Chords for Get Piano Lesson 1 (Part One) Introduction to the Piano

[C] _ [G] _ _ _ _ [C] _ _ _
_ _ [F] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _
[C] _ _ _ _ _ [F] _ _ _
_ _ [C] _ [F] _ _ _ _ [G] _
_ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [F] _ [G] _ [C] _ _ _
[Dm] _ _ [G] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [C] _ _ [F] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [C] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [G] _ _ [F] _
_ _ _ _ _ [C] _ _ _
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_ _ [F] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
Hey [B] there!
Welcome to Get Piano Lesson 1.
My name is Brandon and I'm the creator of _
GetPianoLessons.com. If you've ever wanted an easier and more comprehensive way of learning
the piano, you're in the right place.
I've come up with my own series of free piano lessons
that I'm pretty confident will show you how to quickly start playing the piano from the
comfort of your own home and with little emphasis on all the music terminology. _
Now music theory
is an important part of learning the piano or any musical instrument for that matter,
but it's not completely necessary to focus so heavily on it in the very beginning. _
Let
me [F] show you a brief example of what I mean.
[C] _ _ _
_ _ _ [Dm] _ _ [C] _ _ _
_ _ _ [Dm] _ _ [C] _ _ _
_ [Dm] _ _ [G] _ _ [Dm] _ _ _
_ [Em] _ _ [C] _ _ _ _
Now that's a simple tune we'll be [B] playing
at around the 10th lesson in my series and as I said, you won't need to learn a single
ounce of music theory in order to play that piece.
_ _ [Ab] So let's get started with Get Piano
Lesson 1.
But first, I've got some good news.
As far as our requirement for reading notes
during my course, for this lesson [C] and for our first 40 to 50 lessons, we're only going
to need to know one note and that's going to be our C note. _ _ _
_ Now just like all the other
notes of the piano, the C note repeats itself across the piano several times, but they're
very easy to find.
Wherever you see a group of two black keys on the [Abm] piano, _ _ _ the white
note to the immediate [N] left is always C.
[C] _
_ _ _ _ Now if you're sitting [Abm] in front of your piano keyboard
at home, I want you to go ahead and play all the C notes on your instrument.
_ [C] If you have
a [G] keyboard with a complete set of 88 keys for [N] instance, then you'll have a total of
8 C's to play starting from left to [C] right.
For instance like this.
_ 1, _ 2, 3, _ 4, _ 5, 6,
7, _ [Gb] and 8. _
If you have a smaller range keyboard at home, say a 61 note keyboard, then you
only have 6 C's to play.
_ _ Now the C note that lines up closest to the exact center of any
piano keyboard, large or small, is what we call [C] middle C. _
[Ab] And middle C is essentially
what splits the piano into what's commonly known as the treble and the bass sections,
which are also commonly played with the right and the left hand. _
Although that's not completely
_ mandatory.
But middle C is where we're going to start and it's going to be the foundation
of most of our first 40 to 50 lessons together.
[N] _ _ _ So before we start with our first exercise,
let's assign each of our fingers a number. _
It's important to do this because we want
to ensure proper fingering as we proceed with our lessons.
_ _ So in piano, our thumb is always
given the number 1.
Number 2 will be our index finger.
Number 3, our middle finger.
Number
4 is our ring finger.
_ And number 5 we'll assign to our little finger or pinky. _ _
So once again,
that's number 1, [C] 2, _ 3, 4, and 5. _
[N] Now we're going to place our right hand on the piano
with our thumb resting on middle C.
_ _ Next place your number 2, index finger, on the white
key to the right of middle C.
_ And then your number 3, 4, and 5 fingers on the next three
white keys respectively. _
With our right hand resting in this position on piano with our
thumb on middle C, this is commonly known as the middle C hand position.
But more importantly
for the purpose of our lessons here, we're going to call this our first position or position
number 1.
_ _ Now in addition to numbering our fingers and placing our hands in the correct
position on the keyboard, we also need to maintain proper form in our fingers, hands,
wrists, and forearms whenever we're at the piano.
_ _ When our hands are resting on the piano,
it's actually the tips of our fingers _ that are touching the piano keys with the exception
of the thumb which actually lies on its side. _
_ The fingers should be curved and our palms
should ideally be in a sort of cup position _ as if we were holding a small ball in our
hand. _ _ _
_ Now if you were to take that ball out of your hand, that basic shape that's left
over is what's going to allow certain fingers to duck under and reach over other fingers
as you need to get to other parts of the keyboard. _ _
In addition, our wrists should be up but not
too high.
Our forearms should be in a horizontal position to the ground and make sure you keep
your shoulders relaxed.
_ Now as far as the height of your keyboard, remember whether
you're sitting or standing, if you make sure that your [Em] keyboard level is no higher than
your elbows, _ your [Ab] arms [F] and wrists should automatically line up so that you're in a
comfortable [Dm] position to play at [Em] the piano.
_ [G] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Dm] _ _ _ [F] _ _ _
_ _ [G] _ [C] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [G] _ _ _ [C] _ [F] _ _
_ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _ [G] _
_ _ [C] _ _ [G] _ _ _ [C] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[F] _ _ [G] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [F] _ _ [C] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _