Adult Piano Adventures - Introduction to Playing

Introduction to playing .

Let's take a look at the keyboard .

We have black and white keys .

What's important about these black keys is not their color .

But what's important is the grouping .

We have a set of two black keys and three black key groups which come on up the keyboard .

So in other words , what we have is any passage that falls relative to those sets of two and three black key groups and we can play the same pitches then up or down the keyboard .

Now , let's take another look at these black keys , not just black and white .

What else do you observe about these black keys ?

Well , they're raised , aren't they ?

They're raised up .

And that's tremendously important because it allows us to feel the key .

And that feeling is so important .

I recall a story of , of my own history when I was a young lad at 14 , a more an older , more professional musician , gave me some advice .

He says , Randy , the secret to playing the piano is to feel the keys .

Well , I thanked him for the information .

I went home and I thought this guy is crazy .

Feel the keys , of course , we feel the keys .

But over the years reflecting at it , I realized his advice was actually very astute do this for me at your keyboard , very relaxed wrist and feel that intersection of white and black keys because this is the way we're going to be able to get around .

And this is the key , not just to finding our way around the keyboard , but is that is the control of sound .

So we have touch and sound , feeling the keys and that relationship to the sound that we're producing .

That's the essence here of the piano playing , not visual orientation .

Let's take a look at these black keys or better .

Let's take a listen to these black keys .

We've got the raindrop exercise and as we explore these keys and the sound notices an upward motion of the wrist .

This is going to bring in the relaxation that is so vital .

Our thunder , we can drop in with heavy arms .

In other words , an arm weight takes us down , but that wrist takes us back up again .

So when you're playing here and in this exploration of feeling the keys bring in drops of arm weight , but also the upward motions .

There's something very fun about the black keys .

There are five of them .

It gives us a five note scale .

Indeed , the five black keys is a pentatonic scale and we could do some nice sounds with this .

You'll be playing amazing grace in this unit and with that , you might want to explore a little more improvisation .

If you want to play around a little more , you could take this black key G flat .

It's the bottom of the three black keys with that is an anchor .

Our scale takes on a rather happy sound .

But if we take the top of the two black keys as an anchor , that would sounds a little darker and bluesy .

So something like this with that flag or over the bass note with that E flat , you had that chance and with the Amazing Grace and also the improvisation exercise at the end of the unit with the music theory page .

So focus on feel and focus on sound and this gives us the expression .