Author Archives: Francesco L'Erario

Here is the key to learn to read musical notes

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solfeggioHow to read musical notes

Today we start our path into the world of reading musical notes.
If you will follow the path where I will lead you, musical writing will not appear as obscure as it probably was for you up to now.

To try to progressively under stand these concepts, we will try to put ourselves into the shoes of those who listen to music and want to find a musical aplhabet to represent it graphically.

With the videos that follow you will learn some fundamental concepts that will allow you to learn to read musical notes.

Learning material of this lesson

2 videos 11 mins
1. How to graphically represent music 4m 13s
2. The properties of sound 7m 04s
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Alterations (part one), here is a simple way to really understand them

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IMMAGINE-PENTAGRAMMA4Musical alterations

Alterations, chromatisms, accidentals, sharps… how often have your heard these terms without really understanding them?
Yet the concept of musical alteration is extremely important to start understanding music and to be able to play the piano or any other instrument.

As with every other musical theory concept, alterations are born from essentially practical needs.
This is the path I will use to try to explain these concepts in depth, by explaining where and how these thoeries are born.

Since this lesson is pretty long and demanding, it has been split into two parts.
In today’s lesson we will try to understand the two main reasons why introducing musical alterations is an absolute necessity.

This way you will finally be able to completely understand the function of those graphical symbols that are calleds sharps and flats, and generally speaking of all the other “musical accidentals”.

Enjoy!

Learning material of this lesson

3 videos 12 mins
1. The accidentals (sharp and flat) 3m 17s
2. Diatonic half-tones and chromatic half-tones 2m 51s
3. The A major scale case 5m 44s
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Piano, how to play a succession of notes using all the fingers

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pianoforte4

How to play a melody

Imagine sitting at your piano and wanting to play a melody using all of your five fingers.

Can you do that?

Do you know the correct technique that allows you to play, for example, a succession of notes with multiple fingers?

Today we will be approaching this issue, but we will take it through some steps; in fact, before reaching the succession of multiple notes, you’ll learn how to correctly lower a key of the piano with a single finger, which will have to be able to sustain the weight of your arm.

And before that, we will discuss how the various fingers are shown in the musical sheets.

At the end of this lesson you will have learned three very important things;

  • what is the “fingering” for piano
  • How to play a single note using the weight of your limbs
  • how to play a succession of notes using the whole array of five fingers

If you haven’t seen them yet, for a better comprehension of the current lesson I suggest watching the following lessons before undertaking this one:

Piano, give me half an hour and I’ll explain the correct position of the hands
Piano, paying attention at how you sit down to play

Learning material of this lesson

3 videos 18 mins
1. The fingering 3m 30s
2. Playing single notes 5m 53s
3. Playing a succession of notes 8m 04s
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Would you like to play a piece on the piano?

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pianoforte4How to play a piece on the piano

I would like to introduce a new series of video lessons that will be published soon and that will allow you to play a piece on the piano. Finally, after many theoric lessons and technique exercises you will have the satisfaction of playing music .

But the most interesting thing is that performing a piece on the piano is just one of many things that you will learn through these video lessons .

Here there are some:

  •  Playing a piece by reading the piano sheet music

In these video lessons is not going to play it by ear, but you will learn to read notes and play them on the piano.

  • Reading a piano (or keyboard) sheet music

We will analyze the meaning of each symbol and indication written in the music sheet to understands how to put them into practice from the musical point of view .

  • Learning a method to study any piece for piano

Through these video lessons you’ll be able to play a piece by learning to follow a clear study method that can be applied to all the pieces that you want to perform.

  • Learning new concepts related to the study of piano

Thanks to the study of this piece, we’ll introduce new topics ( including the correct fingering, legato, the different intensities of sound, etc . ).

You’re finding it difficult to write a melody? Here’s something that can help you!

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chiave-do5

How to write a melody

Chords and harmony are an extremely important part of composition, but of course they’re aren’t everything!
Another important part is the melody, and it isn’t always easy to write a melody.
You might have found yourself from time to time, while playing the piano or the guitar, in the situation where you found a very interesting sequence of chords, and not being able to compose a vocal melody on which you could sing.

The “non-harmonic tones”

We will begin today with a series of video lessons that approach the so-called “non-harmonic tones”, which will help you a lot in composition and writing arrangements.

In today’s videos we will approach two themes in particular:

  1. Why are “non-harmonic tones” so important when writing music?
  2. What are non-harmonic tones?

Enjoy!

Learning material of this lesson

3 videos 15 mins
1. The relationship between harmony and melody 7m 18s
2. Composing a melody on a sequence of chords 3m 43s
3. The non-harmonic tones 3m 54s
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Harmony, how chords are built

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armonia1

How can you build chords?

Chords, defined as the simultaneous sounding of at least 3 sounds, are the skeleton, the  base on which you can write a song, more so in popular music.
We have already seen how chords are tied to the concepts of scale and tonality.

This kind of approach will allow us to answer the following questions today:

  • How can you build chords?
  • Is there a fool proof way to know all the chords relative to a certain tonality?

This method exists and today, in the three following videos, I will show it to you at the piano, applied specifically to major scales and tonalities.
I will also explain how to build chords, of any kind and of any complexity.

To achieve a better understanding of today’s lesson I personally advise, if you haven’t already, to wath the videos of the following lessons:

Musical intervals, how to properly name them (firts part)

The major scales: how to remember every note at any time

Let’s start by answering the first question: How can chords be built?

Learning material of this lesson

7 videos 30 mins
1. How to build chords 6m 57s
2. The seven chords of a major scale 2m 33s
3. The features of these chords 4m 26s
4. Naming chords 1m 29s
5. Practice: chords in E major key 5m 26s
6. Composing an easy harmonic base in E major key 3m 15s
7. Building more complex chords 7m 44s
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With a Free account you gain immediate access to 15 lessons of piano, theory, harmony, music reading and composition for a total of 36 videos.

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Musical intervals, how to properly name them (first part)

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IMMAGINE-PENTAGRAMMA4

The musical intervals

Have you ever heard or read terms such as “diminished fifth”, “minor seventh”, “augmented fourth”, and so on?

All these names, apparently obscure and cryptical, each define differenty types of musical intervals.
Today we deal with the way that the various intervals are called to be distinguished one from the other. And we will do this using a logical and clear ‘path‘ that will soon let you learn how to name each interval correctly.

Being able to define an interval with its’ proper name is essential, because it allows you to determine the relation that there is between two or more notes (in this case, relative to pitch).
After all, music is the art that allows us to put different sounds in relation with each other.
You will see that once these concpets are clear to you, you’ll be able to put them to use in various fields.

Among other things you will be able to:

  • start delving into the extremely vast world of harmony
  • understand how chords are built, of any type and of every degree of complexity
  • make the melodies that you are composing better, thanks to a precise use of musical intervals

Let’s start to discuss the musical interval more deeply.

Learning material of this lesson

3 videos 18 mins
1. Melodic intervals and harmonic intervals 3m 14s
2. How to determine the ‘generale name’ of an interval 6m 56s
3. How to find the ‘generale name’ in case of sharps or flats 8m 33s
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Piano, paying attention to how you sit down to play

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pianoforte4

How do we sit to play the piano?

This is an often overlooked question, of which we sometimes don’t understand the importance.
Coupled with the correct hand technique, the posture you use when sitting is extremely important to develop a correct technique. In fact, only if you’re sitting down correctly can you use the weight of the arms to your advantage, along with the weight of the wrists and hands so that you can lower the piano keys, without having to perform useless and frankly dangerous muscular movements.
And more than anything, by learning to sit in the correct way, you will avoid developping tensions in your joints and muscles, that could later bother you.

But which are the aspects we have to look into to understand how to sit properly at the piano?

Let’s see them together:

  1. On which part of the stool you should sit
  2. The height of the stool
  3. Distance from the piano
  4. The position of the legs

In the next videos we will accurately examine these aspects and we will study an exercise that will allow you to put into practice what we have learned up to this point, regarding the hand position, while also sitting in the correct way at the piano.

Learning material of this lesson

3 videos 10 mins
1. Where to sit, the height of the stool and the distance from the piano 5m 46s
2. The position of the legs 1m 19s
3. A simple exercise to put in practice what we’ve learnt today 2m 45s
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Arrangements, three different ways of working

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chiave-do5

We can agree or not about the details of an arrangement, about the use of some instruments in place of others, but I believe that everyone can agree on one aspect:

the arrangement is an essential phase for the correct outcome of any musical piece.

A great arrangement has the magical ability to turn a very ordinary melodic fragment into an excellent track.
Since this topic is of great importance, let’s try to understand exactly what we’re talking about.

What is a musical arrangement?

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The major scales: how to remember every note at any time

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IMMAGINE-PENTAGRAMMA4

The major scales

It’s not an easy task to remember every musical scale of the tonal system by heart.
Sometimes, especially for the scale in tonalities  far apart from the C, it’s difficult to remember if a note is either sharp or flat or if it’s natural.
There is a very simple system that lets you remember at any time every note of every scale.
Today we will be discussing major scales.

Interval, whole tone, half tone

This system is based on the concepts of musical interval, whole tone and half tone.
In the next videos I will try to explain these concepts in a simple fashion at the piano, which will empower you to do the following:

  • Find at any given time every note of every major scale (we will take into consideration minor scales later on in the course) without having to pull out manuals or charts.
  • Start to move the first steps in the world of harmony and chords, which are both based on the concept of musical interval.
  • Understand in depth the most important aspects of theory and musical practice.

So let’s start talking of major scales… of course in the next videos.

Learning material of this lesson

6 videos 23 mins
1. 1.What is a musical interval 3m 01s
2. The half tone and how to find it on a piano or guitar 3m 23s
3. The whole tone 3m 05s
4. How to find every note of every major scale 6m 05s
5. Practice 1: the G major scale 4m 21s
6. Practice 2: the E flat major scale 3m 26s
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With a Free account you gain immediate access to 15 lessons of piano, theory, harmony, music reading and composition for a total of 36 videos.

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