Practice more with staves--again, write in the note names, then play what’s written.

The C Major Scale

The notes you’ve learned so far are notes in the C Major scale. The scale is an arrangement of notes of different pitches that follow a certain pattern. We’ll learn more

about the pattern of the major scale later.

Practice the scale very slowly and hands separately at first. Practicing the scale every day before anything else will

warm up and eventually strengthen your fingers!

Can you figure out the fingerings for going down scale?

Suite in C Major

Now let’s use what you’ve learned from to start performing the pieces below. The Treble Clef

Allemande will help you to focus on using your right hand to play the melody—almost all classical piano

music has the melody played by the right hand.

Remember:

Practice slowly so you get used to the fingering. Try also to clap the rhythm before you start. If it helps, say the note

names out loud as you play.

The numbers in front of the treble and bass clefs, called time signatures, tells you about the rhythm for each measure. A measure is the space between each of the vertical lines, or bar lines, that go up and down the grand staff. The time signature, on the other hand, tells you how many beats will be in each measure and what note will get the beat. In 4/4 time, like the Allemande, there will be 4 beats (or notes) in each measure, and the quarter note will be the beat. An easier way to remember is to think of 4/4 time by looking at the top number as the number of notes per measure represented by the bottom number—4 quarter notes per measure.

4 beats per measure

Quarter note gets the beat

1

2

3

4

1

2

3

4

1

2

3

4

1

2

3

4

The Bass Clef Boureé presents a new challenge—the melody is now in the left hand. Try to play the bass clef notes a little louder than the treble clef notes. Note that it is still in 4/4 time. This is a common time signature, which is

Repeat Sign The repeat sign appears in the Minuet and Trio below. When you see repeat signs, you will play the measures in between them twice. On the second play, you will then continue past the repeat sign.

Notice that there are two sections in the music you will play twice. When you play the last section the

second time, the piece will be complete.

1st time: Go back to the beginning. 2nd time: Go on to the next section.

Rests Rests are silence in music. They are a lot like notes

because they get a specific number of beats depending on which rest you see. Let’s compare the

following beats for rests with the beats for notes.

Half Rest = 2 beats

Quarter Rest = 1 beat

Whole Rest = 4 beats

Practice with quarter rests and half rests in this pentatonic piece. A pentatonic piece has five notes in its scale and is used in traditional music across the world, especially in Asia and Africa.

Rest!

The Eighth Note and Eighth Rest The eighth note is usually counted in

common time because it gets half of a

beat. This is why most people count,

“1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2,”

and so on.

The eighth note looks like a quarter note

but with a flag on its stem. The eighth

rest is also shown below.

1& 2& 3& 4&

More practice with eighth notes in another

minuet—this time by the famous Johann

Sebastian Bach!