Exercise for Both of the Hands

Unit 1: How to play the keyboard.
Lesson 1-5: Exercise with the notes of the scale for both hands.

The exercise we learn in this tutorial is a variation of the one we saw in the previous video. We are going to use more notes on the keyboard to familiarize ourselves and learn the names of the notes. Specifically, we are going to go through the entire scale starting each time on a different note, and we will do this with both hands, but for now independently. Playing the keyboard with two hands is much more complicated and would require some training.

Trying to play both hands at the same time from the start can be a bit frustrating, because you have to do two very different things with each hand. It is a good system to train your hands independently at first.

To facilitate the work and easily learn how to play the keyboard, we continue to use the sticky paper trick, that is, some post-it notes that we have cut out and pasted on each key, putting the corresponding name on each of them. If you don’t have post-it you can use something similar, but never something that sticks too hard, nor ever write on the keys. We will do this at the beginning, when we still do not know well the name of the notes corresponding to each key, but later this help will have to be eliminated.

We can put a piece of paper for each of the 8 notes of the scale, in this case I have not put all of them because the exercise consists of determining that we are not going to start each part.
This exercise is fundamental to learning how to play the keyboard, and it consists of doing the same thing we did in the previous tutorial but this time we will start on a different note each time. That is to say that if before we played do re mi fa sol, starting on the note Do, now we will start on the note Re and playing the 5 keys consecutively, with which we will be playing re mi fa sol la.

Next, what we are going to do is start on the note Mi, with which the notes that are going to sound will be mi fa sol la si. We will always start playing with the little finger, that is, finger number 5, if it is the left hand. If we do the exercise with the right hand, we will start with finger 1, that is, the thumb.

From here we will begin the exercise in the note fa, with which the notes that are going to sound will be fa, sol, si and do.

To know how to play the keyboard it is important to recognize the names of all the keys that we have on the instrument. To do this, while we are doing the exercise, what we can do is say out loud the name of the note we are playing.
This does not seem very important but really if we do it this way we are also working on memory, since words and sounds are a good reference so that we can remember things well.

It is also convenient to use a metronome, in the case of this keyboard or we have a built-in one that we can start with a button. Many electronic pianos and keyboards also have a metronome, but if you don’t have one you can use an application for your mobile like the one I explain in the musical language course, there are also similar applications for iPhone and they are free. Using a metronome is something that will make it easier for us to learn how to play the keyboard.

We can do this same exercise in several octaves of the piano, both in the highest and lowest, and in this way we experience how they all sound.