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Would you like to be able to play like that?
I always did, but I didn't start playing until I was 21 years old.
Hi, I'm Patti Carlson.
People have been fooled by the belief that it takes years of training to be able to play
music.
They've also thought that the ability to compose was a rare gift.
My method of teaching will prove to you that those beliefs are no longer true.
When I first sat down at the piano, all I really wanted to do was to learn how to play
music.
When we were children, we learned how to speak before we learned how to read or how to write.
Music is a language, and I think it's very important to learn how to speak that language
before you try to learn how to read it.
What I'm going to do today is to teach you how to play the piano by the end of this lesson.
If you look at this wooden piece, it looks just like the old fashioned key that was used
to unlock doors.
So each wooden piece was called a key.
Because music was considered to be a language, they decided to use the same terms as the
language that was already in existence.
So the first wooden key was given the letter name A, and then the next key was B, C, D,
E, F, G. When they came to the eighth tone, it was the same as the first tone.
So the pattern simply repeated itself, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, from one end of the piano
to the other.
Now, when you look at the piano, you see a system of white keys, and you see a system
of black keys.
The black keys begin with one black key, but from this point on, they're found in groups
of two black keys or three black keys, repeating this pattern from one end of the piano to
the other.
Two, three, two, three, two, or three.
The white key to the left of the two black keys is C. Anywhere on the piano that you
find a group of two black keys, the white key to the left of them will be C, C.
Now I'd like to move to a number system.
Because I'm going to be in the key of C, C will now equal one.
And the next white key will be two.
The next one, three, four, five, six, seven, and again one.
Now if you look at this, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, this would have been
eight.
So the distance between the two like tones was called an octave.
Now I'd like to move on to the next part of this lesson.
In this method of teaching, I'm going to call a chord three or more tones played at the
same time.
And in this key, and only in this key, the one chord will be every other white note,
starting with the one tone.
So you'll play a tone, skip a tone, play a tone, skip a tone, and play a tone.
And all three tones will be played at the same time.
That equals the one chord.
If I begin the chord on two and play every other white note for three notes and play
them at the same time, that becomes the two chord.
Then the three chord, four chord, five chord, six chord, seven chord, and again the one
chord.
What I would like you to do now is to learn to play each chord first with your right hand
and then with your left hand.
With your right hand, you use your thumb, your middle finger, and your little finger
like this.
Then you move to the two chord, then you move to the three chord, four, five, six, seven.
And one.
Now the left hand will play the same thing.
Use your little finger on the one, then your middle finger on the next tone, and your thumb
on the third tone.
Here's the two chord, the three chord, four chord, five chord, six, seven, and one.
Try doing that with both hands together, the left hand and the right hand.
Now if you look at this, I have the one chord in my left hand and the one chord in my right
hand, but the distance between the two of them skips two blank white keys.
Skip two and here's the one chord again.
So I'd like you to learn to play these chords like this.
First the left hand, then the right hand, then together, then the two chord, the three chord, four chord.
It's important to say the name of the chord so that you know what the chord sounds like
in relationship to its number.
So if I'm going to play the five chord, I'll know that it sounds like this, five, and listen
to the difference between five and six.
Let me play them one after the other.
Seven, and again one.
Now what I'd like you to do is to play each chord four times.
You'll begin with your left hand on the one chord and you'll play the one chord and then
you'll skip two blank white notes to your right hand and then you'll cross with your
left hand, skip two blank white notes, play every other white note to the one chord and
again the one chord.
Then you'll begin with the two chord and you'll do that with each and every chord.
But before you actually begin playing these chords, I'd like you to have an understanding
of how the right hand pedal of this piano works.
The pedal on the right hand side of the piano is attached to a system of pads that's inside
of the piano and so when I press the pedal down, the pads come off the strings and any
string that I'm playing will continue to vibrate as long as I have that pedal down, but if
I let go of that pedal, the pads come down on the strings and the strings stop vibrating.
Well, when I start playing the one chord, I want all of those strings to vibrate and
I want them to continue vibrating as I move my hands, so I put the pedal down and I start
to play the one chord.
When I begin the two chord, I don't want the one chord to be in the box anymore, so I have
to let go of the pedal exactly as I begin the two chord and put the pedal right back
down again.
When I begin the three chord, I let go of the pedal, I put the pedal right back down
again and I keep that pedal down until I actually begin the four chord.
That's really important.
You want to leave the pedal down until you actually play the first tone of the four chord.
See?
And then you put the pedal right back down again so all of those strings continue to
vibrate together.
Why don't you take a few minutes, press the pause button on the tape machine and try what
I just showed you.
Now I'd like you to play each chord four times, starting with the one chord, then skip two
blank white keys, take your left hand, cross over your right hand, skip two blank white
keys, and finish with your right hand, here's the one chord, then the two chord, three,
and each time that you play a chord, I want you to say to yourself, four, and then five,
you say to yourself five, six, seven, and again one.
Once you become really familiar with that motion and able to play that smoothly, I want
you to start varying the sequence of order that you choose the chords to play.
So we'll start with the one chord, but then I'll go from the one chord to the six chord,
to the four chord, to the five chord, to the three chord, to the four chord, and back again
to the one chord.
You can choose any order that you like, but this is one that I happen to enjoy myself.
One, seven, six, four, five, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven,
four, five, one.
I'd like to move on to a different exercise now.
I'd like you to take your left hand and stretch from your little finger to your thumb a full
octave.
That means that the little finger would play one, and if the little finger's playing one,
the thumb will play one also.
Now when you do this, your index finger should fall on this key, and if you look at this,
the distance between my pinky and my index finger skips three blank white keys.
So here's my pinky, then I skip three blank white keys, and then I play my index finger.
From my index finger to my thumb, I'm going to skip two blank white keys.
At that point, my thumb and my little finger are playing exactly the same tone.
This is what I call the New Age stretch.
I'd like you to play this on every single tone.
There's the one tone.
Now on the two tone, the three tone, four tone, five, six, seven, and again one.
You should practice this a lot, but don't stretch your tendons too far.
If your tendons start to hurt, go back to practicing the chords, and then return to
this exercise.
Once you have the basis of the New Age stretch, from this point on, I'll be teaching you finger
patterns, and this is what I mean by a finger pattern.
You'll play the New Age stretch, and then I want you to cross your middle finger over
your thumb.
Play the next two white notes, and skip one to your thumb.
Let's try that again.
Pinky, index finger, thumb.
That's the New Age stretch.
Take your middle finger, cross over your thumb, play the next two white keys, and skip one
to your thumb.
That's a finger pattern.
I would like you to play this finger pattern on six, one, seven, six.
Use the exact same finger pattern, the New Age stretch, cross with your middle finger,
play the next two white notes, and skip one to your thumb.
Okay, we'll play this on six.
Now something that many people have fallen into is speeding up when they cross over,
and I'll show you what I mean.
I want you to try to avoid that.
When you cross your middle finger over your thumb, slow down.
Then I want you to take that finger pattern and play it from the four tone.
Remember, four is to the left of the three black keys.
So from six, four, then five, and again on six.
When you're comfortable with that, I'd like to add the right hand.
If you remember in the beginning of this lesson, we were playing chords.
Three chord, four chord, five chord, six chord.
Well, when my left hand begins with the sixth tone for this finger pattern, my right hand
is going to play the sixth chord.
They are going to play exactly at the same time.
Your concentration should be completely on your left hand and on the smoothness with
which you execute this passage.
So my right hand will begin precisely when my left hand begins, but the right hand just
has to have its finger position from the sixth chord.
And all it has to do is come down and stay there while my left hand plays the passage.
All right, let's try it.
Six in my right hand, six in my left hand.
Now both hands are going to move to four because the pattern is played from six to four to
five to six.
So I need to remember that four is to the left side of the three black keys.
And then from that point on, I'm simply going to be moving one white key at a time to the
right.
So I'll start with six.
Now they both move to four, then to five, and again six.
I'd like you to do this twice, six, four, five, six, five, six, five, six, five, six,
Why don't you take a few minutes, press the pause button on your tape machine and try
what I just showed you.
Improvisation is a term that I use for the spontaneous creation of music.
To make up music, all you need to understand is the tools that will work together.
If I'm in the key of C, then I have seven tones that I'm able to use to create the music
with.
And to speak in a rich sound, I need to move these tones consecutively, meaning one right
after the other.
Or I want to skip two or more keys in my passages.
Something that you need to practice right now and to understand is fingering.
Fingering is the simplest way to move from one section of the keyboard to another without
twisting your hand in either direction, okay?
So if I want to move in this direction, when I come to my thumb and I want to move further
than that, I cross my middle finger over my thumb.
And I can skip notes, but that's the movement, that's the crossover.
When I want to move from the left-hand side of the keyboard to the right-hand side of
the keyboard, I'll take my thumb and I'll pass it under my middle finger and under with
my thumb.
And I can skip keys when I do that as far as I want to.
I'll use my little finger on my right hand to play that note.
And then I'll start moving back the other direction.
Hit my thumb, crossover with my middle finger.
From the left to right, under with my thumb.
My highest note played with my little finger.
In improvisation, one movement that you would be better off avoiding is the chord structure.
Every other white note.
When you're making up a melodic line, you want to move consecutively, meaning one right
after the other.
Or you want to skip two or more notes.
To begin with, we'll go back and rehearse that new age stretch and the crossing over
Finger pattern, starting with six.
To add the melodic line with your right hand, you can play any one of the seven tones.
So since I'm with six, I'm going to start with six because I know that that will really
sound good.
I'd like you to play just one tone with your right hand as you play the left hand passage
so that you have some time to develop your coordination between your two hands.
So to begin with, since I'm starting with six on my left hand, I'll start with six on
my right hand.
But that's not always necessary.
You can start with any white tone that you like.
But for right now, we'll start with six.
As you're playing this, recognize that you don't have to concentrate on your right hand.
Your concentration should still be on your left hand because the right hand can play
any white key at all, and it will sound okay.
When one tone becomes easy for you, move to two tones.
Again.
If you noticed that time, I played the two tones, but I did not always play them in the
same rhythm.
Sometimes I played them at the beginning and sometimes I left some time and space in between
the notes that I played.
And that is very important in making up music.
Now I'd like to show you some advanced applications of this theory of improvisation.
I can move in different groups and patterns of notes.
But the most important thing to understand is to alter my rhythm when I move.
When somebody speaks with music, it's the time and the distance in between the groups
of notes that causes feeling.
Something that many people who have studied with me have fallen into is taking the same
rhythm pattern and changing the notes.
And what you really want to do is to change the rhythm pattern as well as the notes that
you use.
I'll give you an example.
Here's a rhythm pattern.
So they'll take that rhythm pattern and then they'll move it to the notes and then they'll
move it to other notes and another group of notes.
And the reason that that doesn't really express a good feeling is because the rhythm itself
never changed.
So when I begin to speak with music, I want to first move in one direction from low to
high.
And then I want to move back from high to low.
And I can use any kind of rhythm as long as I restrict the tones that I'm using to the
seven that were given originally.
Now if you want to get a little fancy, instead of playing one note at a time, you can play
that exact same passage but stretch your right hand so that the thumb and the pinky are playing
exactly the same tone.
So they'll be stretched an octave.
And use that to color the music that you play.
So you'll be moving from one pattern to another pattern to another pattern.
And then back again to simplicity.
And we'll finish with the chords, six, four, five, and six.
Here's an example.
Now you can play that same piece of music in your own way and remember most of all that
changing is what keeps your interest.
So always change your rhythm pattern from one to the next.
Make sure that you speak in simple passages.
If you speak too much, then you'll lose the meaning.
Now I'd like to begin a new finger pattern with your left hand.
Start with your left hand and use your thumb on the one tone.
Your thumb will play, then you'll play your index finger.
And you'll take your thumb and cross under your index finger.
Walk each finger all the way down to your pinky.
And then play your index finger as the last tone.
Okay, let's try that again.
And each tone that you play, I want you to have three beats for.
So you'll count one, two, three, one, two, three.
Start with your thumb, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three,
pinky, two, three, and your index finger.
That is the finger pattern, all right?
So you continue to repeat that finger pattern.
First you should become really comfortable with your left hand being able to do that
so that you don't really have to think about it, okay?
And your right hand has the same principles as it had with the last exercise for improvisation.
It can use any one of the white keys at all.
And it should alter its rhythm pattern each time that you play.
But to begin with, I'm going to want you to play three different tones and those tones
will count your three beats.
So they'll begin together and the right hand will play three tones and the left hand will
play one.
Since the left hand is really comfortable with this passage, the right hand can start
improvising.
The same principles that I just taught you with the last exercise apply to this exercise.
You can use any one of the white tones, but you should move them consecutively, one right
next to the other, or you should skip two or more.
If you skip notes, then you should move right back into moving consecutively so that you
don't skip too many and keep skipping notes.
They need to be balanced between skipping tones and moving from one right to the next
one, okay?
The right hand will play three notes when the left hand plays one.
The right hand will keep that tempo of one, two, three, one, two, three, and they begin
together like this.
Under with your thumb and the left hand.
two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three,
three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one,
two, three, two, three.
Once you can move in that fashion, then you may change your rhythm with your right hand.
You can play six notes instead of three notes.
Now look what I did there. I moved three, then I moved three, and then I moved six.
Now again, I'll show you some advanced applications of this particular exercise.
You should experiment with the different kinds of rhythm that you could come up with and
the different tones. I'd like to move back to the chords. One chord, two chord, three chord,
four chord, five chord. When we were playing the chords with the left hand and the right hand,
we'd skip those two blank white keys that were in between them.
I'd like to teach you how to take a chord and move it with one hand from one side of the piano
to the other. So take your right hand, and we're going to begin with the one chord.
Normally, I would begin with my thumb on the one chord, but because I want to start with the one
and move it in this direction, I'll start with my pinky on the right hand, and then I'll skip
two blank white notes. I'll play my middle finger, then every other white note,
cross my middle finger over my thumb, skip two blank white keys.
So try that again with the one. Skip two blank white keys, then it's every other white note.
Cross my middle finger over two blank white keys, every other white note. Now I'd like you to do
this with the five chord. One, two, three, four, five. Skip two blank white keys, cross with my
middle finger, and then do this with the four chord. This theory would apply with the one tone
being used in the left hand, and what this concept does is to pass the chords or change the chords
while you hold the same bass tone with your left hand. The bass tone will not change,
only the chords will change. Here's the five chord.
Now the four chord. When we begin the four chord, I let up on that pedal and I put it right back down
again. Okay, so we had the five chord. Now I'm going to begin the four chord. The left hand
plays again when the four chord plays at exactly the same time.
Here's the five chord.
And again the four chord.
Now you can change from moving the five chord and moving the four chord to just
playing the five chord with one in the bass and just playing the four chord with one in the bass
like this.
Now I'll alternate between moving the chord and just playing the chord like this.
And finish with one.
Okay, we're moving the five chord with the right hand.
But instead of moving the five chord, we could also just play the five chord with the left hand
playing one in the bass. And then we'll do the four chord with one in the bass.
So you should alter in between the options that you have. Start with the five chord,
so you should alter in between the options that you have.
Starting from moving the five chord into just playing the five chord like this.
And then the one chord. Another option that you have is to play the chord in your right hand
and play the exact same bass tone with your left hand. So if the left hand's playing one,
the right hand's playing one. Then we'll move to five, then four.
And then I can take the chords and move them from low and move them higher like this.
So I'll give you an example of moving from one to five to four. And then I'm going to change,
and I'm going to choose different chords such as six, five, and four. And it sounds like this.
So
then I'll change my pattern and I'll pick the five chord. I'll move from this progression
into the last progression that I just learned.
So
here's an example of moving from one exercise to another exercise.
So
so
now you have my basic principles of the language of music.
Your ability to play will increase by the amount of time you play,
but more important than anything, enjoy yourself.
So
you