Easy Piano Lessons

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.

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.

As a beginner you will need to start to learn how to read piano music. When you first look at a sheet of music it can look very complicated, but it is basically a method of showing what notes need to be played and how they should be played.

The first step in learning how to read piano music is learning the names of the notes. There are basically 7 note names you have to remember, which are named after the first 7 letter of the alphabet, A, B, C, D, E, F and G.  These seven note names are repeated along the length of the piano keyboard to name each of the white keys.

The black keys are in groups of 2 or 3 keys. A simple way to identify the names of the white keys is to remember that the white key immediately before any group of 2 black keys is named C. A very important key to identify on the keyboard is the Middle C key.

Sheet music is written on a Grand Staff, the top part of which is the Treble Clef (Played with the Right Hand) then there is a big gap, then the bottom part which is the Bass Clef (Played with the Left Hand).

When you look at Treble and Bass Clefs the seven notes sit on the lines and spaces, called a music staff. These two staffs or staves are the Treble Clef and the Bass Clef. The notes from the upper portion of the piano keyboard sit on the Treble Clef, and the lower portion of the keyboard sit on the Bass Clef.

If you look at the image to the left you will see that the names of the notes A to G have been listed on or between the lines. While this is very useful, the names are not listed in this way on normal sheet music. Some simple things to help you remember the names of the notes when you read piano music are:-

1. Middle C is shown on a separate little line below the Treble Clef.

2. The spaces on the Treble Clef are the note names F, A, C, and E that is easy to remember as it spells FACE.

3. The five lines on the Treble Clef are for note names E, G, B, D and F which can be remembered by the simple saying “Every Good Boy Does Fine”.

4. The bottom of the 5 lines in the Bass Clef is for note G with the other lines above being B, D, F, and A, which your can remember as “Good Boys Do Fine Always”.

5. The spaces in the Bass Clef are A, C, E, G and B which you can remember as “All Cows Eat Grass Bananas”!

You have started the process of learning how to read piano music, for a complete piano playing course click the following for easy piano lessons.