Repertoire - When the Saints

Lesson 9 - Practice Strategies 1

Throughout this course you will learn how to create and develop your own practice strategies. The one presented in this lesson provides a model for you to use.

Step One

Decide in advance of your practice time which chords you're going to work with. Initially, limit yourself to just two chords either both major, both minor, or a combination of major and minor:

• D major and E major
• D minor and E minor
• D major and E minor
• D minor and E major

Step Two

Using your Chord Construction Formulas chart, find the notes for each of the two chords you've chosen to work with and play them in different positions on the piano.

Step Three

Once you're satisfied you can find the notes for each chord and change easily from one chord to the next, create yourself a short chart that uses your two chords. This requires you to think of a time signature and the form (how many bars long?) of your chord song. Then write the chords into the bars where you want them to change and play what you've written.

Step 4
Initially play through your two-chord song by simply playing and holding the chords for the duration of the changes. In the example above, all chords can be held for 4 beats, except the two in bar 7 (2 beats each). Once you're comfortable making the transition from one chord to the next, play the chords more frequently - i.e., play all the chords twice per bar and then, after that has become easy for you, play chords one every beat.

Step 5

Return to Step 1, choose another two chords, and repeat the process. Also try using more combinations of the same chords within one song:


Additional Tips

Chords commonly move in one of two ways:

• to a chord based on the note adjacent to it in the Major scale (such as in the examples above)
• to a chord based on the note that is (the interval of) a 4th away. These are easily found using your Major Scale & Chord Construction chart by reading down any of the columns - e.g., Column I is C, F, Bb, Eb, etc. (See below)

Online Ear Training Sites

Learn to Hear is an easy to navigate and use site that will enable you to hone your listening skills.


There are four sections (Intervals, Scales, Triads and Tetrads) each of which presents ear training games of varying difficulty. In the Intervals section, you'll see one they've called "Primo". This is just a regional variant of "Unison".

The Triads section contains ear training games to test your abilities to distinguish between Major and Minor.

In the Scales section you'll see this page:


Check the "Practice Isolated" box for "Ionian/Major". The exercises then ask you simply to be able to distinguish between Major scales and scales that aren't Major.

There are plenty of other more advanced ear training games at this site for you to play. They're the sorts of things you won't be examined on for the MUSI course but I encourage you to explore them once you're confident with the basics.

Lesson 8 - Intervals & The Major Scale

The ability to hear and identify musical intervals is the most useful skill you can learn! There are only 12 intervals - each with a unique, individual sound and a name. The names given to the intervals are all based on their relationship to the Major scale. This is why your knowledge of the Major scale is fundamentally important to learning everything else in music.

The term "Major scale" (Major scale - singular) is used deliberately to emphasise the fact that there may be 12 possible starting notes for it but that the pattern of interval steps is exactly the same, regardless of the starting note. Column I lists these 12 possibilities. Each row thus becomes the Major scale from C (C Major), the Major scale from F (F Major), from Bb (Bb Major), etc. and takes its name from the note in column I.


Some Music Theory Trivia

The Major scale rows for Gb Major and F# are separated from the rows above and below purely to highlight that the notes used in both are exactly the same. It is also done to draw attention to a common misconception - that sharps and flats are "the black keys". This is partly true but it's to your advantage to understand that sharps and flats perform a special function. They are symbols to indicate that a written note, whatever it's name, is to be "altered" - i.e., a sharp instructs the player to play the note a half-step higher than the one written; a flat says play the note that is a half-step lower than the one written.

For example, in the Gb Major scale, step IV is Cb. The flat sign here refers to a white key (B). So, why name it Cb and not B? Because in the (theoretical) construction of Major scales, the 7 note name letters can only be used once and the note name B is needed to name Bb (step III of Gb Major). The same is true for seemingly weird notes such as E#.

Major Scale Construction Formula

At first glance the Major scale might appear to be constructed of 8 notes, labelled using the Roman numerals of I through VIII and coloured pale blue in the illustration above. The pale yellow columns indicate where the notes not needed for each Major scale are located. The red column is used for a note not used in the Major scale which is located exactly half way between Step I and Step VIII. It should be visually apparent that the Major scale is actually created using two identical 4 note patterns - i.e., steps I, II, III and IV have the same pattern as steps V, VI, VII and VIII. More on this below.

The Relationship of Intervals to the Major Scale

The names of the intervals are listed in the second row of the illustration above. Each of them relates to the column in which they appear and they all take their name depending on their distance higher than the note (or sound) in column I. Because intervals occur between sounds, two notes are required in order to create an interval. The first of these is then used as a reference point and can be thought of as "Doh" where Doh is any of the notes in column I.

Naming the 12 Intervals

One note sound following another can only be one of three things:

• the same sound
  
• higher in pitch, or
  
• lower in pitch

When one sound follows another and it's the same, it's called a Unison.

If the second sound is higher than the first, the Interval is "ascending" and it can be located using the "Relationship to Major Scale" column and named using one of the "Interval Names (Ascending)"

If the second sound is lower than the first, the Interval is "descending" and it can be located using the "Inverse (Descending)" column and named using one of the "Inverse Interval Names".

For example, if the first note is C and the next note is an E that is higher than C, then C is I and E's relationship to it is III - i.e., E is a Major 3rd higher than C.

If the the first note is C and the next note is an E lower than C, then C is VIII and the lower E's relationship is still III, but the interval drop is a Minor 6th.

Trivia:

The sum of an ascending interval with its corresponding descending inverse adds up to 9. Furthermore, an ascending interval's quality is also inversed by its corresponding descending partner. Examples:

• an ascending Major 3rd (C up to E) is the same note as a descending Minor 6th (C down to E)
  
• a descending Minor 7th (C down to D) is the same note as an ascending Major 2nd (C up to D)
  
• an ascending Perfect 4th (C up to F) is the same note as a descending Perfect 5th (C down to F)
  

Lesson 7 - How To Practice

There is an old maxim among musicians that says you only need to do three things to become an accomplished musician: practice, practice, practice.

While there is an element of truth to this, what does the word "practice" actually mean? To begin with, it's an unavoidable fact when learning to play an instrument that nobody can do it for you. Furthermore, it is an intensely personal experience that requires you to spend time - as much as you can devote to the pursuit - sitting with your keyboard and on your own between lessons. Therefore, "practice" essentially is that time between lessons during which you learn to teach yourself.

There is a traditional stereotype of practice for piano students as hours of learning to play scales through mind-numbingly repetitious exercises and tunes one note at a time. It is an approach that relies heavily on teaching music as a reading skill instead of as an aural skill and many thousands of books have been written as methods to develop reading skills at the expense of developing aural skills. In short, "method books" ultimately don't transform piano students into piano playing musicians.

This isn't to dismiss the values inherent in being able to read music or the necessity to develop technical dexterity. However; learning to read music is analogous with learning to read any new language and without the aural skills - to actually hear in your mind what you're reading - you'll never achieve anything more than a superficial fluency in music.

The approach used in this course is to concentrate initially on developing your aural skills so you can hear the simple mechanics that lies at the heart of music. It is a three-step process of learning.

Firstly, each week you'll be introduced to a few basic concepts about melodies, chords and how each of these develop and progress in the realm of time.

Secondly, you'll be shown techniques you can use to "experiment" with these concepts. In other words, how to create large numbers of your own patterns using a minimum of raw, conceptual materials.

Thirdly, you'll learn how to translate the things you hear and enjoy into music notation that will form part of your own personal "repertoire" of music.

So, the key word in all of this is "experiment". That's what musicians do when they practice...

Lesson 6 - Introduction to Music Notation

The very simplest form of music notation is a chord chart (sometimes just called "a chart"). It is a set of instructions that should, as a bare minimum, convey a number of things crucial to creating a performance - especially if the piano is used to accompany a person singing or playing another instrument.

The following illustration is a chart for one of the exercises learned in the previous lesson - i.e., to count a beat in groups of 2 and alternate between playing a C major chord and a C minor chord.


A chart such as this doesn't specifically tell you what notes you should play for C major and C minor and any music note symbols written on the staff (the 5 lines and spaces) would be meaningless because there is as yet no clef. What is important is simply that you know that C major contains a C, an E, and a G and that Cm contains C, Eb and G. When reading and playing chords from a chart like this, where all you have are chord symbols, you're free to interpret and play whatever voicings of chords you want. The only requirement is they're played in time - in this case, to counting in groups of 2 beats. The following illustration labels all the important elements of this simple chord chart:


Title: Strictly speaking, a chart doesn't need a title but using them is a good habit to get into.

Tempo, Time Signature and Bar Lines: These three elements go hand-in-hand. The time signature informs you of what number you're counting to (represented by the top number of the fraction - in this case, 2) and the tempo is an indication of how fast your counting is. Bar Lines visually demarcate the beats indicated by the time signature.

Slashes: These symbols are customarily used in chord charts to mark the beats in each bar. Later, when specific musical notes are written in bars, the slashes aren't necessary. However; for the beginner first learning to read music, they are a handy visual aid.

Final Bar Line: This is one of several symbols that can be described as music "navigational" signs. The final bar line (thin line together with a thicker one) is, as the name suggests, a symbol that defines where the chart ends and the performer stops playing.

Activities:

Create your own chord charts using -

• a different time signature (3 beats per bar; 4 beats per bar)
• a different sequence of chords based on chords you should know by now (C, D, Cm, Dm)

When playing the chord charts you create, experiment with variations of rhythm. For example:

• play the chord on every beat instead of playing and holding it for the duration of the count in each bar
• if the time signature is 2/4, play the chord on every even numbered beat (i.e., one TWO one TWO one TWO)
• if the time signature is 3/4, play the chord twice in each bar - firstly as 2 + 1 beats and then as 1 + 2 beats
• if the time signature is 4/4, subdivide the beats in each bar as above - i.e., as 2 + 2, 3 + 1, 1 + 3, and 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 (playing the chord on every beat)
  

Lesson 5 - Minor Chords

In the previous lesson you learned to create Major chord triads. Playing these you will have noticed they all shared an aesthetic tonal quality - i.e., that Major chords sound "bright", "happy", etc. The other main chord quality - the opposite of Major - is called Minor. It's formula is almost identical to that for Major chords:

I - bIII - V

The only difference between Major and Minor is that step III (of Major) is flatted - i.e., lowered by a half-step. So, where C Major is C - E - G, to create C Minor all you need to do is lower E (the third step of C Major) a half-step to become Eb:



Activity:

• Alternately play C Major and C Minor as simple, three-note triads
• Listen to the difference in tonal quality between Major and Minor
• Repeat the C Major to C Minor alternations using different chord voicings with both hands - hands separately, and then together

What if Step III of Major is a Sharp?

In the previous lesson you learned step III of D Major is named F#. To change D Major to D Minor, the flat sign used in the formula for Minor (bIII) has the effect to simply cancel the sharp sign - thus, F# becomes F when D Major changes to D Minor:


What are Chord Symbols?

In the very most basic form of music notation (chord charts - see next lesson), chord symbols are used as written abbreviations for terms such as minor and major.

Major chords are represented using simply the note-name of the chord thus a C Major chord is simply named using the symbol C; D Major is named D; Bb Major is named using the symbol Bb; etc.

Minor chords are represented the same way as Major chords but with the addition of a lowercase letter "m" to denote "minor". C Minor thus has the symbol Cm, D Minor is Dm, Bb Minor is Bbm, and so on.

Tips For Practicing

When playing simple exercises such as alternating between C and Cm chords, play and hold each for a predetermined number of beats or counts. For example, once you have located the notes required to play each of the two chords, count slowly "one...two...one...two..." until you are feeling relaxed in in sync with your count. Then, play the notes you've selected for C and hold them pressed for two beats (or any multiple of two) and then change to play and hold Cm for the same duration. Change back to C and repeat until you feel confident you can play the correct notes for C and Cm and that you can change between the two chords easily and in time with the tempo (speed) of your counting.

Lesson 4 - Major Chords

What are Chords?

Just as scales are the basic building blocks used to create melodies in music, chords are the basic building blocks used to create accompaniments for melodies. Scales and chords are very closely related to each other and the formulas used to create chords relate directly to the steps of the Major scale. For example, the formula to create the Major chord is:

I - III - V

meaning, it's the combination of the notes at steps I, III and V from the Major scale. Which Major chord is this? It could be any of the 12 possible Major chords depending on which note "I" refers to. In other words, if you want to create a C Major chord then C is I. The other two notes are steps III and V from the C Major scale - i.e., E and G respectively.



To create a D Major chord, use the same formula but refer to the D Major scale. Thus, a D Major chord is a combination of D, F# and A (I, III and V from the D Major scale).


Because these chords contain three different sounds, they're called "triads". The illustrations above show C Major and D Major triads in their simplest, bare-minimum forms. It's perfectly acceptable to play any arrangement of the three sounds in a triadic chord - even repeating notes if so desired - and it doesn't change the chord quality - i.e., "Major". The following illustration shows a C Major chord "voicing" (arrangement of notes) spread across two octaves:


The following is another way a C Major chord can be played on a keyboard:


Important to Note:

Chords can be played with either hand and often using a combination notes shared across both hands together, as the illustrations above show.

Activities:

• Locate and C Major chord notes as simple three-note triads using just your left hand.
• Repeat as simple three-note triads using just your right hand.
• Play C Major in different registers of the keyboard - i.e., play down low in the bass register, in the middle register, and then up in the higher registers
• Play C Major chords using both hands so that tones are repeated

Once you feel comfortable that you're beginning to be able to easily play C Major chords anywhere on the keyboard, repeat the activity using a D Major chord.

Lesson 3 - Sharps and Flats

In the previous lesson we constructed a Major scale beginning on a C and found we only needed to use white keys to do so. However; what happens if I begin on a D and play a scale just using the white keys:


Observe when you play this sequence of notes it no longer sounds like the Major scale? This is because if D is step I, the location of the half-step intervals has now changed so that there is now a half-step between steps II and III where there should be a whole-step and a whole-step between steps III and IV where there should only be a half-step. In other words, you need to use that (as yet un-named) sound between the notes F and G instead of playing the F at step III.

There is a symbol used in music notation called a "sharp" (#) that means to play the note that is a half-step higher than the note it refers to. Similarly, there is another symbol called a "flat" (b) that means to play the note that is a half-step lower than the note it refers to.

As mentioned above, in order to create a Major scale with D as step I, you'll need to use the black note between F and G. This note could be named either F# or Gb. It sounds exactly the same regardless of what it's called so why is it called F# and not Gb in this case? Step III of a D Major scale is an F# because that is the note that had to be altered and the note name "G" is needed to name step IV:

D E F# G

In other words, it's the "context" in which notes are used that determines whether they're sharps or flats. Furthermore, sharps and flats don't strictly just refer to black keys. If you create a Major scale that starts on the key called F# above but call that sound Gb instead, the first four steps of Gb Major are:

Gb Ab Bb Cb

Of course, "Cb" looks and sounds exactly like the white note B but because the name B has already been used in this context (to name Bb) the Cb simply instructs you to use the note that is a half-step lower than C. All of this is mentioned as trivia and to debunk the myth that many people mistakenly believe - that "Sharps and flats are the black keys". It's sort of true, but not entirely, and you will have difficulty understanding how sharps and flats function unless you familiarise yourself with the correct definitions for them:

Sharp - play the sound a half-step higher

Flat - play the sound a half-step lower

The Major Scale Beginning on D



Activities:

• As with C Major, play and sing the steps of D Major
• Note the pattern of half and whole-step intervals
• Note the two identical 4 note patterns (Steps I to IV and Steps V to VIII)

Lesson 2 - The Major Scale

What is a Scale?

In music, a scale is simply one or more of the 12 notes we have to play with in music arranged in a pattern that progresses up or down the keyboard. For example, in the previous lesson when you played all of the Ds from the lowest sounding one to the highest one, what you played could be called a scale. If you were to begin on the lowest D on the keyboard (or any note) and play each of the black and white notes (all 12 sounds) ascending in order, you'd also be playing a scale. There are 479,001,600 possible scale patterns! However; there is only one scale you need to know and it's a pattern of 7 sounds known as the Major scale. It's the most important scale because it's used as a reference to identify and define two fundamental musical elements of pitch organisation: melody and chords.

What is the Major Scale?

Without realising it, you possibly already know the answer to this. Many children learn to sing it when they're very young with the words:

Doh Ray Me Far So La Tee Doh

When you sing this little pattern what you are singing is the Major scale. It has eight steps that we will label using Roman numerals:

I = Doh
II = Ray
III = Me
IV = Far
V = So
VI = La
VII = Tee
VIII = Doh (and is the same sound as step I, only an octave higher)

What are the Notes of the Major Scale on a Keyboard?

You'll remember we have 12 notes - seven white keys and five black keys. Thus, there are 12 possible notes from which you can create the Major scale. In other words, "Doh" (step I of the Major scale) can be any one of those 12 notes. When the note C is step I ("Doh") the Major scale pattern is all white keys:



The most important thing to observe at this stage is that the Major scale is constructed using a sequence of "intervals". An interval is simply the term used in music to describe the distance between any two notes. The smallest distance we have on keyboard instruments is a half-step (traditionally called a semitone). For example, there isn't any note between step III and step IV of the Major scale nor between steps VII and VIII. In other words, the interval distance between E and F and between B and C is a half-step.

The black key between step I and step II is a half-step higher than C and a half-step lower than D. Therefore, step II (D) is a whole-step interval higher than step I (C).

This pattern of half and whole-step intervals used to construct Major scales is of fundamental importance when learning to create any of the 12 possible Major scales. Perhaps the easiest way to remember the pattern is to think of it as being two identical four-note patterns with the intervals in brackets between the steps:

I (whole-step) II (whole-step) III (half-step) IV

V (whole-step) VI (whole-step) VII (half-step) VIII

The interval that connects the two identical 4 note patterns (IV to V) is a whole-step.

Because this Major scale begins on a C it's name is the C major scale.

Activities:

• Observe the way the musical pattern of the first 4 steps sounds the same as the second 4 steps.
• Play step I and then step IV. This interval (called a fourth) is arguably the easiest to learn to recognise because it sounds like the first two notes of Here Comes the Bride. Can you hear the similarity?
• Play step V and then step VIII. This interval is also a fourth and thus also sounds like Here Comes the Bride.
• Play and sing the C Major scale using the names of its steps as words (i.e., "one, two, three..." etc.
• Play and sing the C Major scale as above but down from step V (i.e., "five, four, three, two, one")
• Play and sing other patterns using C Major scale notes. For example, I, III, V ("one, three, five")

Lesson 1 - Preparing to Play

• be seated comfortably and sitting up straight at your piano
• position yourself so you're squarely facing the center of keyboard
• relax your arms from the shoulder and place both hands on the keyboard
• you should be seated at a distance so that your hands easily reach the keyboard but aren't so close that your wrists are bent
• your fingers should be curved to play the keys with their tips
  
• your thumbs should rest on the keys alongside the other fingers
• the backs of your hands should be level so that a coin could be balanced on them while the fingers play
  

Traps to Avoid

• flattening your fingers on the keys
• curling fingers (particularly the 4th and 5th) tightly when they're not being used to play
• thumbs dropping away from the keys when other fingers play
• fingers sticking straight when not being used to play

Music Note Names

A piano keyboard commonly has 88 black and white keys but there are only 12 distinct notes we manipulate to make music. Furthermore, there are only 7 letters of the alphabet used to name those 12 notes. They are:

A B C D E F G

The notes named by these 7 letters are all white keys on the keyboard. To locate them, we use the pattern of the black keys.

The black keys are arranged into a repeating pattern: a group of two and a group of three. The white key located between every pair of black keys is named D. The white key to its left is C and the white key to its right is named E.

Activity:

• Locate and play all of the Ds on your keyboard
• Locate and play all of the Cs
• Locate and play all of the Es

Once you feel comfortable you can find each of these easily, repeat the activity with your eyes closed.

• Use the feel of your fingers to guide you firstly to all the Ds.
• With your eyes still closed, listen to the sound of each D you play
• Notice the similarity in the sound of all the Ds
• Listen to the difference in their sound - the further down to your left you go, the "lower" in pitch they sound. Moving up the keyboard to the right and all the Ds sound "higher" in pitch.
• Notice how much your hearing feels like it improves when you close your eyes
• Enjoy that feeling!
  

Useful Tips & Practice Strategies

• Whenever you're learning anything new to play on the keyboard, experiment and play around with it until you can do it with your eyes (literally) closed
• Experiment by learning to play things equally well with both hands (separately first, and then hands together)
  
• LISTEN to everything you play!
  

Major Scale & Chord Construction Formulas

This page contains all the music theory you need to know for this course. It is essential that you print a copy for yourself and bring it to every class. (Click the thumbnail for full sized image)

Blank Manuscript Paper

You will be required throughout this course to copy musical information using manuscript paper. Print as many copies of this sheet as you need and bring several sheets to classes each week. (Click the thumbnail for full sized image)

Essential Tools

There is no set text for this course however; you will be expected to bring a number of things to classes each week:

• Blank manuscript paper (may be downloaded from this site and printed)
• Pencils and an eraser
• A plastic pocket display book (for your resource folder)
• Major Scales & Chord Construction sheet

Course Overview

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Introduction to Keyboard teaches students a number of rudimentary keyboard techniques. This introduction will facilitate towards the ability to play simple chordal accompaniments at the keyboard for elementary folk-songs, nursery rhymes and so on. Students will be taught the basic principles of keyboard styles. No prior musical training is required for this subject.

COURSE RATIONALE

This introduction will facilitate towards the ability to play accompaniments at the keyboard for simple vocal repertoire, folk-songs, nursery rhymes and so on. The music concepts of time, beat, rhythm, chords and elementary musical notation are introduced as the essential building blocks for keyboard playing. Aural skills are developed to support the chosen repertoire. No prior musical training is required.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

On successfully completing MUSI2002 the student will be able to:

• Develop a basic understanding and practical working knowledge of a number of elementary keyboard techniques

• Demonstrate an understanding of music concepts including beat, rhythm, chords and notation

• Play melodies and simple harmonic progressions

• Understand the importance of listening and aural skills

COURSE CONTENT

An examination of elementary keyboard techniques including:

• Time, Beat and Rhythm

• Studies in rhythmic notation

• Basic chord structures and applications

• Reading simple music notation

• Chord relationships in music

• Basic accompaniment skills

• Technical work related to the performance repertoire

• Sequentially selected repertoire of performance materials

• Music sight reading skills and aural development appropriate to the level of performance skills

• Sight read simple melodies

ASSUMED KNOWLEDGE

AART1010

COURSE EVALUATIONS

Student evaluations are undertaken at the end of each semester. The Faculty uses The University of Newcastle SES program for academic subjects at the end of every Semester. All staff involved consult with the Dean to examine their own results and undertake the Deans recommendations in the light of these results. An internal review and evaluation of the subject's operation will be carried out at the completion of its first semester of offering.

CONTACT HOURS

Workshop for 2 hours per week for 13 weeks

ASSESSMENT



TEACHING METHOD

Workshop

MODES OF DELIVERY

Internal

RESOURCES

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