Old student trying to play again after over 2 decades

[tzzird]

Hello everyone. I played from the time I was 5 until about 12 years old. I wasn't the best student (did everything I could to get away from practicing) and so didn't progress very far. The last piece I remember learning was Mozart's k545 Sonata.

Recently, I reacquired my childhood piano and have been playing a little bit here and there for the last year. I find that I can teach my myself some pieces and not others. Mozart's Alla Turca was one that I was able to teach myself as well as the second and third movement of the aforementioned sonata. Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, 1st movement I found I was not. I was never really good at reading music with lots of sharps or flats and the notes in Moonlight Sonata are just confusing for me.

Any suggestions for exercises I can perform to help with my reading ability?

Oh, and since my oldest son is 4 now, I have been teaching him some simple pieces as well. I hope that he will have a much greater appreciation for the piano than I did growing up.

[lostinidlewonder]

Learn to read and play all the scales, I know that is boring but it will help you with key signatures you feel confused by. When initially learning how the key signature gives the keyboard a particular shape I get the  student to play a C major scale and then apply the sharps or flats to it. Once they can play the scale easily enough I get them to play the scale from different positions, with thirds/chords, randomly over the keyboard. This helps give an understanding of what notes generally will be used without accidentals being written in the score.

The only way to improve your reading is to formulate a plan to read lots of music. What music you select to read is different for everyone depending on their level but all serious sight readers should have the Bach Well Tempered Clavier as a part of their sight reading study. Bach's part writing is very beneficial for sight reading skills. I also suggest reading a lot of chordal works, chorales for instance. This encourages to see shape at the keyboard based on notes on a page.

[tzzird]

Thanks for the response listinidlewonder!

I embarrassed to admit that I don't even know what the name of different scales mean.

Key signatures I have never heard of either.

When you suggest Bach's Well Tempered Clavier, are you referring to the entire piece? The first part is easy enough...

I would love to "see shape at the keyboard based on notes on a page".

[gregh]

A key signature is those sharps or flats on the left side, before the notes start. E.g. a sharp sign on the line for F means to play every F as an F-sharp. In any octave, not just the ones on that line. Compare that to a sharp sign that appears next to a note, which means to play only those notes in the remainder of that measure as sharp.

When you transpose from one key to another you need to add sharps or flats in order to keep the intervals the same. Otherwise a song that sounds fine when you start on C will sound funny if you start on D. So if you're going to play a song in the key of D, you'll add a key signature with F-sharp and C-sharp to tell the musician that you're in the key of D, and that all the F's and C's should be played sharp (unless otherwise noted in the music).

There's a logical progression to the sharps and flats. For instance, the G major scale has an F-sharp. D major has an F-sharp and a C-sharp. In the key of A it's an F-sharp, C-sharp, and a G-sharp.

See the pattern? Every time you add a sharp, you don't change the others. Any key that has at least one sharp will always have an F-sharp, and so on. Same for flats.

So it might help to practice adding one sharp or flat at a time-- practice C major, then add a B-flat and practice F major. But, really, you just have to pick a key and pound away at it. Do scales and chords. But also transpose simple pieces of music into different keys. For instance, "Twinkle, Twinkle", starting C-C-G-G-A-A-G, then D-D-A-A-B-B-A, then E-E-B-B-Csharp-Csharp-B... Transposing is something you should learn, anyway.

Play simple songs in other modes, like "Twinkle, Twinkle" in C-minor (same key signature as E-flat major: B-flat and A-flat). You can get some really interesting sounds that way.

Every major key has a natural minor. The white keys from C to C are C major, and from A to A are A minor. Same keys, different order. If you want the key signature for a minor key, count up three half steps. E.g. A to A-sharp, to B, to C: use the signature for C major. Or for C minor, C to C-sharp, to D, to D-sharp=E-flat: use the signature for E-flat major. And that makes the minor keys a lot easier to learn!

You can find key signatures, scales, and chords on the internet if you Google around a little. Or you can reason it out by counting white and black keys on the keyboard. Or you can sound it out, experimenting until your ears tell you that it sounds right.

[hfmadopter]

Thanks for the response listinidlewonder!

I embarrassed to admit that I don't even know what the name of different scales mean.

Key signatures I have never heard of either.

When you suggest Bach's Well Tempered Clavier, are you referring to the entire piece? The first part is easy enough...

I would love to "see shape at the keyboard based on notes on a page".

I think something that will help you is when you pick a piece, go online and look up the key signature. There are sites online where you can download the scales and chords  to any key signature. Then going into the new piece also practice the scales and chords sheets. You will find them to correlate well with your new piece because the new piece is in that key signature. Do this by simply counting the sharps or flats at the beginning of the piece. Type something like ( lets say there is one flat) into your browser, "key signature with one flat". Do the search, you will find pages for one flat in major and relative minor keys. It won't be difficult to figure out which your new piece is in, print that and work on it.

This shaping you want to come to you will come to you. Just put in the effort and time, it won't happen overnight and maybe not even real quickly but it will happen if that's what you want to happen and go to work on it.


Teaching your son. Take it really easy with him. I just started with my grandson who is 6, we just started last week. He now knows where every C note is on the piano. That's it, lesson number one ! However, he has a bit of a learning disability and is also left handed. I'll go as far as I can with him, it may go very well or it may not. That remains to be seen. What he does have though is good hand coordination and can associate something on a page to his hands well, so I'm hopeful this will be successful. I told his mom all I can do is try but we are going by Braille here, so to speak.

[tzzird]

A key signature is those sharps or flats on the left side, before the notes start. E.g. a sharp sign on the line for F means to play every F as an F-sharp. In any octave, not just the ones on that line. Compare that to a sharp sign that appears next to a note, which means to play only those notes in the remainder of that measure as sharp.

When you transpose from one key to another you need to add sharps or flats in order to keep the intervals the same. Otherwise a song that sounds fine when you start on C will sound funny if you start on D. So if you're going to play a song in the key of D, you'll add a key signature with F-sharp and C-sharp to tell the musician that you're in the key of D, and that all the F's and C's should be played sharp (unless otherwise noted in the music).

There's a logical progression to the sharps and flats. For instance, the G major scale has an F-sharp. D major has an F-sharp and a C-sharp. In the key of A it's an F-sharp, C-sharp, and a G-sharp.

See the pattern? Every time you add a sharp, you don't change the others. Any key that has at least one sharp will always have an F-sharp, and so on. Same for flats.

So it might help to practice adding one sharp or flat at a time-- practice C major, then add a B-flat and practice F major. But, really, you just have to pick a key and pound away at it. Do scales and chords. But also transpose simple pieces of music into different keys. For instance, "Twinkle, Twinkle", starting C-C-G-G-A-A-G, then D-D-A-A-B-B-A, then E-E-B-B-Csharp-Csharp-B... Transposing is something you should learn, anyway.

Play simple songs in other modes, like "Twinkle, Twinkle" in C-minor (same key signature as E-flat major: B-flat and A-flat). You can get some really interesting sounds that way.

Every major key has a natural minor. The white keys from C to C are C major, and from A to A are A minor. Same keys, different order. If you want the key signature for a minor key, count up three half steps. E.g. A to A-sharp, to B, to C: use the signature for C major. Or for C minor, C to C-sharp, to D, to D-sharp=E-flat: use the signature for E-flat major. And that makes the minor keys a lot easier to learn!

You can find key signatures, scales, and chords on the internet if you Google around a little. Or you can reason it out by counting white and black keys on the keyboard. Or you can sound it out, experimenting until your ears tell you that it sounds right.

Wow, terminology overload for me! Thanks for defining key signature for me. I'm surprised I played that may years of piano without knowing what the flats or sharps at the left end of the page stood for!

As for the "logical progression" to adding sharps, I always figured there was some pattern, but never really sat down to think about it. I have no recollection of my piano teachers explaining the progression to me as a kid. But then again, 20+ years can make memory pretty unreliable. Maybe I was just a stubborn student that refused to learn properly!

So when you say "G major", that means playing a scale starting with G? So G, A, B, C, D, E, F-sharp, G. What makes D major the next in line for sharp key signatures? I see that you said A major is the one in line after that. Is it every three letters? So four sharps is considered E major?

The paragraph about major / minor and 3 half steps is kind of blowing my mind right now. I'm going to have to look more into this.

Thank you so much for the response. This forum does not seem to be as well populated as another piano forum I found through google. So I was pleasantly surprised to see that the life here is intelligent and helpful!

[tzzird]

I think something that will help you is when you pick a piece, go online and look up the key signature. There are sites online where you can download the scales and chords  to any key signature. Then going into the new piece also practice the scales and chords sheets. You will find them to correlate well with your new piece because the new piece is in that key signature. Do this by simply counting the sharps or flats at the beginning of the piece. Type something like ( lets say there is one flat) into your browser, "key signature with one flat". Do the search, you will find pages for one flat in major and relative minor keys. It won't be difficult to figure out which your new piece is in, print that and work on it.

This shaping you want to come to you will come to you. Just put in the effort and time, it won't happen overnight and maybe not even real quickly but it will happen if that's what you want to happen and go to work on it.


Teaching your son. Take it really easy with him. I just started with my grandson who is 6, we just started last week. He now knows where every C note is on the piano. That's it, lesson number one ! However, he has a bit of a learning disability and is also left handed. I'll go as far as I can with him, it may go very well or it may not. That remains to be seen. What he does have though is good hand coordination and can associate something on a page to his hands well, so I'm hopeful this will be successful. I told his mom all I can do is try but we are going by Braille here, so to speak.

Thank you for the great suggestions. I guess I should tone it down with my son. He can play with two hands together CDEFG GFEDC decently so he has some sort of coordination. I first taught him Twinkle Twinkle Little Star a few months ago and was excited that he learned it in the first hour. Unfortunately, he did the entire song with just the right index finger. Going back through and teaching him with his entire right hand was a whole different animal! We watch some beginner piano lesson youtube videos together and I end up learning new things about terminology that I never knew.

As for your suggestion about looking up scales: since I'm working on Moonlight Sonata, 1st movement, would that be considered an E major scale? If I google E major scales, one of the first links is this: https://www.basicmusictheory.com/e-major-scale

There seems to be variations of the scale on this page. Is this about what you are referring to?

[tzzird]

one extra post so I can click "find post useful"!

[h_chopin148]

As for your suggestion about looking up scales: since I'm working on Moonlight Sonata, 1st movement, would that be considered an E major scale? If I google E major scales, one of the first links is this: https://www.basicmusictheory.com/e-major-scale

There seems to be variations of the scale on this page. Is this about what you are referring to?

Moonlight sonata is in the key of C# minor. Which is the relative minor of E major. SO still 4 sharps. C# is 3 half steps down from E so that's how you know it's the relative minor.

[tzzird]

So if the key signature has four sharps, it is either E-major or C#-minor?

So from what I can gather, E major will be E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, D#

While C#-minor will be C#, D#, E, F#, G#, A, B

Ugh. I feel like I should take a beginning course in piano theory.

[h_chopin148]

So if the key signature has four sharps, it is either E-major or C#-minor?

So from what I can gather, E major will be E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, D#

While C#-minor will be C#, D#, E, F#, G#, A, B

Ugh. I feel like I should take a beginning course in piano theory.

Yes and the C# minor scale you wrote out is a natural minor scale since it's exactly the same as E major only it starts on a different note. Another way you can tell that is in C# minor and not E major is that the last note is a C# minor chord.  Many times pieces will begin and/or end on the note of the key they are in.

[tzzird]

Thank you... That's really good to know!

[ajspiano]

In addition to the C# Natural minor scale, it may be practical to work on the harmonic minor variation, which has one note different to the former.

That is, that the 7th note (counting from C# as number 1) is raised by one semitone.

C# D# E F# G# A B# C# - This creates a sense of resolution to C# in the sound of these notes, rather than to E.

This alteration will never appear in the key signature, but rather will commonly show up somewhere in the score - you'll see its first appearance in bar 4 of the moonlight sonata. This is another way we can recognize that its C# minor rather than E major.

If its not too much, the next thing is melodic minors, which have different notes when ascending to the ones used descending.

[ajspiano]

So when you say "G major", that means playing a scale starting with G? So G, A, B, C, D, E, F-sharp, G. What makes D major the next in line for sharp key signatures? I see that you said A major is the one in line after that. Is it every three letters? So four sharps is considered E major?

I can't seem to find if this got answered anywhere so hopefully I'm not doubling up on information for you but here goes..

The cycle that is being presented is 5ths (the interval) - loosely meaning that if you count from C to G, with C as number 1, G is number 5 - so we can decribe the distance between these notes as a 5th.

You'll also note, that when using this pattern, each subsequent key or scale (up to a point) contains 1 more sharp than the last, to avoid some confusion about the intervals the 5ths are also counted from each subsequent scale, not just along the white keys. This is important because when you get to B major, the fifth note (and next key) is F# not F.

C major, no sharps, 5th note is G.
G major, 1 sharp, 5th note is D
D major, 2 sharps, 5th note is A
A major, 3 sharps, 5th note is E.

You'll also notice, that each new scale contains half the previous one, and the new sharp is always added as the 7th note.

Observe:
C major - [ C D E F ] [ G A B C ]
G major - 2nd half of C major first, [ G A B C ] [ D E F# G ] - sharp added to second last, or 7th note.
D major - 2nd half of G major first, [ D E F# G ] [ A B C# D ] - sharp added to second last, or 7th note

etc.

Once you exhaust the possibilty to add sharps, we can describe the sharps as flats, and the pattern continues, only now the flats decrease in number instead of increase. You can observe similar types of patterns here too..   

or you can reverse the thing entirely, begin in C, next go to F (move up in 4ths) and you will be adding flats one by one where with each new scale the flat is added to the 4th note of the scale.

.........................

In regarding the understanding of the relative minors, and infact just this content above - this diagram may be helpful to you.

[tzzird]

Thank you for the extra effort in your response ajspiano!

As to my quoted question, thank you for providing that chart. That greatly assists me in my attempt to try and learn all the specifics of music that I should already know by now. Someone alluded to the cycle of fifths in an earlier post and this definitely makes it more clear. The cycle of fourths for the flats is new to me as well. You seem super knowledgeable on these details. Do you teach a music course? None of my piano teachers ever went into this level of detail before, not by a mile.

The first movement of Moonlight Sonata is the first song I have played with at least 4 sharps in the key signature. Maybe that's why it feels so difficult for me. I've put in about 10 hours in the 3 days I've been working on this. Right now I'm at the half way point in the song that starts with D#, A, F# On the fourth measure of this section, I have a note on my sheet music that looks and sounds like it should be an F#. But to the left of the note is a sharp (redundant because of key signature?) as well as one of those cancel sharp symbols. These two items are right next to each other. Is that supposed to mean something?

My hands are not gigantic-- a complete stretch of my thumb and pinky will bring me to exactly an octave + 1. So once I've learned this piece and am trying to just simply practice and fine tune, I may still have trouble getting the 9 note stretch right.

[gregh]

Thanks to ajspiano for the nice reply, and the useful chart.

An important part of music theory is how to read music. But you don't need to take classes in composition in order to play a sheet of music. And I've found the cycle of fifths helps in understanding and organizing things. But to learn a scale, to be able to do something useful with it, there's only one thing you can do: practice.

I would recommend going to the public library and looking for a book on how to read music. There's probably one on the shelf right now with a title like "How to Read Music". At your level, I think that would be better than getting it dribbled out in introductory method books.

Now, on major and minor, this might confuse you more, but those are modes. When you go up and down a major scale, no matter which key you start on, if you use the proper flats or sharps, it will sound the same (except for an offset in pitch). The scale has its distinctive sound, and the key is where you start it (and it tends to be the last note of a song, because if it doesn't end on the scale note it just sounds incomplete).

Same with minor, it has its own distinct sound. People say the minor scale sounds sad, and it can... but listen to some swingers like the Cherry Popping Daddies-- minor can also sound naughty!

You can go up and down the white keys starting on any one you like; each set is called a mode. The major scale is one mode, the minor is another, and there are six more (plus the ones that would start on a black key). Those others aren't used as often, I wouldn't recommend spending much time on it. I only mention it to show that major and minor aren't THAT special-- this stuff has been worked out systematically, and people use what they like.

Look up the blues scale. That's a fun one. You can play pretty much any random set of notes in the scale, and it will sound like the blues. The blues is a foundational element in jazz, rock, and country, as well as a musical style in its own right-- It has been said that everyone likes the blues, but some people just don't know it.

[ajspiano]

4ths for flats, 5ths for sharps is a bit of a misnomer. It works either way, as in G is a 5th above C while F is a 5th below and vice versa with 4ths..

I teach piano privately, and I'd like to think any piano teacher knows this stuff inside out bur perhaps not. You can't always find time for everything in a lesson though.. 30-60mins a week is  severe limitation..  any typical core subject in a school (math english etc) receives everyday attention from a teacher and 4 or so hours per week lesson time.

This knowledge is also a components of examination board theory grades and would be completed for all keys by the end of grade 5 under the AMEB.