D is for … Discipline: Why Your Piano Playing Feels Disjointed

There - I said it!

Have I hit upon a common problem amongst pianists? That you can play this bit well and that bit not so well, this bit excels and that bit struggles, this bit is a tight rhythm and that bit is unintentionally up and down? Maybe your accuracy of hitting some notes is great in some parts and sloppy in others?

The point is that playing piano well requires an enormous amount of dedication and practice, yet because what we learn sounds so good it becomes as much a hobby so that we sit down at the piano to practise and we end up just playing what we know because it sounds good!

The results?

• What you already can play sounds fantastic and will increasingly sound fantastic.

• Parts of it are being neglected because you’re now in the mindset of playing for pleasure!

So what happens when we play for pleasure?

Instant dopamine hit! We enjoy the music we hear, naturally, we enjoy playing (of course - that’s why we’re learning!) and most essentially, immediate satisfaction. You are the cause and creator of how good that sounded.

But as I’m sure you know from just about every aspect in life, dopamine is not and come and go thing. It’s addictive!

So until you tire yourself out the temptation is always there - and often succumbed to - to keep playing things you know or at the very least practise things that you think you’ll be able to do a reasonable justice to at your current level - even if it’s a piece you’ve never seen before!

Where discipline comes in is that it makes it essential for us to focus on the things that we are struggling with, but sometimes we just need somebody - such as me - to point out what you will no doubt refer to as quite obvious in retrospect, thus giving you a helping hand.

So prepare for a barrage of tips to help you discipline your piano practice and playing!

Use the Metronome for Discipline Playing Piano

Point number one is one I absolutely will not dwell on, just because I go on about it time and time again!

But I will make the point briefly just to reinforce the idea that when you practice, you should use a metronome for a good chunk of the time.

Unless you’re specifically practising your sight reading ability, I don’t recommend incorporating the metronome until you have a vague understanding and ability of playing the notes. What the metronome will then do is help you to tighten everything up, disciplining your sense of rhythm but also pulse, thus keeping the music together and disjointed.

If you find that certain transitions between bars or sections of music are a problem for you, these are ideal things to practise with a metronome as the constraints of a strict beat will really force you into keeping it together (although it does, I dare say, take practise! Nothing is quick, sadly!).

I should note that as a secondary point to this, slow practice is the best practice!

Slow practice will allow your hands to familiarise themselves with changing position and your fingers to familiarise themselves with (often awkward!) note playing, all within the constraints of a beat. This makes the whole thing easier to speed up.

Remember the old saying about not learning to run before you can walk?

It’s literally that!

Of course, practising slowly has it’s issues in that it means that we cover significantly less in the space of our usual practice session, so whilst I urge you to remember that the quality will always prevail, it brings me neatly onto my next point to ensure that your precious practice time won’t be wasted by continually treading over old ground…

Learn Out Of Order and Practice Individual Bits

This one’s an odd one to hear when first suggested, but the rise in students and teachers alike saying that this is the fundamental rule when it comes to learning pieces of music is astonishing.

First-page-itis, as I like to call it, is the common disease afflicting many poor pianists (professional as well, I’m sure) in which they learn a piece of music from the beginning to the end.

They still break it down into sections, of course, but in the course of learning they will do two things:

• They will perfect a section and make it performance worthy before moving on;

• They will regularly play their music from the beginning, adding on new sections that they have learnt / are learning.

The latter point obviously ensures that at least transitions are smooth, but by perfecting as you go and then continually reinforcing it by playing it over and over again, you develop First-page-itis: the remarkable ability to play the beginning of a piece (or the first page) spectacularly well and then never bringing the rest of the piece up to the same level.

Why not?

Two reasons - time in a practice session runs out (especially for long pieces such as sonatas) and devoting less and less time to a section the more you go on (partly time again, but also that mentality of light at the end of the tunnel gives you more of a ‘sprint’ mentality).

So how can we tackle this issue?

Well, as the heading suggested - learn out of order!

For example, if you have a theme and variations, you already know that the theme is likely going to be the easiest bit. The variations will almost certainly be harder, and often they progress logically in terms of their difficulty as the piece goes on (such as Handel’s ‘Harmonious Blacksmith’). Therefore, it’s worth having a play through the theme so you have an idea of how that sounds (if you don’t already know), the skimming through the score and finding the bit that actually looks the hardest! Or, indeed, playing through the whole score and seeing which bit you have the most trouble with!

Each individual practice session can be allocated a different section and all of them will then progress together. Only when you feel you’ve got all of them at a fairly decent standard (but not perfect) do you want to think about stringing them together to make sure transitions are good (perfection is not strived for yet because it sort of locks them into individual performances, making transitions much harder or much less natural sounding).

Once you’ve got this, pinpoint the sections within the sections that need attention and devote practice sessions to them. It’s unlikely that you’re struggling to play the entirety of a section. You’ll find hesitation at certain bars, certain techniques, certain jumps etc. - so isolate them and focus on them, using the metronome if appropriate.

Now we’re starting to perfect the whole piece together so that none of it feels left out and your performance remains consistently fluid; prior to this you may have run the risk of a really strong theme and maybe a really strong first variation and then it starts to lose momentum. Not to say it wouldn’t be good, but on the whole your strength was applied to the beginning and there would be an imbalance.

Keep Exercises Disciplined

Whether you are practising your scales or doing some finger strengthening, you need to be disciplined.

If you take an exam and you play a scale using the wrong fingers entirely but it still sounds good and fluid, you actually won’t be marked down.

But does that mean you should learn the wrong fingers?

No!

Don’t settle for a that’ll do attitude with exercises, as learning scales etc. form the backbone of your technique and your understanding of theory, thus making you a better musician. So not worth skimping on!

You need to be in control of what you are doing at all times, being able to do a scale fluidly each time but with guesswork of the fingers, resulting in different fingerings each time, shouldn’t be your goal.

This is also the same for anything that relates to counting. Not just beat wise, such as learning exercises against the metronome, but in terms of how many times you wish to do something.

Learn when to put the brakes on and how to control.

Are you doing a one octave scale? Two? Three? Four?

If you say four and you do three, is that good enough?

Doesn’t matter how fabulous your three octave scale was, it’s not what you intended.

And why should this matter?

Because it’s showing either;

• Lack of understanding from your mind. You’re not hearing the passing of or seeing / feeling the development of the full four octaves, or

• You’re not in control of your hands, and they’re just doing what feels most natural to them at the time they want to.

Let’s say you’re performing a Leschetizky exercise by holding down all but one finger in a hand at a time and vamping the remaining finger, working through them. How many are you going to give each one? Four vamps on the thumb then move to finger 2 for 4, 3 for 4?

If you’re practising any type of exercise that involves a strong sense of rhythm (all of them, actually!), then keep the pulse going between each individual one. If you’re working between your left and right hand practising scales, don’t just randomly switch to the left hand. Keep the tempo and count as soon as your thumb in one hand finishes its scale on its root note “2 - 3 - 4” and begin your other hand’s scale in time.

In Conclusion

Discipline is a nightmare for pianists and musicians, but the results of it are absolutely staggering!

Consider the following:

How long would it take for you to learn a one page piece?

How long would it take for you to learn a ten page piece?

Many of us are intimidated by the thought of too long a piece of music and think it will take weeks of practising, but in reality if you chunk it out to ten individual pages, it becomes ten individual pieces (don’t be too literal - find suitable stopping points!). And that’s all I’m really encouraging you to do; look at music in sections and treat it all with the same TLC.

Even I have surprised myself in being only 2 pages off having learnt a Schubert Impromptu (about ten pages in length) in its first increment (i.e. not perfect, but I can play it with the odd bit of hesitation) in about a week and a half. I learnt the theme and first variation, then the last variation, then penultimate, then the one before that. So I have the second variation to cover and I’ll be ready to bring it together and perfect what needs perfecting, but the whole thing will be much more solid than if I had brought it together from the beginning and worked on perfection straight away (I’d still be on page one)…

…so I really am speaking from experience!

So you can trust me: discipline makes the pianist stronger as a performer and more productive in terms of learning and achieving!

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Jack Mitchell Smith is a piano teacher based in Congleton, Cheshire. Click here to find out more.

Weekly blogs are posted that may help you with your musical or piano journey. Click here to sign up to the mailing list so you never miss a post!

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#pianopractice #pianotips #learnpiano #pianoteacher #congleton #pianist #pianolesson

Sustained: Exercises for Perfect Pedalling at the Piano

Ah yes, pedals. The dread of the beginner pianist who all have the same attitude (as did I!):

‘I can barely get my hands working together, let alone bring a foot in!’

The good news here is that, not only is it entirely practicable and manageable to incorporate pedalling into your performing, but it’s also perfectly logical too!

See, our feet have a tendency to do ‘the beat’ anyway. Imagine your favourite song is on the radio and you’re tapping your foot along. You do so on the beat - providing you have rhythm. And if you’re at the stage in your piano learning whereby you’re being recommended to incorporate pedal, we can assume your rhythm is quite solid!

And pedalling is just an extension of this. It just so happens that we need to be picky about which beats we put down on and stay down on, and do so with the added third dimension of a pedal that is slightly elevated from the floor.

But why does pedalling sound so unclean when you try and do it initially?

Simple - you’re just not pushing down on the beat quite firmly and confidently enough.

But before we get to that, let’s ensure you’re set up correctly for the pedal:

Perfect Posture for Pedalling at the Piano

As if I’m not already a stickler for posture, here are more excuses…I mean, reasons…as to why you should really perfect how you sit at the piano for perfect pedalling:

Your feet should be poised directly in front of the left and right pedal, respectively.

This isn’t to say they have to be on them, but they should be in comfortable distance from them so you can move them on and off with ease.

One of the best movements for pedalling is to use your heel to pivot in order to switch between passages that are heavily pedalled and passages that aren’t heavily pedalled; thus allowing your feet resting slightly to the side of the pedals pointing outwards and then using the heels to swivel your foot across the pedal ready to press. Needless to say, the up and down motion of the pedal is also best achieved by keeping the heel on the floor and pushing down with the front of the foot.

This is also strong argument as to why you want to sit in front of middle C - it’s not just to maximise reach to the extreme ends of the keyboard. It guarantees your feet are about right.

Bear in mind that pianos and digital pianos have pedals in the right place, but if you have a keyboard or stage piano whereby you have a separate sustain pedal / pedalboard that plugs in, you may have to reposition to a place to keep consistent with your piano playing. Make sure it points out in a straight line as it does on a piano, and slightly to the right of middle C, thus keeping your foot in roughly the same place as it would for piano. Remember, it’s easy to play keyboard if you play piano, but it’s hard to play piano if you play keyboard so anything you can do to maximise your practice towards the piano as an instrument is a bonus!

Great! We’re ready to begin!

What Does the Sustain Pedal Do?

Firstly, before we do any exercises, I want you play and hold down a single note without the pedal. Note how it fades away.

Now, using the exact same dynamic, press the key and let go immediately whilst holding the pedal down.

What differences to you hear?

Providing you use exactly the same dynamic (don’t worry if you didn’t), your answer should be…nothing! Basically the sustain pedal does the job of holding your note for you. This is, of course, particularly useful when it comes to creating textures within your piano music as it means you can have multiple notes sounding at one to create a deep background for your music without having to hold them down (which does, of course, mean that more than your finger limit of ten notes can be sounding at the same time to some end!).

Sustain pedals are beautiful, but before you start the exercises, try playing around by lifting up to get used to your own sustain pedal and its responsiveness. You don’t necessarily need to be pushing the pedal right into the ground to reach its full sustain, and similarly you don’t always need to snap it all the way back up to cut the sound off (except for most keyboards and digital pianos).

Be mindful also of how gently you do lift it back up. Don’t forget this especially with acoustic pianos, as there is a lot of mechanism at play inside the piano to make the magic happen. If you don’t be gentle, you’ll hear all of this and it will interrupt your music and mood. Maybe desirable for the like of John Cage, mind…but let’s start traditionally for now!

Exercises for Perfect Pedalling at the Piano

Exercise One

You can use any note here to demonstrate, and you can use any finger, but for simplicity I will use Middle C (what else?!).

In the score demonstrations, I use two markings:

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 1 means to push the pedal down.

Figure 2 means to lift the pedal up.

Now let’s take a look at the following passage:

Note that the pedal markings appear on notes, so you’re syncing your foot up exactly in time with the notes.

Try tapping and holding your foot on the floor and then lifting up on the fourth note as you play this sequence.

Now, incorporate the pedal and here’s the test!…

All of the notes are crotchet length, but I want you to play crotchets for the first three as you would, and then jump off the fourth one (staccato, but make sure you keep the dynamic consistent) but use the sustain pedal to hold that fourth crotchet of the bar.

Note that lifting the pedal - which should be confidently fast but gentle - happens on the note in the next bar, so everything is being kept on the beat.

And when you’ve mastered that, we alternate and pedal every other note, playing it staccato with our fingers:

That is to say that in each bar, notes 1 and 3 will be played at their full length by our finger / thumb, but notes 2 and 4 will be staccato, yet will still sound their full length.

Exercise Two

The above exercise introduced the pedalling in a fairly consistent way, but in order to make that all the more realistic as to what you may need to be pedalling, let’s assume that the pedalling is a tad more irregular and now treat notes 1, 2 and 4 as staccato with the pedal and make sure we hold the note to its full duration with our finger / thumb on note 3:

Exercise Three

The final exercise is going to demonstrate a pentascale. You can use any pentascale, but here I have started on C (C - D - E - F - G) to keep it simple so we can put our focus into the pedalling.

The previous exercises are fairly forgiving if you didn’t lift the pedal up because you were playing the same note over and over, thus negating the need to cancel out and sounding notes because the worst case scenario is - if your pedal was still down - you repressing the note would just restart it.

This time, however, the notes may all clash with each other.

We are going to play a pentascale but play it slowly and staccato with our fingers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 respectively in the right hand), but hold the pedal down for each one to give as close to a legato scale as possible.

Here’s where it gets tricky.

The pedal marking, as you will see, appears on every single note:

So you need to very quickly - yet quietly - snatch a release on your pedal before repressing exactly on the note. If you don’t hit it exactly on the note and miss by a microsecond, your staccato note will be lost and you will have a silence instead of a long note!

If and when you manage this, try alternating between staccato notes with the pedal / holding the notes down with your fingers and no pedal, such as this:

And by now you should be starting to get much more into the feel of how the pedal feels and start to feel a bit more confident.

It’s worth trying out the above exercises using both hands - separately and together - and it’s always worth getting your left foot involved in as much as at least tapping on the floor at the same times. The left pedal - the Una Corda - is much lesser used and when it does it tends to stay up and down for much longer passages, meaning you don’t have to be quite as swift and confident with it as a generic rule. However, if and when you do decide to incorporate it, it can sometimes be a bit awkward to bring in the left foot without having a certain grounding, so give that a go too!

And always enjoy!

For a video recap, see below. And make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel to ensure you never miss a piano video from me there!

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Jack Mitchell Smith is a piano teacher based in Macclesfield, Cheshire. Click here to find out more.

Weekly blogs are posted that may help you with your musical or piano journey. Click here to sign up to the mailing list so you never miss a post!

---

#pianoteacher #pianolessons #pianotutor #pianotuition #learnpiano #congleton #cheshire 

A Post Christmas Refresher of All Things Piano: Kickstart Your Learning Back into 2025

A few weeks ago, I rather dangerously posted that it would be fiiiine to make piano playing more fun and inkeeping if you found that you weren’t in the headspace in the buildup to Christmas.

The problem?

The buildup to Christmas starts at the very beginning of December for many people!

Therefore, I’m going to work on the pessimistic assumption that - although you have probably found much joy in playing the piano (which is fabulous) - you might not have put as much time into practising.

So consider this blog a refresher.

Needless to say, every single one of my following points has a much more exhaustive blog post on it from the past, to which I have linked. So if you feel you need a deeper refresh on anything, make sure you click the link so that you can fully get back into piano following the Christmas break!

Fingers and Thumbs

No longer do we refer to our fingers by their actual names (thumb, index, middle, ring and pinkie - and yes, the thumb is a finger in the context of piano!).

We now dehumanise them completely and assign them a number!

Basically, thumbs are 1, and then we move up to the pinkies to reach number 5:

Thumb - 1

Index - 2

Middle - 3

Ring - 4

Pinkie - 5

It is very important to have a good instinct as to which finger is which numerically - as well as to know your left from your right - so that when your teacher asks you to play a certain note with a certain hand and finger, you can do. Not to mention that when you come to start reading music, your fingers are often notated above or below the note so you know which finger to play them with!

Learning Keyboard Geography at the Piano

C is the note that we often start out by finding because when we first learn to sit at the piano, we get used to sitting in front of Middle C.

This is the C nearest to the middle of the keyboard, naturally. But C itself is the white note that lies immediately left of the two black ones!

From here - up or down - we use the letters of the alphabet A - G in the correct order, repeating.

For example, working up from C on white notes we come to D, E, F, G and then the next note goes back to A.

Similarly, working down from C on the white notes we have B, A and then the next note loops back round to G.

Semitones, Tones, Sharps and Flats

Regardless of whether the note is black or white, two neighbouring notes is the distance of a semitone.

To stick to the white keys, E up to F is a semitone and vice verse, as well as B up to C.

Two semitones make a tone!

Therefore, any neighbouring white keys that are separated by a black one (C - D / F - G / G - A / A - B) are a tone apart.

To sharpen a note, move it up by a semitone.

To flatten a note, move it up by a semitone.

For example, the black note immediately above the white key F is an F sharp*.

The black note immediately below B is a B flat*.

*It is much more advanced - though still correct - territory to observe that there are some doublings up. For example, the white note F can - and sometimes does - get referred to as E sharp, or E as F flat - because of the above rules regarding semitones. However, at a beginner and low intermediate level you will be safe in knowing that most - if not all - of what you need to know of sharp and flat notes will be attributed to the black keys. Try not to cram more information than you need in and focus on what’s relevant!

Can you name the following notes on the keyboard? Note that there are two answers for each - a sharp and a flat! Answers at the end!

Scales and Key Signatures

Starting with the note C, moving up to the next by using white notes: C - D - E - F - G - A - B - C creates a scale.

To play these with the proper fingers, play the following fingering for the right hand:

C - 1

D - 2

E - 3

F - 1

G - 2

A - 3

B - 4

C - 5

…and for the left hand:

C - 5

D - 4

E - 3

F - 2

G - 1

A - 3

B - 2

C - 1

When you reach the top, come back down and just read the above fingerings backwards!

The Octave

Try to learn to play the scale with both hands. Start the right hand on Middle C, and start the left hand on the C immediately below. This C is 8 notes below middle C (inclusive), and a distance of 8 notes is an interval called an octave.

When we refer to an octave, we can refer to the distance between any note and the next note of the same name immediately above or below. For example, I could give the same instruction as above by saying to play the C scale hands together with your right hand starting on middle C and your left hand starting one octave lower.

In similar vain, the scale you have just played is an octave scale, because this is the total distance that it spans. So, if you are asked to play a C scale for one octave, you have just done this!

Tonality

The scale you have played above is a C scale, but the tonality defines whether or not it is major or minor.

This is a C major scale. The major key is happier and brighter.

Using the exact same fingers, try and play a scale using entirely white notes but starting on the note A.

This is an A (natural) minor scale. The minor key is sadder and more melancholy.

One of the reasons this sounds drastically different is because of its structure:

All typical scales are made up of tones and semitones.

Major scales - such as C major - start with our root note (the note after which the scale is named - also called the tonic) and move up in the following pattern:

Tone - Tone - Semitone - Tone - Tone - Tone - Semitone

Whereas the type of minor scale you have just played (a natural minor scale) starts on the root note and moves up thus;

Tone - Semitone - Tone - Tone - Semitone - Tone - Tone

Using this structure and your understanding of keyboard geography, you could apply this to any note on the keyboard and find the notes of any scale (the same fingers can be applied to quite a lot of them, but be careful! There are a fair few exceptions too…).

Relative Minor

The reason that two scales that both use entirely white keys can sound so drastically different is just because they are closely related. In fact, they are what’s called relative major / relative minor to one another.

i.e. The relative minor of C is A minor and the relative major of A minor is C.

All scales have a relative major or minor in opposition to their current tonality. To find it, you can do one of two things:

For a major scale’s relative minor, count up six or down three (inclusive of the root note):

C - D - E - F - G - A / C - B - A

For a minor scale’s relative major, count up three or down six (inclusive of the root note):

A - B - C / A - G - F - E - D - C

Key Signature

All a key signature tells us is the scale to which a piece of music is most closely related.

You will note that the scales of C major / A minor are white note based, thus are all natural notes. This means that they are not sharp or flat.

Thus, if you play a piece of music that is entirely based around white notes then it is in in either the key of C major or A minor: the answer being whether the music sounds happier (major) or sadder (minor).

Printed Music

Clefs and Notes

There are two clefs we need to worry about when we learn piano: treble clef and bass clef.

Treble clef is associated with the right hand.

Bass clef is associated with the left hand.

Treble Clef

Bass Clef

The reason that we associate them with a different hand for much of our playing is because of the location of Middle C.

Middle C falls in the same place above the stave (pronounced staff - the group of five lines) on the bass clef as it does below the stave on the treble clef, effectively creating a mirror image!

Therefore, all notes logically follow in each gap and space depending on whether you are going up and down:

If you wish to learn the acronyms, you can! They certainly help to pinpoint notes:

For treble clef, the lines from the bottom up are E - G - B - D - F:

Every Good Boy Deserves Favour

Whereas the spaces reading up from the bottom spell out:

F A C E

In the bass clef, the lines from the bottom up are G - B - D - F - A*:

Good Boys Do Fine Always

And the spaces reading up are A - C - E - G*:

All Cows Eat Grass

These are useful acronyms for finding notes that you’re less familiar with, but try and focus on recognising notes with familiarity. It’s likely you can identify a Middle C without much trouble, and that’s what we want for them all!

*Don’t forget that we’re in the bass clef here, so Middle C is above the stave. Therefore, the C for ‘Cows’ is one octave lower than Middle C!

The following test spells out some words! Can you spell them all?

Note Value and Rhythm

To simplify this, we’ll start with crotchets:

A crotchet / quarter note is worth one beat. A crotchet looks like the notes above: a black head (the circle) and a vertical stem (the line)

If we don’t shade the head in, we get a minim / half note. This is worth two beats i.e. two crotchets.

And now if we remove the tail, we get a semibreve / whole note. This is worth four beats i.e. two minims / four crotchets!

Now let’s go back to our crotchets:

If we add a tail (a nice little curved line coming down from the top / up from the bottom of the stem), we get a quaver / eighth note. This is worth half a beat, or half a crotchet.

If we add two tails, the quavers become semiquavers / sixteenth notes.

L - R, Semibreve, Minim, Quaver, Crotchet, Semiquaver

Quavers and semiquavers are usually grouped together in groups of four*. This is done by joining their tails together in a straight line - a beam - across the top. This is, quite simply, called beaming!

A bar of beamed quavers and a bar of beamed semiquavers

*Feel free to read this blog here to find out more as to when we do and don’t beam. It’s not something you need to know for beginner / intermediate level, but you will need to recognise them joined together. But if you crave more knowledge, read on!

Most any rhythm we would want to notate can be done so by mixing and matching various note lengths.

To get used to picking out rhythms, find the smallest note in your passage of music and try to count the whole passage using this. For example, if you count your crotchets as “1 - 2 - 3 - 4” and your smallest notes are quavers, count ‘and’ between the numbers so you can accurately pinpoint them: “1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and”.

Can you identify the following rhythm?:

Note the squiggle in the second bar is a quaver rest, so it lasts as long as the quaver notes but is silence. So....make sure you count it!

Time Signature

Time Signature is displayed after the clef on a piece of notated music, and it just refers to how we count a piece of music. Do we count ‘1 - 2 - 3 - 4’ or ‘1 - 2 - 3’, for example.

The time signature is two numbers stacked above each other, the most common being 4 / 4 (sometimes this is shown as a C instead of 4 / 4!):

Common Time - this is the same as 4/4

The top number refers to how many numbers you count in a bar. So the top number of 4 / 4 is 4! So you count 1 - 2 - 3 - 4.

The bottom number is where we have to be a tad more astute, musically, as this refers to the note value of which your counts are!

If you learn the terms quarter note, half note etc. alongside crotchets and minims etc., this should be as simple as working out a fraction. 4 / 4 = four quarters, four quarter notes = a crotchet! Which is exactly why I teach both terms!

So, if you are counting ‘1 - 2 - 3 - 4’ in 4 / 4, each one of those numbers is a crotchet. This means that each one of those numbers can house one crotchet, two quavers, four semiquavers…you get the idea!

So it’s important to get your head around these!

It’s only in more advanced music that you will get more demanding numbers at the bottom of your time signature, but 4 / 4 is extremely common, 2 / 4 and 3 / 4 are frequently used and when it is time you might introduce 8 to the bottom: 6 / 8 and 12 / 8 are especially common.

What type of notes do you need to complete the bars?:

NB I won’t be covering dotted notes on this blog, but I may write a follow up as this is all refresher!

Sharps and Flats on Notated Music

To mark a sharp on a piece of music, we use a hashtag symbol! - ♯ . This moves the notated pitch up by one semitone.

To mark a flat on a piece of music, we use a pointy, lowercase B symbol - ♭ . This moves the notated pitch down by one semitone.

When you mark the odd sharp and flat, it is called an accidental because it deviates away from the rules of the key signature. An accidental is carried on that note* for the rest of the bar unless marked with a natural sign: ♮ . This reverts the accidental back to its place in the key signature.

If no natural sign is used, the accidental only lasts for the duration of the one bar. It reverts back to its rightful place in the new bar unless or until a new accidental takes its place, and the cycle continues!

Sharps, flats and naturals are printed before the note - never after!

*There is an ongoing debate as to whether or not accidentals affect just the note of that pitch - for example, if Middle C is notated with a ♯ sign and then an unmarked C two octaves higher appears in the same bar, is that a C ♯ too or is it only Middle C that is? The general consensus - which I agree with and have seen way more evidence on scores to back up - is that only that one pitch is made an accidental, so only Middle C would be affected in the above example.

Key Signatures

Key signatures are marked between the clef and the time signature on a piece of music. They are done so by marking on the sharps or flats of the key signature.

Therefore, a piece in C major or A minor would not appear to have a key signature notated…because they are all natural notes! So establish the tonality and then you can have a better idea of which of the two your piece is notated in.

You will only ever have sharps or flats in your key signature, and they follow a very specific order!

The Circle of Fifths is a much more exhaustive topic, but have a read on this blog for more information as this will help you to sync up which scales and key signatures have which sharps!

In a nutshell, you will always add one new sharp or flat at a time in the following order:

Sharps: F - C - G - D - A - E (Fast Cars Go Driving Around Everywhere):

Flats: B - E - A - D - G - C - F (Battle Ends and Down Goes Charles Father).

For a nice, quick and easy way to find your key signature:

For sharps - find the last note notated in the key. For example, Below it is G:

One tone above G is your answer as a major key. Or, if you consider it G♯, one semitone. This makes the answer A major. Now consider that it might also be the minor key and use the A major scale to find your relative minor (see above). Remember that three notes: F - C and G - have all been sharpened.

Working up six inclusive, A - B - C♯ - D - E - F♯. So it could be F♯ minor.

For flats - strike off the last note.

For example, the last note below is D:

The new last note / the former penultimate note is your answer.

This is A♭ major. Again, it could also be its relative minor. This time, let’s work down three inclusive to find it. Remember that four notes - B - E - A and D - have all been flattened.

A♭ - G - F. So this could also be representative of F minor.

Can you identify the two possible keys for each the below examples?

Intervals, Chords and Inversions

Intervals

The distance between any two notes is called an interval.

Previously in this blog, we have already looked at one: the octave (a distance of eight notes).

We can work out simple octaves according to two notes positions in the scale.

Using the C major scale as an example, we can identify several major intervals.

C - D: major second

C - E: major third

C - A: major sixth

C - B: major seventh

Note that in each example, we count C (the root note) as 1 and count up from there to discover our intervals.

Controversially, the minor scale - such as the A natural minor we pieced together earlier - also shows us a major second as its first degree (A - B). But with this exception, it is possible to find some minor intervals:

A - C: minor third

A - F: minor sixth

A - G: minor seventh

It’s worth getting used to how these sound and also getting used to how they relate to each other in the context of a major and a minor scale, allowing you to much more quickly identify the interval as major or minor.

The fourth and fifth are neither major ‘nor minor, for these are empty intervals that don’t have a third note to define their tone. As a result, these are called perfect intervals, and are found in both major and minor scales:

C - F: perfect fourth

C - G: perfect fifth

A - D: perfect fourth

A - E: perfect fifth

Finding Chords

A simple form of a chord using three notes is known as a triad. This is a three note chord.

All major and minor triads feature the root note and perfect fifth, but in addition to this we need to add either the major or the minor third.

For example, a C major chord would be C - E - G (root, major third, perfect fifth).

An A minor chord would be A - C - E (root, minor third, perfect fifth).

The difference between a major and a minor triad chord is just one semitone, and it is the major or minor third that changes.

To change a major chord to minor, lower the major third by one semitone.

To change a minor chord to major, raise the minor third by one semitone.

Can you identify what chords the following are, including whether they are major or minor?

Chords I, IV and V

Finding the (major) triads of the first, fourth and fifth note of a major scale is a really useful tool for playing an enormous amount of music - whether than be pop, traditional, classical, rock etc. - with accompaniment.

For example, finding the first, fourth and fifth note of C major would be

C - 1

D - 2

E - 3

F - 4

G - 5

A - 6

B - 7

So; C, F and G major.

The fifth degree of a scale - in this case G - is known as the dominant, and another tool you can employ is turning it into a seventh chord. In order to do this, count seven up from this dominant note*:

G - 1

A - 2

B - 3

C - 4

D - 5

E - 6

F - 7

…in this case we have found F…

…and play it as the fourth note on top of the existing dominant (fifth) chord. So, a G major chord with an F on top: G - B - D - F, would be G7. G7 is, therefore, known as the dominant seventh of C major.

*make sure you count up seventh according to the scale you are already playing in: C major. Don’t be tempted to switch to a G major scale and count F♯ as this will lead to the wrong type of seventh chord. I may write a blog about the different types of seventh chords at a later date!

Can you identify chords I, IV and V of the following key signatures?: -

A major

D major

B major

Inversions

Inversions are really just like musical anagrams.

All of the chords you have seen so far are in what is called root position. This means that their three notes ascend in order, starting from the first note (the root).

To invert a chord such as C major: C - E - G in root position - we just need to move the bottom note to the top to play it in a slightly different order.

E - G - C. This is known as first inversion.

If we do this again with the first inversion, we get G - C - E.

This one is known as second inversion!

The reason for this is twofold:

• When playing chords in the lower register of the keyboard, inversions can help give much needed breathing space as the interval between two of the notes are wider than that of root position, making the overall sound less clunky.

• More importantly, it allows for us to easily change chords without having to jump our hands around into vastly different parts of the keyboard. For example, if you play a C major root position of C - E - G, you could switch to an F major second inversion instead by keeping the C and only having to move your top two fingers up to the F and A, rather than jumping up or down to a whole new position to F - A - C.

To decipher what chord something is, rearrange the notes so that you are only dealing with a standard triad i.e. note, miss one note in the scale, note, miss one note in the scale, note.

Can you identify the following chords?

In Conclusion

Whew - I think that’s it! And hopefully that’s refreshed a lot of your memory.

Before I go, however, here are some tips that you must always remember:

• Keep the fingers as curved as possible whilst playing

• Be delicate with the keys - don’t jab and stab at them

• Always keep a good posture: sit upright with a straight back and make sure that your arms aren’t scrunched up. Sit far enough back that there is a comfortable resting of the elbows by your side whilst you play.

• Learning can come in all sorts of forms: don’t rely on having to be at the piano. Practise sight reading of rhythms or pitches, draw a keyboard and try and identify the correct notes, tap out rhythms to improve musicality and much more when not around one!

• Ensure you play for fun, but be disciplined enough to keep a regular practice schedule as well!

• Don’t rush! Take things slowly, using a metronome if necessary. Slow practice is immensely better than rushed practice, even if it initially feels less progressive.

Enjoy welcoming the piano back into your life for 2025!

Answers

Sharp and Flat Notes:

C sharp / D flat

G sharp / A flat

F sharp / G flat

Spelled Out Words:

DABBED

CABBAGE

ACE

BEAD

Rhythm to Identify:

Football Chant - Let’s Go (Pony)

Notes to Complete the Bars:

Quaver

Crotchet

Minim

Two Key Signatures:

B flat major / G minor

E major / C sharp minor

Chords:

B major

E minor

F sharp minor

Chords I, IV and V:

A major: A, D, E

D major: D, G, A

B major: B, E, F#

Inverted Chords:

G major (1st inversion)

E flat / D sharp minor (second inversion)

D major (1st inversion)

B flat / A sharp minor (first inversion)

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Jack Mitchell Smith is a piano teacher based in Macclesfield, Cheshire. Click here to find out more.

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