learn piano ipad
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hey you caught me practicing hey it’s Ryan from simply better piano calm and I know many of you would love to learn piano but you’re stuck at home you don’t have access to a piano or a keyboard and it got me thinking I wonder if someone could learn piano using only an iPad and you know what it works it works really well so grab your tablet of choice and let’s do this thing here we go obviously an iPad is not a perfect substitute for a real piano when it comes to a lifetime of learning and music making but if you’re stuck at home like many people are right now and you don’t have a piano or a keyboard an iPad or any tablet with a piano app is actually all you need to get started learning to play piano now you’re not gonna be able to play a Mozart piano sonata on a tablet but in this series of videos there are three things I think you will be able to do with a tablet the first is just jump in and start playing right away if you already own a tablet or an iPad then the cost of admission is very low and a free piano app is really all you need to get started learning piano and that’s a great way to just jump in and start learning the second thing is you’re going to be able to learn real piano skills and concepts the things I’m gonna teach you in this series are the things I teach my beginning students who have access to a piano in their first few lessons in a few minutes you’re going to be playing real notes reading real music and learning pieces that you will be able to play on a real piano the third thing is you’re gonna get a taste of what learning and practicing the piano is really like so that you’ll be able to decide if you want to go further and maybe invest in a keyboard or a piano and lessons you’re gonna get a sense for what the work is like you’re gonna get a sense for what this whole learning piano thing is like so let’s talk about apps the app I’m gonna use is called the piano and it’s just one of the first apps that comes up in the App Store when I search for piano I like it because the keyboard takes up most of the screen and the keys are a nice size I know that there are a few other apps that you can use some of them have real small keyboards I know that GarageBand has a keyboard but the keys they seemed a little too narrow for my taste so I like this one you can use anything you like but I they recommend finding one that has a keyboard that takes up most of the screen in this first lesson we’re gonna be talking about our hands a little bit we’re gonna be talking about notes on the keyboard black keys and white keys and we’re gonna get into note reading a little bit and by the end of this lesson you’re gonna be able to play a simple melody composed by none other than Beethoven himself on your iPad it’s gonna be great let’s talk about hands and fingers when you play piano and when you play iPad you don’t want to use straight fingers what you want to do is use curved relaxed fingers just like this curved them like you’re holding on to a bubble or onto a ball and use a nice relaxed curved finger when you play you don’t want to tuck any fingers under you don’t want to use a straight finger like you’re pressing a button what you want to do is just use a nice curved relaxed hand just like this when you’re playing the piano the second thing you want to know is that each finger has its own number your thumbs are number one your index fingers are number two middle fingers are number three ring fingers are number four and your pinky is number five so let’s practice that a little bit go ahead and tap your 1 fingers together now tap your two fingers together now tap your three fingers together now tap your four fingers and finally your five fingers now let’s mix it up a little bit tap your three fingers together now tap your 1 fingers together now tap your two fingers and now your four fingers and finally let’s tap our five fingers great as you can see a piano has black keys and white keys let’s take a look at the Black Keys first you’ll notice they are in a pattern there’s a set of three Black Keys and then a set of two black keys and then a set of three Black Keys all the way up and down the piano in fact I can slide the view up and down so you can see that indeed there are three Black Keys than two Black Keys all the way up and down for this lesson go ahead and Center the window so that you’ll have three Black Keys on the bottom two in the middle and three Black Keys up at the top that’ll give us the space we need for this lesson let’s practice playing the Black Keys just a little bit go ahead and curve your fingers and using your two three and four fingers play a set of three Black Keys and you can even say those finger numbers to help you say 2 3 4 now let’s use our two and three fingers to play a set of two black keys and say those finger numbers 2 3 and now finally let’s use 2 3 4 again on the three Black Keys and say those finger numbers 2 3 4 and now let’s do the same thing coming down let’s start 4 3 2 ready 4 3 2 move down 2 3 2 3 2 and now moving down 4 3 2 again 4 3 2 the white keys of the piano are named after the first seven letters of the alphabet abcdefg so let’s find each of those keys now if you find the three Black Keys this white key that’s just in between the top two Black Keys that is a go ahead and play a using your 3 finger and then the next white key up is B go ahead and play that and the next one up is C play that and now play d e f and G and above G you’ll notice it’s a again in between those top two black keys of the 3 black key group that is a that’s the same note as this just up higher so now let’s practice playing some of the white keys together still using that 3 finger go ahead and play a again and now let’s jump up and play C now let’s step down play B and as you play these notes you’ll want to say the note name as you as you play it so let’s say and play a again a then jump up to C say C down to B B now we’re gonna skip up to D D step back down to C we’re gonna skip up now to e that’s right above the two Black Keys e stepping down to D D skip up now to F right below the three Black Keys and now down to e again up to G and now let’s play F one more time say F and now all the way back up to a again on the top now would be a good time to pause the video if you’d like and practice playing up and down the Black Keys and also playing and saying the names of those white keys abcdefg music is written on the five lines and four spaces of what we call the staff and the staff that has this symbol the treble clef in it is the staff that has music for the right hand so let’s find where our right hand is going to be placed for the rest of this lesson put your one finger on C which is the note that’s right below the two Black Keys and then allow your other four fingers just to in a relaxed manner be above the four notes that step up from C so your one finger will be on see your two finger will play D your three finger will play e your forefinger will play F and your five finger will play G and this is what those notes look like on the staff you’ll notice that C and this in this case it’s middle C is on its own little line called a ledger line below the staff and you’ll notice as the notes step up the staff from a line to the next space to the next line etc up the staff that indicates we’re stepping up the white keys of the piano so there’s C on that line that ledger line then above it in the space is D go ahead and play that with me and above that is e on that line above that is F in a space and above that is G on a line so that’s really all music reading is is noticing which line or space a note is on and understanding which key corresponds to that note let’s practice playing up and down this position a little bit this is called C position so let’s start with one finger and we’re gonna say our finger numbers this first couple of times let’s try it we’re gonna say one two three four five let’s do that again starting with 1 ready 1 2 3 4 5 excellent now let’s step down from 5 to 1 5 4 3 2 1 and remember to say those finger numbers as we as we play ready 5 4 3 2 1 great now we’re going to go up and then down ready 1 2 3 4 5 & 5 4 3 2 1 excellent music is made up of short tones and long tones and we write these tones using notes and different notes have different lengths so that we know how long or short to play a particular tone a particular note and the first one we’re gonna look at is a quarter note and it looks like this and it gets one count so if I were to play let’s say this here on these four quarter notes it would sound like this 1 1 1 1 I’m just counting one count per note 1 1 1 1 the other note we’re going to look at is called a half note and it looks like this and it gets two counts so if I were to play these half notes on an e it would sound like this I would count one two one two I’ll try that again one two one two so quarter notes get one count each and half notes get two counts each now is the moment let’s take a look at some Beethoven the melody we’re going to be playing is a melody that is commonly referred to as ode to joy’ and it is one of the main melodies from Beethoven’s nine symphonie here is what the music looks like you’ll notice it has quarter notes and half notes and there’s another feature I want to point out to you music has what’s called bar lines and bar lines in a piece of music divided up into equally spaced measures kind of equal chunks of music so that as we play we can group those together in our minds and group those beats and those notes together in bite-sized pieces let me play it for you now so that you can hear what it’s going to sound like [Music] so go ahead and put your hand in that C position again with your thumb your one finger on C and you’ll notice that the notes are written inside the note heads the actual names of the notes and above the notes are written the finger numbers and we’re going to be utilizing both of these things as we practice it the first thing we’re going to do is play it through just saying the finger numbers let’s do that now let’s start with three finger on e and we’ll say those finger numbers as we play it goes just like this 3 3 4 5 5 4 3 2 1 1 2 3 3 2 2 hold it out for half note back 2 3 3 3 4 5 5 4 3 2 1 1 2 3 2 1 1 excellent now would be a good time to pause the video and practice playing that several times saying those finger numbers alright I hope that you’re feeling comfortable playing that saying the finger numbers because now we’re going to play it again but this time we’re going to say the note names so starting on e go ahead and put your three finger lined up with E here we go ready play e e f g g f e d c c d e e d d hold it out e e f g g f e d c c d e d c c hold it out great once again go ahead and pause the video and practice playing this saying the note names and while you’re practicing this you’ll want to take it nice and slow that is one of the key things you’ll want to do when first learning a piece of music take it nice and slow take it as slowly as you need to to play it accurately and correctly alright you’re playing Beethoven on an iPad how awesome is that the music for ode to joy’ and the music for this whole series is available to download at simply better piano dot-com slash iPad go there enter your email address and I’ll email you a PDF that you can download and print out if you need to and if you’re interested in learning how to play chords better on a piano I have a PDF called my QuickStart chord guide and you can find that at simply better piano dot-com slash guide and it has step-by-step instructions for how to play the five most common types of chords on the piano and you can play all these chords on your iPad that’s it for this lesson I will see you in the next video where we talk about left hand see you then …