are different types of notes that indicate how long a note must be play. How long to actually play a note will be explained more fully in another post about Time Signatures, but lets not worry about this at the moment. The names of the different musical notes are:-

Whole Note.

Half note, this note will be played for half the duration of any Whole notes, so that means that 2 Half notes take the same time as 1 Whole note.

Quarter Note, this note will be played for just a quarter of the time you would play a Whole note, so that means that 4 Quarter Notes take the same time as 1 Whole note.

Eight Note, this note will be played for just an eight of the time you would play a Whole note, so that means that 8 Eight Notes take the same time as 1 Whole note.

Sixteenth Note, this note will be played for just a sixteenth of the time you would play a Whole note, so that means that 16 Sixteenth Notes take the same time as 1 Whole note.

There will also be times in the music when no notes must be played and these are rest. Just like the musical notes listed above there are different symbols for the different periods of time to rest as follws:-

Whole rest

Half rest

Quarter rest

Eight rest

Sixteenth rest

You have started the process of learning how to read piano music, for a full teach yourself piano course, click the following for Easy Ppiano Lessons.

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When learning the piano like any instrument, practice makes perfect. So the more you practice the more quickly you will see improvement and the better your piano playing will become. The most important thing to remember is to have fun and enjoy your piano playing.

So what is the best way to practice piano? The following lists the steps you should try and follow when you practice the piano:-

Step 1 – Try and play every day. This will improve your playing a lot more than just practicing once a week.

Step 2 – Before you start playing flex your fingers to make them supple.

Step 3 – Make sure you hands are warm if they are cold.

Step 4 – Practice at a time when you will be alone. Having other people listen while you are learning to play can discouraging if they make unwelcome remarks.

Step 5 – Don’t rush your playing, start by playing everything slowly. Later on when you can play the piece evenly and smoothly all the way through, you can start to gradually increase the speed until you reach the right speed. It will be much harder for you if you start out too fast.

Step 6 – Each week try to learn a new piece of music. Don’t worry if you are not getting everything right the first few times you try, just keep practicing.

Step 7 – Its difficult but try and be patient. Its best to make sure you can play every piece smoothly before you go on to the next tune.

Step 8 – If there is a particular part you have a problem with, practice that part on its own until you can play it correctly, then go back and try playing the whole piece all the way through.

Step 9 – When playing try and keep your eyes on the music, not on your hands or the keyboard.

Step 10 – Keep refining your playing, by correcting mistakes before they become bad habits.

Step 11 – Make sure you play some music you really know and enjoy.

Step 12 – Make sure you are having fun playing the piano and it is not becoming a chore.

So what are you waiting for get practicing and if you haven’t already done so the click the following to get yourself some Easy Piano Lessons .

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