Piano For Dummies E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 429

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

The key to fast and fun piano proficiency! Whether you're a wannabe Mozart or are an experienced hand at tinkling the ivories, the latest edition of Piano For Dummies has what you need to take you to the next level in making beautiful music using this much-loved and versatile instrument. Working as an introductory course--or as a refresher to keep those fingers nimble--you'll find information on getting started, improving your technique and performance, and the best ways to practice until you hit finely tuned perfection. And, along the way, you'll pick up the techniques for different styles, including classical, blues, and rock. In an easy-to-follow style, the book also helps you sharpen your sight-reading. You can also tune in to audio and video online to help you improve your creativity and discipline, as well as hear and see that you're hitting the right notes. * Choose the right piano * Know your keys * Scale up for success * Care for your instrument Whatever you want from your love affair with the old "88," you'll find enough right here to keep you hammering happily--and even more proficiently--away for years to come! P.S. If you think this book seems familiar, you're probably right. The Dummies team updated the cover and design to give the book a fresh feel, but the content is the same as the previous release of Piano For Dummies (9781118900055). The book you see here shouldn't be considered a new or updated product. But if you're in the mood to learn something new, check out some of our other books. We're always writing about new topics!

Leseprobe

Piano For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2020 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2020938973

ISBN: 978-1-119-70097-5 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-70102-6 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-70106-4 (ebk)

Piano For Dummies®

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Table of Contents

Cover

Introduction

About This Book

Foolish Assumptions

Icons Used in This Book

Beyond the Book

Where to Go from Here

Part 1: Getting Started with Piano

Chapter 1: Preparing to Play a Piano

Knowing Why the Piano Is So Special

Understanding Why People Take Piano Lessons(And Why They Often Quit)

Getting to Know Your Instrument

Comprehending the Language of Music

Starting to Play the Best Way

Being Aware of What You Already Know about Playing the Piano

Chapter 2: Meeting the Keyboard Family

Looking at the Acoustic Ones

Identifying the Electric Ones

Chapter 3: Finding the Perfect Keyboard

To Hum or Not to Hum: Electric or Acoustic (Or Both)?

Picking the Perfect Acoustic Piano

Selecting a Digital Keyboard That Lasts

Before You Drive It Off the Lot: Sealing the Deal at the Store

The MIDI Places You Can Go

Chapter 4: Taking Good Care of Your Keyboard

Providing a Good Place to Live

Making It Shine: Cleaning Your Keyboard

Calling In a Pro for General Checkups and Serious Repairs

Taking the Worry Out of Moving Your Acoustic Piano

Chapter 5: Eighty-Eight Keys, Three Pedals, Ten Fingers, and Two Feet

Finding the Keys, Easy Peasy

Discovering What Your Parents Never Told You about Posture

Paying Attention to Hand Positioning

Pedal Power: Getting Your Feet in on the Action

Part 2: Deciphering Squiggles on Paper to Create Sound

Chapter 6: Reading Lines and Spaces

Your Guide to a Piano Score

Double Your Staff, Double Your Fun

Punctuating Music: Bar Lines

Continuing to Read: Don’t Stop

Chapter 7: Joining the Rhythm Nation

Eyeing Tempo: The Beat Goes On

Serving Some Musical Pie: Basic Note Values

Faster Rhythms, Same Tempo

Listening for the Sound of Silence: Rests

Counting Out Common Time Signatures

Playing Songs in Familiar Time Signatures

Chapter 8: Changing the Beaten Path

Getting a Jump on the Start: Pickup Beats and Measures

Adding Time to Your Notes with Ties and Dots

Playing Offbeat Rhythms

Playing Songs with Challenging Rhythms

Part 3: One Hand at a Time

Chapter 9: Playing a Melody

Let Your Fingers Do the Walking

Getting into the Right Position

Crossing Your Fingers and Hoping It Works

Playing Melodies in the Right Hand

Chapter 10: Scaling to New Heights

Building a Scale, Step by Step

Stepping Up to the Majors

Exploring Minor Variations

Showing Your Rebellious Side with Blues Scales

Playing Songs Made of Scales

Chapter 11: Hey, Don’t Forget Lefty!

Exploring the Keyboard’s West Side

Tackling Some Left-Hand Melodies

Practicing Some South-Paw Scales

Trying Accompaniment Patterns

Adding the Left Hand to the Right Hand

Playing Songs with Both Hands

Part 4: Living in Perfect Harmony

Chapter 12: The Building Blocks of Harmony

Measuring Melodic Intervals

Combining Notes for Harmonic Intervals

Playing Songs with More Harmony

Chapter 13: Understanding Keys

Homing In on Home Key

Playing Songs with Key Signatures

Chapter 14: Filling Out Your Sound with Chords

Tapping into the Power of Chords

Dissecting the Anatomy of a Triad

Starting Out with Major Chords

Branching Out with Minor Chords

Exploring Other Types of Chords

Adding the Seventh

Reading Chord Symbols

Playing with Chord Inversions

Playing Songs with Chords

Part 5: Technique Counts for Everything

Chapter 15: Dressing Up Your Music

Playing Dynamically

Articulating the Positive

Controlling the Tempo

Putting the Pedal to the Metal

Touching on Grace Notes

Tackling Trilling

Dazzling Your Audience: Gliss

Trembling Tremolos

Dressing Up Your Songs

Chapter 16: Great Grooves

Great Left-Hand Accompaniment Patterns

Applying Great Intros and Finales

Playing Songs with Left-Hand Grooves

Chapter 17: Perusing the Aisle of Style

Taking Aim at Classical Music

Playing the Blues

Rockin’ around the Keys

You’re a Little Bit Country

Pop! Goes the Piano

Soul Searching

All That Jazz

Playing Songs in Favorite Styles

Part 6: The Part of Tens

Chapter 18: Ten Ways to Improve Your Practice and Performance

Be Comfortable at All Times

Shut Off the Distractions

Make a Schedule and a List

Get into Deconstruction

Use a Metronome

Rehearse Your Dress Rehearsals

Know Your Performance Piano

If You Memorize …

Preempt Post-Performance Syndrome

Smile and Take a Bow

Chapter 19: Ten Ways to Supplement This Book

Working through Method Books

Using Reference Books

Buying Music to Play

Gigging with Others

Checking Out the Masters

Attending Live Concerts

Listening to Recordings

Exploring Piano Sites on the Web

Enjoying Pianos on the Big Screen

Realizing You’re Not Alone

Chapter 20: Ten Questions to Ask Prospective Teachers

Whom Else Have You Taught?

How Long Have You Been Teaching and Playing?

How Much Do You Expect Me to Practice?

Would You Mind Playing Something for Me?

What Repertoire Do You Teach?

How Do You Feel about Wrong Notes, Mistakes, and Slow Learners?

What Methods Do You Use to Teach Piano?

Where Will the Lessons Take Place?

How Much Do You Charge?

Do You Have Student Recitals?

Appendix: About the Website: Audio Tracks and Video Clips

What You’ll Find on the Accompanying Audio Tracks

Viewing Videos on the Website

Index

About the Reviser

Advertisement Page

Connect with Dummies

End User License Agreement

List of Tables

Chapter 7

TABLE 7-1 Tempos and Their Approximate Beats Per Minute

Chapter 14

TABLE 14-1 Recipes for Constructing Chords

Chapter 15

TABLE 15-1 Dynamic Markings

TABLE 15-2 Musical Articulations

List of Illustrations

Chapter 2

FIGURE 2-1: Owning one is so grand.

FIGURE 2-2: Upright, not uptight.

FIGURE 2-3: Hammers vibrate piano strings to produce music to your ears.

FIGURE 2-4: The ornate harpsichord.

Chapter 5

FIGURE 5-1: Your basic set of black and whites.

FIGURE 5-2: Chopsticks and forks on your keyboard.

FIGURE 5-3: Octave groupings on your keyboard.

FIGURE 5-4: Proper posture and positioning at the piano.

FIGURE 5-5: An adjustable piano chair.

FIGURE 5-6: Two types of piano benches: standard (a) and adjustable (b).

FIGURE 5-7: Take a stand for your electric keyboard.

FIGURE 5-8: The shape to emulate.

FIGURE 5-9: Numbers and digits.

FIGURE 5-10: The typical three pedals on a piano.

Chapter 6

FIGURE 6-1: An example of music written for the piano.

FIGURE 6-2: Music’s parallel lines.

FIGURE 6-3: The treble clef.

FIGURE 6-4: Finding treble clef G is no trouble.

FIGURE 6-5: Names for notes on the treble clef lines and spaces.

FIGURE 6-6: The bass clef.

FIGURE 6-7: Finding bass clef F on the keyboard.

FIGURE 6-8: Names for notes on the bass clef lines and spaces.

FIGURE 6-9: Clues for reading octaves.

FIGURE 6-10: Notating accidentals.

FIGURE 6-11: Isn’t this staff grand?

FIGURE 6-12: Where are the lines and spaces for these little guys?

FIGURE 6-13: Middle C written with ledger lines for both the right and left han...

FIGURE 6-14: Playing the same note with different hands.

FIGURE 6-15: Notes on the grand staff.

FIGURE 6-16: Octave lines.

FIGURE 6-17: Bar lines are vertical lines that divide music into measures.

FIGURE 6-18: The five types of bar lines.

FIGURE 6-19: Keep on reading, keep on playing.

Chapter 7

FIGURE 7-1: Bar lines help group the beats. Clap to the rhythm slashes.

FIGURE 7-2: Count and play quarter notes.

FIGURE 7-3: Save half for me.

FIGURE 7-4: Whole notes hold out for all four counts.

FIGURE 7-5: Mixing up all the notes.

FIGURE 7-6: Flags on eighth notes become beams.

FIGURE 7-7: Play and count the eighths and quarters.

FIGURE 7-8: Sixteen going on sixteen.

FIGURE 7-9: Dividing the beat into oblivion.

FIGURE 7-10: Hat off for a whole rest, and hat on for a half rest.

FIGURE 7-11: Placement of whole and half rests on the staff.

FIGURE 7-12: Practice your whole and half rests.

FIGURE 7-13: Notes and their equivalent rests.

FIGURE 7-14: Counting quarter and eighth rests.

FIGURE 7-15: You can recognize the tunes of three common time signatures.

FIGURE 7-16: The letter C is a common way to indicate 4/4 meter.

Chapter 8

FIGURE 8-1: Starting with a half rest.

FIGURE 8-2: Instead of a rest, this notation uses a pickup measure.

FIGURE 8-3: Ties that bind notes of the same pitch.

FIGURE 8-4: The dotted half note.

FIGURE 8-5: Dotted half notes in 4/4 and 3/4 time.

FIGURE 8-6: A dotted quarter note paired with an eighth.

FIGURE 8-7: A dotted eighth, a sixteenth, and their beams.

FIGURE 8-8: Practice with dotted notes.

FIGURE 8-9: Congrats! You have triplets.

FIGURE 8-10: Counting triplets.

FIGURE 8-11: Practice with triplets.

FIGURE 8-12: Swing those eighths.

FIGURE 8-13: This notation tells you to swing it.

FIGURE 8-14: Suddenly syncopation by emphasizing upbeats.

FIGURE 8-15: “After You’ve Gone,” without (top) and with (bottom) syncopation.

Chapter 9

FIGURE 9-1: Playing a key.

FIGURE 9-2: Getting into C position.

FIGURE 9-3: The melody of “Frere Jacques” requires the right hand to be in C po...

FIGURE 9-4: The melody of “Ode to Joy” calls for C position.

FIGURE 9-5: “Skip to My Lou” uses C position but extends your thumb to play B.

FIGURE 9-6: The melody of “Kumbaya” uses C position and stretches RH 5 to play ...

FIGURE 9-7: “Chiapanecas” stretches and shifts C position.

FIGURE 9-8: Gee, I like G position!

FIGURE 9-9: “Little Bo-Peep” is a breeze in G position.

FIGURE 9-10: “This Old Man” uses G position with some stretching.

FIGURE 9-11: One song, two hand positions.

FIGURE 9-12: Crossing over your thumb to play more notes.

FIGURE 9-13: J. S. Bach’s “Minuet” features an RH 2 crossover.

FIGURE 9-14: “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” is a classic melody that requires the th...

Chapter 10

FIGURE 10-1: Stepping out.

FIGURE 10-2: The C major scale follows all the white keys.

FIGURE 10-3: The G major scale employs one sharp: F-sharp.

FIGURE 10-4: The F major scale uses B-flat.

FIGURE 10-5: A joyful melody made from a major scale.

FIGURE 10-6: A frugal melody needs only five notes of the major scale.

FIGURE 10-7: Building your C major scale chops.

FIGURE 10-8: Major and minor C scales.

FIGURE 10-9: “Joy to the World” in C minor.

FIGURE 10-10: So many minors, not enough chaperones.

FIGURE 10-11: The A natural minor and A harmonic minor scales.

FIGURE 10-12: The A melodic minor scale.

FIGURE 10-13: Exercising the three C-minor scales: C natural (a), C harmonic (b...

FIGURE 10-14: Getting the blues.

FIGURE 10-15: Using the blues scale for a cool melody.

Chapter 11

FIGURE 11-1: Assume C position with the left hand.

FIGURE 11-2: Reading and playing notes in the bass clef, starting from LH C pos...

FIGURE 11-3: Lower notes in the bass clef, starting from LH G position.

FIGURE 11-4: Melody in the left hand: “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”

FIGURE 11-5: Another melody in the left hand: “Little Brown Jug.”

FIGURE 11-6: C, G, and F major scales for the left hand.

FIGURE 11-7: A, E, and D natural minor scales for the left hand.

FIGURE 11-8: A harmonic and melodic minor scales.

FIGURE 11-9: Root-fifth-top patterns in C, G, F, and A.

FIGURE 11-10: Three-note arpeggios in quarter-note patterns.

FIGURE 11-11: Three-note arpeggios in eighth-note patterns.

FIGURE 11-12: Four-note arpeggios based on C.

FIGURE 11-13: Up and down the four-note arpeggios.

FIGURE 11-14: Four-note arpeggio patterns in eighths.

FIGURE 11-15: RH and LH share a melody.

FIGURE 11-16: A simple melody and accompaniment from Mozart.

FIGURE 11-17: ”Old Smoky” with a three-note LH pattern.

FIGURE 11-18: Double the melody.

Chapter 12

FIGURE 12-1: Numbering the notes of the C major scale.

FIGURE 12-2: A family of intervals on the C major scale.

FIGURE 12-3: “London Bridge” uses major seconds.

FIGURE 12-4: A minor second in action in Beethoven’s “Für Elise.”

FIGURE 12-5: Major and minor thirds paired for the symphonic theme of Beethoven...

FIGURE 12-6: The major third lifts the spirits.

FIGURE 12-7: A minor interval close to children’s hearts.

FIGURE 12-8: The perfect fourth in (loco)motion.

FIGURE 12-9: Though unfinished, Schubert’s

Unfinished Symphony

is still a perfe...

FIGURE 12-10: A shining star, the perfect fifth.

FIGURE 12-11: A fifth interval descending perfectly.

FIGURE 12-12: Perfect fourth and perfect fifth, together forever in “Here Comes...

FIGURE 12-13: Augmented fourth or diminished fifth, depending on how you spell ...

FIGURE 12-14: Bonnie’s favorite intervals — the major and minor sixth.

FIGURE 12-15: Seventh heaven.

FIGURE 12-16: Somewhere over the octave.

FIGURE 12-17: Playing intervals all together now.

FIGURE 12-18: “Aura Lee” is a melody that begs for harmony.

FIGURE 12-19: Harmonizing “Yankee Doodle.”

FIGURE 12-20: ”America, the Beautiful” with a harmonious, single-note LH part.

FIGURE 12-21: Adding more harmony to the LH part.

FIGURE 12-22: Adding harmony below the melody in the RH part.

FIGURE 12-23: The LH harmony matches the rhythm of the melody.

FIGURE 12-24: A full, choir-like harmonic treatment.

Chapter 13

FIGURE 13-1: “Good Night, Ladies” in the key of C (major).

FIGURE 13-2: “Good Night, Ladies” in the key of F (major).

FIGURE 13-3: The sign on the line.

FIGURE 13-4: A key signature for each hand.

FIGURE 13-5: Playing a melody in the key of G.

FIGURE 13-6: Trying the same melody in the key of D.

FIGURE 13-7: The Circle of Fifths.

FIGURE 13-8: Sharp keys.

FIGURE 13-9: Flat keys.

FIGURE 13-10: Changing keys and then returning home.

Chapter 14

FIGURE 14-1: This C chord is a simple triad.

FIGURE 14-2: Making new chords from the C triad.

FIGURE 14-3: Major chords.

FIGURE 14-4: Major chords for lefty, too.

FIGURE 14-5: Minor, but not insignificant, chords.

FIGURE 14-6: Augmented chords raise the fifth one half-step.

FIGURE 14-7: Diminished chords lower the fifth one half-step.

FIGURE 14-8: Augmented and diminished chords in “Old Folks at Home.”

FIGURE 14-9: Suspended chords.

FIGURE 14-10: A little suspension tension.

FIGURE 14-11: There’s nothing plain about these seventh chords.

FIGURE 14-12: Transforming chord symbols into notes on the staff.

FIGURE 14-13: Building a chord from a chord symbol.

FIGURE 14-14: Traveling back to your roots.

FIGURE 14-15: There’s less effort in these chord inversions.

FIGURE 14-16: Root position grabs chords by the roots.

FIGURE 14-17: First inversions put the thirds on the bottom and the roots on to...

FIGURE 14-18: Second inversions put the roots in the middle.

FIGURE 14-19: Seventh chords and their third inversions.

Chapter 15

FIGURE 15-1: Dynamic contrasts of

piano

and

forte.

FIGURE 15-2: Indications of gradual volume changes.

FIGURE 15-3: Get loud, get soft, get dynamic.

FIGURE 15-4: Notes grouped by a slur (played smoothly) and notes tied (held for...

FIGURE 15-5: Giving a melody some individual character with articulations.

FIGURE 15-6: Playing around with tempo.

FIGURE 15-7: Pedaling indications.

FIGURE 15-8: Use the damper pedal to connect notes melodically.

FIGURE 15-9: Create a soft sound with the soft pedal.

FIGURE 15-10: Amazing grace notes, how sweet the sound.

FIGURE 15-11: This weasel pops with the help of some grace notes.

FIGURE 15-12: What a trill sounds like.

FIGURE 15-13: Simon says, “Trill this note.”

FIGURE 15-14: Gliss me, gliss me, now you gotta kiss me.

FIGURE 15-15: Down and up glissandos with the right and left hands.

FIGURE 15-16: Use an RH gliss to begin and end a song.

FIGURE 15-17: Tremolo notation.

FIGURE 15-18: Tremolo chords.

Chapter 16

FIGURE 16-1: Left-hand chords in varied rhythm patterns.

FIGURE 16-2: Root-fifth-octave patterns are easy to play and sound great.

FIGURE 16-3: Practice chord picking with four different chords.

FIGURE 16-4: Left-hand chord picking in “Picking and Grinning.”

FIGURE 16-5: Hammer out octaves in “Octaves in the Left.”

FIGURE 16-6: Build octaves on different chord notes in “Jumping Octaves.”

FIGURE 16-7: A driving left-hand pattern with the octave, fifth, and sixth inte...

FIGURE 16-8: Open intervals that chug along in “Berry-Style Blues.”

FIGURE 16-9: Mosey along with the bum-ba-di-da bass pattern.

FIGURE 16-10: A boogie-woogie pattern that never goes out of style.

FIGURE 16-11: Intro #1.

FIGURE 16-12: Intro #2.

FIGURE 16-13: Intro #3.

FIGURE 16-14: Intro #4.

FIGURE 16-15: Intro #5.

FIGURE 16-16: Finale #1.

FIGURE 16-17: Finale #2.

FIGURE 16-18: Finale #3.

FIGURE 16-19: Finale #4.

Chapter 17

FIGURE 17-1: Excerpt from Mozart’s

Sonata in C.

FIGURE 17-2: Excerpt from Grieg’s

Piano Concerto.

FIGURE 17-3: Rolling to a romantic close.

FIGURE 17-4: The 12-bar blues.

FIGURE 17-5: Chord substitutions for the blues.

FIGURE 17-6: Lefty provides the rockin’ bass line.

FIGURE 17-7: Good ol’ country music.

FIGURE 17-8: Romancing the sixth tone.

FIGURE 17-9: Motown syncopation.

FIGURE 17-10: Funky patterns.

FIGURE 17-11: “Yankee Doodle” swings.

FIGURE 17-12: “Merrily” with standard chords.

FIGURE 17-13: “Merrily” jazz variation #1.

FIGURE 17-14: “Merrily” jazz variation #2.

FIGURE 17-15: “Merrily” jazz variation #3.

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

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Introduction

Welcome to Piano For Dummies, 3rd Edition. Don’t be nervous about wanting to play the piano; it’s just a big, lazy piece of oversized furniture with a bunch of black and white keys on it. By selecting this book, you’re taking the appropriate action to keep your piano from becoming a giant dust collector.

If you’ve never seen or put your hands on a piano or keyboard, no problem. This book starts at the very beginning and walks you through everything you need to know to tame that beast and make it sing sweet music. You’ll also have fun along the way.

About This Book

Because you’re in possession of a piano or keyboard or you have access to one, you may need this book to figure out how to play it. Or you may want to study how to read music. Maybe you already know how to play and you just want to improve your playing skills or develop your style. Could be you’re interested in knowing more about pianos and their performers. Or you may need some help buying a keyboard or finding a teacher. For any of these reasons, this is the book for you.

You can use Piano For Dummies, 3rd Edition, as a teaching aid or just as a reference book. Even if you already know how to play music, you may run across some new tricks or techniques in these pages. If you read every page of this book and set about to play the examples and listen to the audio tracks and watch the video clips at www.dummies.com/go/piano, you’ll be able to read piano music; know the names of notes, scales, and chords; understand a lot about different musical styles; and in general get a solid handle on some fundamental piano skills.

If you have a few specific questions about playing piano or want to go directly to something you’ve been dying to know, you’ll find the part titles, chapter titles, and section headings practical and helpful. They make it easy to maneuver through the book and find what you’re looking for.

Note: Truth be told, reading music and coordinating your hands and fingers to play musically on the piano are skills not learned in a day. It takes a bit of time and dedication. Although you may have seen or heard about methods to play the piano without reading music, this book isn’t one of them. Piano For Dummies, 3rd Edition, follows the tried-and-true method of teaching the basics of reading notes and rhythms from the get-go. And this book aims to do all that in a simple and fun way.

Within this book, you may note that some web addresses break across two lines of text. If you’re reading this book in print and want to visit one of these web pages, simply key in the web address exactly as it’s noted in the text, pretending as though the line break doesn’t exist. If you’re reading this as an e-book, you’ve got it easy — just click the web address to be taken directly to the web page.

Foolish Assumptions

In writing this book, I made a few assumptions about you, the reader:

You like to listen to music and especially like the sound of a piano.

When you hear someone play the piano, it sparks something in you. You say to yourself something along the lines of, “I wish I could play the piano.”

You haven’t had any piano lessons before, or you had some lessons at some point in your life but you basically see yourself as a beginner. Either way, you’d like it all laid out and explained in a simple and easy-to-understand way.

If you have a piano or keyboard, you aren’t playing it as much as you want to and need some help getting to the music-making.

If you don’t have a piano or keyboard, you’re considering the purchase of a keyboard and welcome some help with the whole process. Most likely, your keyboard will have at least 25 black and white keys, may or may not plug into the wall, and will cost you as much as you’re willing to part with.

You like to discover things for yourself.

If any of these assumptions is true for you, you’re reading the right book.

Icons Used in This Book

As you go through the chapters of this book, you’ll find the following friendly icons designed to draw your attention to different bits of information, from helpful guidance to pleasant diversions.

Be sure to pay attention to anything that has this icon attached. As you may guess, it’s something important that you shouldn’t forget.

When you see this icon, you know some handy-dandy information follows that can save you time, money, energy, and more.

This icon lets you know that there’s an audio track and, in many cases, a video clip that demonstrates the concept, playing technique, or song discussed in the text. Check out these online resources at www.dummies.com/go/piano to deepen your understanding and speed your progress.

Pay attention to text featuring this icon. You can thank me later for showing you how to avoid mistakes and problems.

This icon points out bonus material you can find online.

This icon suggests different music that you can play on your keyboard.

Beyond the Book

In addition to the material in the print or e-book you’re reading right now, this product also comes with some online goodies. Check out the eCheat Sheet at www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/piano for common musical symbols, piano fingerings, and the names of the piano keys.

You can also find several other tidbits of information online about rhythm, mode, and arpeggios. Go to www.dummies.com/extras/piano to read them.

You can view and listen to various techniques and songs that I discuss throughout the book. Go to www.dummies.com/go/piano to download the audio tracks and video clips. You can also discover a list of ten additional tips for making the most of your practice sessions at this same site. When prompted, enter the username of pianofordummies and the password of wiley.

Where to Go from Here

If you don’t know much about the piano as an instrument, start with Part 1 and get to know the different types of pianos. Pianos are a wonder of the world.

If you’re thinking about buying a piano or keyboard, turn to Chapters 3 and 4. They’ll leave you feeling so much more prepared for the tasks of shopping and buying.

Check out the guide to reading music at the beginning of Chapter 6 and test yourself by trying to identify the elements of music notation on a page of piano music. (Don’t worry, there’s a key that tells you where to look for a reminder or an explanation of each element.)

Go through Chapters 7 and 8, which cover rhythms. Reading and responding to rhythm smoothly are huge components of reading music. If you can get your rhythm down, it will make all the other elements come together much more easily.

If you already know how to read music, try Parts 3 and 4 for some scales, melodies, chords, and more that fit your taste and technique. Skip around and play fun songs while you expand your knowledge. If you have trouble playing something, backtrack to where you can brush up on a particular technique.

To get an idea of the music you play as you work through this book, check out the audio tracks and video clips on the accompanying website (www.dummies.com/go/piano) and enter the username (pianofordummies) and password (wiley). Use the audio track table at the back of the book to direct you to the written music.

Part 1

Getting Started with Piano

IN THIS PART …

Find out what makes playing the piano so satisfying and what elements come together to make beautiful piano music (you’re probably aware of some without even knowing it). Also check out some tips that will make your piano-playing journey a smooth one.

Take a tour inside the piano and meet the extended family of keyboard instruments. Get the lowdown on the two major players in the keyboard arena — acoustic and electric pianos — along with an introduction to the organ and the harpsichord.

Gather advice for finding and purchasing a piano or keyboard, getting one that’s not only right for you now and but will also allow you room to grow as a musician.

Keep your instrument — be it a traditional piano or a digital instrument — clean, in tune, and in perfect working order.

Get to know the keyboard, what makes it tick, where to put your hands and feet, and what all those keys are for.

Chapter 1

Preparing to Play a Piano

IN THIS CHAPTER

Understanding what makes the piano unique

Getting acquainted with the instrument and reading music

Discovering what you may already know about playing piano

“I love to run my fingers o’er the keys, the ivories.”

These lyrics from the 1915 Irving Berlin song, “I Love a Piano,” were no doubt true for many people when they were written nearly 100 years ago. The piano was in its heyday, and your average Joe and Jane felt owning and playing the piano in their home was almost as important as putting a roof over it. But neither the song nor the sentiment has lost its charm; the lyrics certainly ring true for a whole bunch of people. The piano remains a very popular instrument, with the number of piano lovers growing and its popularity spreading throughout the world. Even as the piano is treasured for its quality as an instrument, it also adapts itself to the changing times through technological advances.

This chapter helps you understand what makes the piano unique and what’s involved in learning to play the piano. You may find out that you know a lot more about music than you thought you did, even if you’re a beginner.

Knowing Why the Piano Is So Special

Playing the piano involves the following fundamentally musical tasks:

Playing different pitches and melodies

Controlling the attack and release of a note

Playing different dynamics (relative loudness and softness)

But playing the piano is different from playing other instruments in some important respects, and the piano has several attributes that make it an ideal tool for learning and understanding music.

Advantages to playing the piano

The piano occupies a central position in the world of music. It’s the gold standard of musical instruments, utilized by composers and arrangers and featured routinely in nearly all musical styles, in chamber groups, rock bands, and jazz trios (everything except marching bands). The following characteristics make the piano a wonderful instrument:

You can play many different notes at the same time.

The fancy word for this characteristic is

polyphonic.

It’s a completely solo instrument.

You can play a complete song or other musical work without requiring additional accompaniment or other help from your musical friends. That makes the piano satisfying and self-sufficient.

It’s the perfect choice for accompaniment.

You can accompany a singer, a choir, a dance class, a silent movie, your own opera, or your own soap opera, not to mention any other instrument.

You can play almost anything on the piano.

The piano has an unmatched repertoire of music. You name it, there’s piano music for it.

Advantages to studying music at the piano

The piano is an ideal instrument for studying all about music, starting with the design of the keyboard. As you sit in front of your keyboard, the notes are laid out before your very eyes in a clear, organized, and orderly way. Understanding and playing musical pitches is quite easy because the keyboard presents a clear visual image for your brain to process the way musical notes go up (higher in pitch), down (lower in pitch), or stay the same.

Each key produces a single, distinct pitch, and you can’t beat that for simplicity. Not much skill is required to make a nice, musical sound. Compared with some other instruments I shall refrain from naming (well, okay: oboe and tuba, to name just two), playing any key on the keyboard, no matter how high or low the pitch, is as easy as playing any other key.

Another advantage of the piano is that you can play chords and layer sounds. The keyboard makes it easy to play harmonies and immediately hear how a combination of notes sounds. This really seals the deal.

A skill and an art

After all is said and done, the reason playing piano is so special may be that it’s an activity that invites your full participation and rewards you just as completely. It has its mental side and its physical side. It requires both creativity and discipline, and engaging your mind and body is deeply satisfying.

As you learn to read music and play the notes on the piano, you create information loops from your brain throughout your body. The first loop is from your eyes to your brain, as you take in the notes on the page and process the information. In the second loop, your brain sends signals to your hands and fingers, telling them how and where to move. Your fingers start to develop a sense of what it feels like to move around the keyboard and use different kinds of touch to produce different results from the piano. A third loop is made as your ears hear the sound from the piano and send information back to your brain for it to process: Did I play the right notes and rhythms? Did I play a note too loudly or softly? Does what I play sound musical, overall? All this information helps you to modify the signals you send throughout your body to improve the results.

This full-sensory experience is paired with an interpretive element, as your inner artist is at work. The notes and directions on the page can only go so far in describing how the music should sound, which is why two pianists playing the same piece may create noticeably different performances. Even two performances by the same pianist will come out differently. Playing the piano lets you be the decider when you make music: how fast, how slow, how much more, how much less, how many encores to give your audience.

The combination of executing skills and interpreting the music is something that happens each time you play. Even when you simply play what’s written, your personal interpretation comes through. With the piano, you’re a musician from day one.

Understanding Why People Take Piano Lessons(And Why They Often Quit)

Many people start taking piano lessons as kids, when they don’t have much say in the matter. But adults come to the piano for many reasons, including wanting to take it up again because it didn’t stick the first time around, when they were kids. Following are some reasons you may want to learn or relearn to play piano:

You want to re-create your favorite songs and compositions.

When you play a piece of music on the piano, you bring that music to life. Written music is like a blueprint — a set of directions that tell you what notes to play and when and how to play them. It takes a performer to complete the process that starts in the composer’s mind but is unfulfilled until the music reaches the listener’s ear.

You like a challenge.

There’s no doubt that getting to the intermediate and advanced levels of piano takes time, patience, and practice. Some people relish this challenge. Whatever your ambition, learning to play piano is a never-ending challenge given the wealth of material at all levels. Some people set goals for themselves — to be able to play a certain piece or to play piano for others at a party or family gathering. There are plenty of rewards to be had along the way, and sticking with it pays off when you start playing your favorite songs or when you get the chance to play music with others. There’s nothing like being able to say, “I’m with the band.”

You want to be able to play music in almost any style.

Playing a pop song or a classical sonata on piano doesn’t require a different set of notes; when you know how to read and play piano music, you can play classical, jazz, rock, country, folk, cabaret, Broadway show tunes, and more. If you can play piano, you can speak the universal language of music.

You think it will make you better at math.

It’s true that math plays a big part in music, from the nature of sound itself to the formula for the notes in a scale to the symmetrical structure of a 32-bar song form. Piano teachers know from experience that playing piano requires focus and concentration. They also know that piano students improve in these areas as their playing improves and they gain experience. But some experts (for example, your eighth-grade algebra teacher) strongly refute the notion that playing the piano improves math skills.

Unfortunately, failure to quickly reach any of these goals leads some piano students to throw in the towel. Be realistic with your timetable and your expectations as you begin playing the piano. With that in mind, here are some top reasons people give up; don’t let yourself fall victim to them, too:

Frustration:

Mastering the piano takes patience. Coordinating hands and fingers, reading music, and committing to practice, practice, practice are the refrain of musicians everywhere, but making it all fun is the goal of this book.

No time:

Getting yourself to a basic beginner level of piano doesn’t require hours and hours of keyboard work every day. Short but regular practice sessions in which you can focus and learn comfortably do wonders for improvement.

Self-criticism:

No doubt you’re your own worst critic, and nobody likes playing wrong notes. Short-circuit your inner critic by celebrating small achievements (they’re achievements nonetheless), and show off to your friends and family along the way so they can support you.

For tips on making the most of your practice sessions, see Chapter 18.

Getting to Know Your Instrument

The first step in learning to play the piano is familiarizing yourself with your instrument. The piano is a complex and fascinating contraption, and the modern piano reflects hundreds of years of developments and improvements in design and sound. In Chapter 2, you find out all about the piano’s structure: the names of its parts and how it, through you, produces sound. I also cover the major modern development of digital pianos, which produce sound electronically, and the ways they differ from their acoustic counterparts.

A prospective buyer has plenty of options when approaching the keyboard market today. The two styles of acoustic piano, grand and upright, come in a variety of sizes and prices, and both produce sound in a similar way. Their hammer action design allows you to control the volume and tone quality through the speed and nuance of your touch as you press down a key and send a felt-covered wooden hammer to strike a string, or set of strings, inside the piano. The resonance of the string vibrating is amplified by the wooden soundboard, which is parallel to the strings.

The wide range of digital keyboards available today offers some attractive alternatives to acoustic pianos, even if they fall short of capturing the sound and feel of the real thing. As I explain in Chapter 2, these keyboards use sampled sounds — of pianos, electric pianos, harpsichords, and organs, as well as other instruments and sound effects — that are stored as digital information. You play these sounds by pressing a key and hearing the sound amplified electronically. Digital keyboards put a greatly expanded library of sound at your fingertips. Other advantages include greater portability and “silent” practicing with headphones.

The hybrid piano, covered in Chapter 3, combines acoustic and digital technology and is another enticing option available today. Though expensive, these pianos are well on their way to fulfilling their promise to combine the best of both worlds.

Check out Chapters 2 through 4 to find out more about all the keyboard instruments, compare styles and designs, prepare yourself to go keyboard shopping, and find out how to care for your keyboard at home.

If some folks predicted that the piano would grow obsolete with the development of electronic instruments in the last 50 years, they have been proved wrong. (And hopefully they’re happy things turned out for the better.) The piano is popular in both its old-fashioned acoustic version and all the newer versions that feature digital sound; automatic playing features; and recording, editing, and web-integration technology. In other words, pianos are the best of both worlds these days, and no one needs to compromise. The piano has adapted and changed with the times, yet it’s still treasured for the fundamental things that haven’t changed. It’s still an ideal solo instrument to have at home, it’s ready to be played whenever the mood strikes you, and its intuitive design satisfies both your fingers and your ears.

Comprehending the Language of Music

Playing the piano means reading music. The best thing to keep in mind is that, in a way, you already know the language. You’ve heard it, sung it, danced to it, and gone to beddy-bye to it your whole life. If you haven’t read music before, think of it as assigning new names and concepts to things you already know and making connections from the new language to the language you already comprehend aurally.

Reading music means reading pitches, rhythms, and other notational symbols invented to communicate music from composer to performer. Notes (see Chapter 6) and rhythms (see Chapters 7 and 8) simply tell you what pitch to play and how long or short to play it. The grand staff, which joins together a treble clef staff and a bass clef staff (see Chapter 6), matches the keys on the keyboard to the notes on the page and tells you which hand you use to play them. Musical rests (see Chapter 7) tell you when not to play (and how long not to play). Time signatures (see Chapter 7) and key signatures (see Chapter 13) help organize music into rhythmic patterns and tonal areas, respectively, that apply throughout a song. Expressive directions (see Chapter 15) make up the remaining elements of music notation you can look forward to discovering: how soft or how loud to play the notes, with what kind of touch you should press the key, the general tempo and feel of the music, and so on.

COORDINATING MIND AND BODY

At the heart of playing the piano is movement. The subtle movements required to play piano may not be as big as those required of ballet or swimming, but they’re numerous. As a result, playing piano involves lots of coordination, which is where practice comes into the picture.

Playing while you read involves counting, reading, and responding. You achieve a smooth choreography as you coordinate your mind and body and continually isolate and integrate your hands and fingers and the melody and the harmony. You may start by playing a melody in your right hand, adding a left-hand part when your right hand is secure, and adding facility as you go. Keep in mind that it’s normal and necessary to progress by taking one step back and two steps forward.

When you know how to read music, you can play most any song or other musical composition written at the beginner level, no matter the style of music.

Developing an ear for horizontal and vertical music

Among the challenges and rewards of learning piano are understanding and combining the melodic and harmonic elements of music. In a way, a music score is a kind of sound map in which proceeding from left to right represents the horizontal flow of music through time, and any one freeze-frame of the score shows the vertical combination of notes sounding together at that moment, from low to high. A piano player, like the conductor of an orchestra, controls these vertical and horizontal elements and the total content in the music, and expresses the complete musical picture, not just a single component.

You get to know these individual components throughout this book and combine them naturally as you go. Part 3 focuses on melodies and scales (the horizontal parts), and Part 4 focuses on harmony (the vertical part).

Getting to know musical forms and styles

Even the simplest melody, say a lullaby or a folk song, carries with it a musical form and a musical style. To describe its qualities is to define the form and style. For example, “Frere Jacques,” a song you play in Chapter 9, gets its form from the way each of its four phrases is repeated, doubling the length of the song. The simplicity of the melody and the repetition define the song’s style as a nursery rhyme, perfect for teaching a child.

As you play the other songs in this book, you come to understand that form and style describe how the musical material is used. For example, when you play “Worried Man Blues” in Chapter 13