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Hi, I'm Larry Steelman and welcome to part two of the ultimate beginner series for keyboards in this series
We're going to talk about scales
Melodies and improvisation before you know it you'll be making your own tunes up. You'll be a great composer. Are you ready?
Well come on back to the studio, and we'll get started
Let's take a minute to review what was covered in step one
You learned the names of all the notes on the white keys
You learned how to play triads in the key of C and some accompaniment patterns now. Let's take a look at scales
When you learned the musical alphabet you learned the names of each note from C to C. Let's do that one more time C
D E
C D E
D E
F G
A B
C
The new thing I'm going to teach you is a standard fingering technique because you don't have to play it with one finger
So watch me as I play start with the thumb one two three four five six seven eight
Now did you notice something when I got from the third finger to the fourth step?
I crossed under with my thumb. Let's try that
See how that works let's just do that third finger first finger
Third finger first finger one more time third finger first finger
Now what you have to do is to make that as smooth as possible when you're playing the scale
Let's try it one more time slow tempo
One two three four five six seven eight
Good let's try it descending this time from the top down same fingering just in the reverse order
Try that one more time you want to get that smooth transition between the thumb and the third finger
Okay and as with any technique exercises you want to do it with the metronome
You want to keep it at a slow tempo and do it very evenly without hitting one note harder than another
Let's try it one more time up and down
Good now if you want to keep going past the octave you have to do another thumb under the way we did between three and four
Let's try it
Now you can see there's another crossover here between the seventh and the eighth note
Let's try that just a couple of times
You're going from the fourth finger to the first finger
It's a little bit different than the third
Okay let's try the scale two octaves this time so we're going to continue into the next octave
Here we go
And down
Good now with any technique exercise you need to practice with the metronome to keep it steady
And it's not important that you play fast the speed is not as important as the clarity at this stage
So you want to keep all the notes as even as you can and practice with the metronome
Bring the speed up as you can play better
Well now we've talked about scales but music's not completely made of scales
The thing we haven't spoken about is melodies
So let's take a look at melodies
There are two ways that you might learn melodies one would be to read music for that you need a teacher
But the other way is learning melodies through your ear just hearing what you hear and trying to convert it to the keyboard
We're going to try a little experiment here
I'm going to play a melody that you've all heard before
I don't want you to watch me I just want you to listen
I'm going to give you something to figure out where the melody is but don't watch me it's in the key of C
So here's the notes that I may use and here it goes
Okay now try to find that melody on your own can you tell where I started
We started in the key of C there's C now can you find the first note that I played
It's an E
Now watch me as I play the melody again and let's play together
Now you may ask why didn't you cross under with the thumb
Well that's something that we did for the scale but this melody all lies within the five fingers
So if I'm not going to need to go outside of that range then I don't cross over makes it a little bit simpler
Now let's try it with a left hand accompaniment see if you can get this here's the left hand I'm going to start on C
Good let's put them together
Great
Did you figure out those two chords the first one was C but what was the second one try it out listen one more time
Which chord is that it's a G we learned that in the first video so the two chords are C and G the one chord and the five chord
Now let's put them together
Great now you can use that technique to figure out any melody you listen to it pick it out on the piano it's great fun
Some melodies are more complex than others and you might need a teacher to help you through those spots but that's the way I started music learning it by ear
And it's perfectly all right now if we were to play a melody in a different key than C the one that we've been used to might pose some other problems
So let's try it we have to figure out a few more things about scale structure so let's listen to the scale of G I'm going to play all the white notes and see if it sounds like the scale in C
Now did it sound the same as C for me there was one note that was a little bit off and I think it was this note the seventh note let me play it one more time
What about if we just raise that seventh step up one half step to this black note here let's listen to that see if it sounds more like C
That's it that sounds like the scale in C just starting on G now what made the difference the difference was between scale step seven and eight
I didn't go two notes but I went one note I went the black note to the white note this black note is called F sharp whenever you have a white note that turns to a black note we're going up a step and it's called sharp
So let me look at another note let's say D and then we go up a half step what is this called D sharp but let's try again the G major scale
Now let's try playing the G major scale two octaves and we can use the same technique that we did with the C major scale let's try it thumb under thumb under try it again thumb under and descend
and we're crossing over and we're crossing over crossover one more time and we're home good
So now you know if you want to improvise in the key of G major you'll always use the F sharp instead of the F natural okay now let's try another scale how about F
I'm going to play the white notes from F to F and we'll see if that sounds right listen
Well that's almost right but there's one note that doesn't sound quite right let's see if you can find it it's that one doesn't sound quite right let's try another one
Yeah that's more like it now what did we do the wrong note was this white note and we lowered it by a half a step to this black note
Now when we lower a note we call it a flat so this note which is B as you remember from our musical alphabet has now become B flat
If we have a wrong note that we're going to raise we'll call it a sharp as we did in the G major scale we went from F to F sharp
In this scale it's called a B flat because we went down a half step now I'm going to have to show you another fingering for this scale the F major scale
Watch closely we use one two three four then we cross under for the C and then go on up to the next octave there with the thumb so let's try it
And cross under okay and come down great now let's try that one two octaves we're going to have to do the crossover again between the seventh and the eighth note
So let's try it again this is the next octave down and cross under and cross under once again cross under and we're going to descend coming back down crossover crossover crossover
Good now what did we learn we learned that there's a half step between the third and fourth scale steps and there's a half step between the seventh and eighth scale steps
With that knowledge you can play a scale on any key let's pick any key try this black note the B flat that we just tried in F
Here's B flat now our rule says that we need to go two half steps or a whole step to the next note so we're going to skip this white note and go to this white note
Then one more whole step now between three and four we got a half step so we got to go to this black note alright then we go up another whole step another whole step another whole step
This is the seventh note and we know between seven and eight we have a half step there we are back at home base again on B flat
Now my challenge to you is to build a major scale from any key on the piano rewind the tape if you need to hear the explanation again every major scale has its own unique fingering and you'll need a teacher to help you develop your technique
But you now have enough knowledge to play in any major key congratulations
Yeah improvising is a lot easier than it looks why don't you come with me and we'll give it a try
Okay we've learned a little about scales and about playing melodies by ear now let's talk about improvising improvising means making up your own melodies from the notes of the scale and all you need is a little technique and a lot of imagination
Let's go back to our familiar key of C with just white notes to deal with it's hard to make a mistake
First we'll need a chord progression so that we have a background for our melody you can pick any chords from the key let's start with two C major and A minor
First I'll play the C major chord I'll start playing the scale but not just up and down in order I'll pick notes that I like in any order
Now I'm going to change to A minor
I played pretty much the same notes but did you notice how different the notes sounded against the different chords hearing the relationship of a scale to a chord is the essence of improvising
Now I'll give you a chance to try some improvisation of your own we'll play the same two chords and you can just stretch out and have some fun experimentation is how we all learn
So
So far we've based all our melodies around the major scale another important sound is minor and believe it or not you already know how to play a minor scale
When you play all the white keys over the A minor chord as you just did it sounds like they fit together the fact is that the white keys starting on a form an A minor scale
Let's look at that again there's some half steps and whole steps here that we need to notice
There's a half step between the second and third steps
The fifth and sixth steps
And the rest are whole steps
Like the major scale the minor scale is made up of whole steps and half steps in a certain order looking at the A minor scale you'll see that the half steps are between B and C
And E and F
Or if we want to look at the numbers it's between the second and third steps and the fifth and sixth steps
Let's try this formula starting on another note E
So we go a whole step
Here's our half step between two and three
Five and six there's a half step and then we're back to the octave on E
Good
Now let's try the same thing starting from D
So we start on D whole step between the second and third is a half step
Between the fifth and sixth is a half step
And then we're back to the octave on D
If you continue building minor scales from different keys you'll notice that they all resemble the major scales starting a step and a half higher in pitch
For example let's go back to A minor and C
They're the same notes they're all the white notes
And if we look at E and G the same thing applies they both have F sharps in them
And here's G
Finally let's look at D minor and F major they both have B flats in them
Major and minor scales that are related in this way are actually called relative scales
For another challenge form a minor scale from any key like the major scales you'll need a teacher to help you finger them properly
But you'll have a good foundation to be able to play in any minor key
Once again congratulations
So far we've covered major and minor sounds but there's one more sound that all musicians play
That's the blues
The blues sound is a little different from major and minor sounds
Right now I'll show you a scale that blues players call the blues scale
You can see that it's not quite like a major scale or a minor scale but if you play these notes in any octave it'll sound great
Now I'm going to show you fingering for this scale
One, two, and cross under, two, three, four, five, and let's come down, five, four, three, two, one, crossover, and one
There you go
But to really hear how this scale sounds you need to hear it played over a blues progression
Let's use the same chords that we learned in step one, a blues progression in the key of C
This scale is a lot of fun because you really can't hit a bad note
We'll let the band supply the backup so you can just wail
I'll take the first chorus and you come in on the second chorus and keep on playing through to the end
Okay, take it
Okay
Well we've come to the end of another video and you might ask, well where do I go from here?
I'd say find a teacher who can take you to that next step
Keep practicing, try the improvisation, have fun
So until next time, bye
Thank you for watching!