Q. When you're learning a new piece on your own, how exactly do you determine the most efficient fingerings? Do you base the fingering from the basics: scales, arpeggios, and chords we learn all those years of practising? Or does it just come naturally and randomly?
A. Absolutely use your knowledge of scales, arpeggios etc to get started. From there, be prepared to experiment; there is not usually one, best definitive way.
Generally, avoid too many jumps and make it as smooth as possible. Specifically, a few ideas:
- If your score includes fingerings, follow them, but know that you might need to change some of it to suit your hands. Compare fingerings from different scores, if possible.
- Use the middle fingers on black keys and the end fingers on white.
- Avoid having fingers left over at the end of running passages; try to end the phrase on the pinkie.
- For sequential chords, use fingering that requires the least amount of movement of the hand.
- For chords, don't forget to use your 4th finger!
- What works slowly may not always work up to speed; remember that.
- Use finger substitution for expanding hand positions or sustaining single notes.
The best advice I ever received about fingering was to pencil it in on your score, and do it that way every time (unless you make a decision to change it, then rub it out and put the new finger in, and do it *that* way every time).
An example of this: if you have a rapid, scale-like passage, mark in where the 3rd and 4th fingers will fall. Not the first, or anything else, just 3s and 4s. This way, your brain can quickly see where the thumb and the 3rd/4th finger will interact.
How do chords and musical keys work?
Q. Like, let's say I establish a melody that uses...I don't know, F# and B flat. What would that mean? And how do I know what chords sound good with which notes?
Basically I'm looking for a lesson on musical theory for really, really dumb people. Like, you're going to need to dumb it down majorly.
Your help is very much appreciated!
A. 1) You first need to understand the chromatic scale. In other words, you need to realize that there are 12 unique notes that repeat every octave. You see how on the piano that there is a pattern after every 12 notes?
2) Next, you need to know the Major Scale. The major scale is the cornerstone of music theory - learn it, live it, love it. First we need to define Whole Steps and Half Steps. A whole step is when you start at a note, and make a jump of 2 notes (like from C to D, or A flat to Bflat). A half step is a jump of one note (like from B to C, or F# to G). The major scale is first formed by picking a random note, lets say, C. Then you follow the major scale pattern: whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. So if you start on C, the major scale would be C,D,E,F,G,A,B, and back to C. Another example: If you start on G, then the G Major scale would be G,A,B,C,D,E,F#,G.
3) The key of a song basically tells the band what major scale to play in and pick notes to play from. This is very important because if your song is in the key of G major, but if a band member plays A flat, then that note will sound "off-key" - it will sound wrong.
4) It is also important to realize that chords come from the individual notes of the major scales as well. Lets say we are in the key of C Major. The notes in our key are C,D,E,F,G,A,B, and C. The C major chord is formed by playing the 1st, 3rd, and 5th notes of the C major scale together. C-E-G played together will be a C Major chord. Notice that the chord is formed by stacking 3rds. By this I mean that to go from C to E, you go C - D - E. You had to go up 3 notes in the major scale to get to the E. So just realize that C-E is an interval of a third, and E-G is an interval of a third. Now, you will see that there are In fact more chords that exist in the key of C Major. There are a total of 7 chords that can be played in each key. Staying in the key of C Major, the other chords are: If you start on D, you can get the chord D minor by playing D-F-A at the same time, you can get E minor by playing E-G-B at the same time, F Major: F-A-C, G Major G-B-D, A minor: A-C-E, and B diminished: B-D-F. Each chord has its own charataristics. Major chords tend to sound happy, minor chords tend to sound sad or dark, and diminished chords have a lot of tension.
5) Chords themselves, each have a vital function and interact with the melody played at the same time, and previous chords played. It is worth pointing out that we assign the chords in each key a number. For example, in C Major, our 1 chord is C Major, because if we start on the first note, we get C Major. Starting on the 2nd note, we get D minor, so D minor is our 2 chord. 3 is E minor, 4 is F Major, 5 is G Major, 6 is A minor, and 7 is B diminished. The reason we number the chords in each major scale, is because each chord number has a function. Songs usually start and end on the 1 chord, sometimes the 6 chord if it is a sad song. The 5 chord has tension that wants to get resolved so the 5 chord likes to go to the 1 chord after it is played. It is common to play the 2 chord before the 5 chord, in fact, the 2-5-1 chord progression is the most important chord progression of all time. Other common chord progressions heard in pop/rock music include: 1-5-6-4, 6-4-1-5, and 1-6-4-5.
6) If you have a melody, you need to figure out what key it is in by finding out what major scale contains all (or most) of your notes. Your song has a melody with F# and B flat. This could be F# Major, B Major, or C# Major, depending on the rest of your melody or desired harmony. Once you decide on a key, you can find out what chords fit into this key, and play them under your melody.
I know it is a lot of information, don't get discouraged. It will take a while for it to all make sense, but don't give up. It will be totally worth it when you are making all kinds of music you like!!!
How do you develop advanced tone recognition?
Q. I have a pretty good musical ear. I can hear individual tones but I'm not to the point that I can easily hear intervals or chords. When trying to find them on an instrument, it's trial and error until I finaly find it.
One cannot be a performer if they can't recognise these things on demand.
A. It won't happen overnight, but practicing daily will improve your aural skills immensely. The most important part of ear training is audiation, which is a fancy word for your musical imagination, the tape recorder in your mind that holds the melodies that you hear. I'm sure you've had a song stuck in your head before. The trick to ear training is getting all of the musical rudiments (intervals, chords (arpeggiated, of course), scale degrees (using numbers or solfege syllables), and rhythms) stuck in your head one by one, over and over until you never forget what each one sounds like.
I don't recommend using well-known songs for identifying intervals. Here's why: Let's say you use "Here Comes the Bride" for an ascending perfect fourth. This is scale degree 5 ascending to 8 (or 1 an octave higher), or "sol do". Now that you've learned it, you can recognize that pattern whenever it happens. What will happen if you hear scale degree 3 jumping up to scale degree 6, though ("mi la")? (Listen to the beginning of Brahms's Intermezzo for piano in A minor, Op. 76/7 (http://music.barnesandnoble.com/search/product.asp?z=y&PWB=1&EAN=90266388622 click on track 6). This too is a perfect fourth, and sounds VERY different from "sol do"! Would you recognize that as a fourth? Only if you had also learned to hear that one too! Another different-sounding P4 is 7 to 3 ("ti mi")! When I teach ear training, I teach all of my students (and make them memorize) an interval drill that groups together all of the scale-degree combinations that form a single type of interval. My students sing this etude at the beginning of every class.
A far better approach to ear training than using intervals is using scale degrees. When you practice ear training, do identification drills, always singing what you hear (in a comfortable octave) after listening and then after you've learned the correct ID for the rudiment. Also do dictation. Try to write down melodies that you hear (and have the music for so that you can check your work when you are done). Finally, do a lot of sight-singing. Find melodies that you've never heard before and find out how they sound by singing them from the music. Try to avoid using the piano to help you sing, until you get lost. Then back up and find where you went astray using the piano. There's a difference between producing the right pitches for yourself and matching the pitches you hear. (You must be able to do one before you can do the other, of course.)
There are lots of great online ear training resources. One is http://www.good-ear.com/, and another is http://www.musictheory.net/. I'm sure you can find others on your own. Good luck, and let me know if I can help you in any other way!
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