Piano In The Key of F(ern) pt.2

Why was the piano player arrested?

Because he got into treble

   I hope everyone is having an amazing break, and is eating lots of good food! Over the break I have had lots of time to learn some holiday songs on piano, catch up on homework, and learn stuff for a voice competition I am doing in January.

 

   Today to try and stay in the holiday spirit, I decided to learn how to play Silent Night. To perfect this song, I also needed to read more on time signatures and rhythm in general since this song is not in the basic 4/4 time.

   If you think about it rhythm plays a big part in our everyday life. Each step, each intake of breath, and even the cycle of sleeping and waking is rhythmic. Our life can depend on the rhythm of our heart, and music depends on rhythm in a similar way. Different notes like half notes and quarter notes have different amounts of beats tied to them. Time signatures are then used to structure beats into uniform measures. The book Easy Adult Piano: Beginners Course explains how to read these signatures, "the upper number (in this case, 3) always tells how many beats occur in each measure. The lower number,4, tells you the quarter note receives one beat" (Leonard 11). The bottom and top numbers aren't always 3 or 4 they can be 5/8 3/16 or practically anything you can think of and they all feel different when they are played in a song.

   I tried to upload a video of me singing and playing the song, but for whatever reason, blogger doesn't want me to do that. So here is a screen clip from the video.

   When I started learning the song I was confused on what the key was because I didn't see anything indicating what key it was in. So I flipped through the book to try and figure that out, and it told me that if it is not indicated otherwise then the key is always C. While learning the song I had trouble with the fingerings once again, but the book again helped me.

   Do you agree with the statement "Our life can depend on the rhythm of our heart, and music depends on rhythm in a similar way." Why or why not?

Easy Adult Piano. N.p.: Hal Leonard, n.d. Print.

   

 





Piano in the Key of F(ern) - Row, Row, Row Your Boat

    What do you get when you drop a piano on an army base?

A Flat Major

    I've always wanted to learn how to play piano better because I know it will help me with my singing, but I've never really attempted to learn the basics. So, I decided to take this opportunity to further my piano playing skills, and hopefully become better at sight reading not only for piano but also for vocal purposes. I know quite a bit about music in general, I can look at a piece of music and decipher notes, and I can generally show you were they are on a piano. I know my solfeggio's and I can play a few songs on the piano. The purpose of this blog though is to further understand music theory and become more confident in my abilities.

    I decided to learn how to play "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" This song would most definitely be considered a beginner's song, but for the purpose of this blog I chose to start with the very basics.

    The first thing I knew I needed to learn about was playing a chord accompaniment/ chord accompaniments. A chord is a combination of three or more keys played at the same time. This song only uses the C chord. And the picture below shows where to play it on the keyboard.

    Today's popular sheet music and books also show "chord symbols" above the melody. This letter is a form of short hand that indicates what to play. "Most musicians look at just chord symbols and, from experience, know which notes to play" (Leonard 13).

    While I was learning the song, I discovered how much easier it was to play chords, "by putting my pointer on G, middle finger on E, and thumb on C" (Leonard 14). Once I did it with the fingerings the book said to use I found the chord sounded much better. 

    I also discovered that if I learned to play the melody and the chords separately it was much easier to put them together in the end.

    In the end, I learned a lot more than I was expecting to. This book definitely helped me understand the basics and with this foundation it will be easier to build on my own skills. And hopefully by the next blog I will be able to learn a much more difficult song, and in the meantime I will work on perfecting the techniques I learned today.

Do you think that even if you know how to plunk notes on a piano, you should learn the basics before continuing forwards? Explain. 

Easy Adult Piano. N.p.: Hal Leonard, n.d. Print.