HOW TO PLAY A SONG IN KEYBOARD

Tania and Vanilla decided to learn to play songs in keyboard together on a weekend at Vanilla’s house where they were sitting in the study room drinking hot steamy milk and biting in to warm ginger buns coated with creamy chocolate sauce.

“What is a song”? Asked Tania to Vanilla.

‘Wait let me guess” said Vanilla with eyes wide open. “I think it’s a set of sound with beats”, she replied.

“What is a beat”? Tania questioned.

Vanilla went on to explain the question by sing a small song and clapping along with the song in an even speed.

She sang, twinkle (clapping her hand twice) twinkle (clapping her hand twice) little (clapping her hand twice) star (clapping her hand once). How I (clapping her hand twice) Wonder (clapping her hand twice) what you (clapping her hand twice) are (clapping her hands once).

Tania went on to select an octave (as show in the image)  of the keyboard as drawn above and started pressing the buttons of the keyboard to play the song.

Twinkle (pressing 1^st key twice) (11) (2 CLAPS/BEATS)

Twinkle (pressing 5^th key twice) (55) (2 CLAPS/BEATS)

Little (pressing 6^th key twice;) (66) (2 CLAPS/BEATS)

Star (pressing 5^th key once but wait for two claps)

And finally she wrote down the song in a numerical line as shown below in table form:

If there is an empty blank cell next to any keyboard key means you continue to hold the keyboard button for another clap/beat.

They soon began to place numbers for keys as follows:

C/SA, The first white keyboard button of any octave as 1

The black keyboard button next to it as 1#

D/RE, The second white keyboard button as 2

The black keyboard button next to it as 2#

E/GA, The third white keyboard button as 3

Since there is no black key next to third key, there is not sharp key symbol.

F/MA, The fourth white keyboard as 4

The black keyboard button next to it as 4#

G/PA, The fifth white keyboard button as 5

The black keyboard button next to it as 5#

A/DA, The sixth white keyboard button as 6

The black keyboard button next to it as 6#

B/NI, The seventh white keyboard button as 7

Since there is no black keyboard button next to seventh key, there is no sharp key symbol.

HOW TO SWITCH OCTAVES

In the beginning it may sound like a difficult task to move your hands from one octave to another.  This is where the numerical script comes handy. When you have to move your hand from say key 5 to key 7, you can mentally calculate the number of keys you need to move.  In this case you need constant practice and mental discipline to learn through blind touch and numerical logic.

A song may require movement through various octaves, but we need to position our hands in such a way, to minimize unwanted movements. Each song line has to be analyzed. If a particular line of a song uses a particular octave, then fix your hands in that particular octave and practice movements back and forth from there. Do not be swayed by complex technical terms like chord movement etc. You need to position your hands, the way you feel comfortable. Use all your five fingers to press the keys. Use both of your hands.

The safe fixed position for a starter is placing the five fingers of left hand in one octave (white keys numbered 12345 in the left side of the image above) and five fingers of your right hand in another octave (gray keys numbered 12345 in the right side of the image above). If you place your fingers in say keys 12345, you can keep your fingers fixed and practice to reach out for key 6 and key 7 without much hand movement.  This is only a beginning stage where you can easily calculate the numerical movement of your fingers for playing songs that requires you to switch octaves.  You will soon learn to expertly apply numerical logic to navigate through the maze of keys.

It’s important to analyze the placement of hands for every song line, so that minimal movement of hands is required to play the song.

Initially its wise to position your hands in such a way to gain confidence with minimum mistakes and movement, and once through practice you learn to slowly remove your hands from one position to another and increase speed of movement, you can go on your own, applying the technique given in this book to your benefit.

Workout For the Session

Try playing the first line of the rhyme twinkle star in various colored octaves and in various speeds.

If the student wants to draw the music script by painting the script box in the color of each octave allow them to do so to familiarize themselves with the script.