New Piano Tutorial Series completely FREE

[chummy]

Hi everyone, I'm Yotam and I'm a new member here. Professional pianist / teacher here, I've been working on a series of free 'how to' piano tutorials including chords and visual aids on my YouTube channel. Here's the first one, Bruno Mars. I've got more already produced and planned so stay tuned to my YouTube for breakdowns of more songs, genres, and interesting piano techniques from around the world.


Here's the first episode: How to play Bruno Mars' Versace on the Floor iconic intro: Tutorial and Chords included !

Thanks for watching!

[pianocavs]

Hi Yotam...
Welcome...
I will follow your YouTube channel with interest.
All the best to you.

[keypeg]

I'm a bit puzzled about the mix of sharps and flats.  Is this piece in D major?

The melody notes popping up show as F# A B Db D A ..... Why Db instead of C#?

The F#m7 chord is spelled F# A Db E.  I'm sure that this is F# A C# E.

F#/Bb .... not F#/A# ?

[keypeg]

This is for the beginner students out there.  What is being shown is probably good and helpful for this style of learning.  The written note names, esp. as they pop out on the piano, are less trustworthy for the black key notes.  A same note can be called C# or Db, and it's the same piano key so the system seems to have defaulted to "Db" even though the piece seems to be in D major.  You can't have a scale that goes:
D, E, F#, G, A, B, Db, D because in a standard 7-note scale no letter name is used twice.  That scale ends in A, B, C#, D.   If you are learning, you don't want to learn a wrong thing and later unlearn.  This is only for note names.

The F# chord:
F# minor is F# A C#
the major chord is
F# A# C#
If there is an inversion, where the middle note is on the bottom, that would be F#/A# .  If written as F#/Bb as it was here .... that Bb is the same black note on the piano as A#, so you would be playing the correct notes, and have the correct chord.  But if you're trying to also learn about note names - it's not called Bb.

[keypeg]

This is the teacher forum, meant, as I understand it, for dialog among teachers regarding teaching matters.  The teacher who posted has not come back to respond to anyone.  What do teachers here think about the issue I've raised?  Namely:

The course is meant for by-ear learning and playing, and "non-classical".  Therefore written form shouldn't matter.  On the other hand, if we do see things like "F#/Bb instead of F#/A# ----- does this even matter?