How To Match Your Songs With Chords

Five Steps to Learning the Piano Keyboard for Beginners

Have you enjoyed watching a skilled-pianist perform on stage and wonder what it would take to be like him? Or how long it would take you to play on the keyboard with a measure of skill?

If you are reading this then you have started the process the would lead to playing the piano keyboard and I assure you I would not be so difficult, it just require a measure of consistent.

This is me in my studio.

First let me let you know about myself. My name is Kindson Munonye, with the brand name "Kindson The Piano Man" and my objective is for as many as would like to learn having this interesting hobby of playing the piano to be informed right.

I am a Software Engineer by profession and a hobbyist piano player but right now it seems I enjoy my hobby of Piano Playing more that my main profession of building apps. That is why I created this blog, to help you know that you can actually enjoy a really facinating hobby like me!

So let me tell you the five steps you need to take to progress and improve your skills as a beginner of enthusiast piano player.

Step 1: Buy a Piano Keyboard

This is the "On Your Marks" step in your learning process. Buying a keyboard for your home helps you to utilized any spare time you may have for practice.

You don't need to buy a very expensive piano keyboard, that you can do after a couple of years. For me I started with a Yamaha keyboard of about N12,000.00 ( about $22) together with the stand. I have forgotten the Model, but I think its XY series.

It may also help to set up the keyboard in conspicuous part of the house so always seeing it would serve as an incentive to go and practice. I do think, your living room would be a nice place to keep is so that you can practice for a few minutes every evening after work.

Step 2: Buy a Textbook

This is the second most important step as this would be a guide and streamline you leaning process. You may have access to ebooks and videos online but it would be necessary to buy a handy hard copy textbook. For me, my starting textbook was the SmallWood Piano Tutor and it was very helpful as it contains daily practical lessons. There are other textbooks out there you can buy. Do not buy a very big textbook!. The reason is that you will be overwhelmed and maybe abandon the lessons altogether. Start small.

Step 3: Understand the Piano Keyboard Layout

The arrangement of the keys on the piano keyboard follows a definite repeating pattern that you need to clearly understand. 

One thing you can quickly see is that there are sets of black and white keys. The black keys are arranged in sets of two and three.

Note This: A section of the keyboard is made up of 12 keys. That is 7 white keys and 5 black keys totaling 12. This twelve key section is referred to as an Octave. So in the keyboard below we have 3 octaves.

When you want to buy a keyboard, one question you would be asked is "How Many Octaves" and normally the more the octaves, the better, but then the higher the cost.

Figure 1: Basic Piano Keyboard Layout

Step 4: Learn Finger Numbering and Positioning

We have 5 fingers on the left hand and 5 on the right hand. This makes it a total of 10 fingers. From the previous step, we could see that the total number of distinct keys on the keyboard is 12. This is true no matter how long the keyboard is. Same 12 key simply keeps repeating.

Left Hand Numbering

• Pinky: 1
• Ring Finger: 2
• Middle Finger: 3
• Fore Finger: 4
• Thumb: 5

Right Hand Numbering

• Thumb: 1
• Forefinger: 2
• Middle Finger: 3
• Ring Finger: 4
• Pinky: 5

Now that you know how to number your fingers on both hands, the next steps is to know how to position your fingers on the keyboard. To do that, you need to look at the picture below and then position your finger in the corresponding key.
Your right hand need to be in a different section than your left hand.

Don't worry about the black keys for now, I would cover that in a different lesson.

Figure 2: Keyboard Key Names

Step 5: Learn to Match Numbers and Letters with the Keyboard Keys

This is a step that would take you some time to get used to. This would have included matching the Solfa notations with the keys as well. That is the popular Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do.... but we don't normally use it in a formal learning course. You need to know it though to improve you personal skills but here, we would use the number: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.... and the letters C, D, E, F....

So If you have a keyboard without Solfa notation or Letters, you can write out the Solfa notations for each key and paste on top of the each of the keys. This would make it easy for your finger to master the position of the keys. Once you are comfortable locating the keys in a short time, you can remove the papers.

This matching is shown in the figure below.

Figure 3: Matching Solfa Notations with Numbers/Notes
So ensure you follow the 5 steps outlined.

Final Notes
We have outlined this five steps. But let me clearly say that, it requires a bit of commitment. If you consistently practice for 20 minutes every day, then in a few months you would be amazed at your progress. Feel free to subscribe to my channel or even leave a comment below to let me know if you have any challenges.

For more lessons you can subscribe to my channel: Kindson The Piano Man
Also: http://www.kttpro.com

Piano Lesson 1 Five Steps to Playing the Piano for Beginners

Lionel Richie Endless Love Piano Cover By Me

Endless Love Piano Cover Performed by The Piano Man  

About This Performance

Thanks for being here. Without you, I would not be doing this.

I understand this is not the best and I would explain why and how I choose to play Lionel Richie Endless Love as my first performance on stage(in my studio at home😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀)

Almost every day, I play one cover song and record on video, so in the actual sense, this is not the first cover song I have ever played. For instance, I have played John Pachelbel's Canon in D and recorded the audio, I have also played Everyday I Love You by Boyzone and others. At a later time I would upload better quality recording on this songs.

About The Keyboard I Use

Currently, I use a keyboard that is not professional, that is Yamaha PSR E433 keyboard. The number of keys is 61. There a number of issues with this keyboard that would impact the quality of performance. For example, the keys are not weighted. This means that the sound produced by the keys does not depend on how hard you press. So you can't produce soft background sounds along with the main melody of the song. For weighted keys, when you can produce soft sounds by not pressing the key too hard and this helps improve the ambience of the sound you play.

Another problem with this keyboard is the number of keys and number of octaves.  Professional keyboards have 88-keys. That gives you over 7 octaves and the is an advantage over 61 keys that produce that gives only 5 octaves.

Finally we have the sound quality. The sound quality of this keyboard is not superb. It is somehow on the average and therefore suitable for learners and a amarteurs.

The Genre of Songs I Play

If you want to progress in your piano career, you need to give attention to the genre of songs you play. Note that as a pianist, some song genre and musical styles are completely out of the way. An example would be reggae. It would be difficult and uninteresting to perform reggae on the piano keyboard. Some songs like country songs are better on guitar and rock is better with a collection of musical instruments. 

So to play improve in the piano keyboard, one should be a lover of blues, R&B, Soul, Soft Pop and the likes. Then we also have classicals. What this means is that you need to develop interest in this genre of songs, you need to play them, listen to them everyday. In this way your ear would register them and you would be able to find the right keys on the keyboard. Secondly, they have a steady pace that allows a beginner to intermediate to understand and follow without too much effort. They also have a distinct chord pattern almost throughout the play.

Example of blues artist includes Daniel Beninfield, Westlife, Boyzone, Micheal Learns to Rock etc. For female we have likes of Shania Twain and Madonna.

How You Can Help Me Improve

I would like you to know that I do this for you. So if you don't listen and follow my explanations, then I would not be doing this. 

One way you can help me improve is by  promoting my articles like this one and my videos. If you make a positive comment, like and share my articles/blogs then they would have a wider reach and I could get a found someone who may provide  more support. You can also subscribe to my YouTube Channel: The Piano Man on Youtube.

Finally I would like to have your personal suggestions on what you would like me to improve on.

Listen Obey and be Blessed - Playing and Singing Along With Kids

This is me playing and singing along with kids. This is something not very easy. But one way you can quickly become a pro is by learning how to play and sing along. Unfortunately, developing this skill is not very easy as it took me years before I could play and sing along. This means the most part of the time, you are looking at your music score while your fingers do the work.

This is me Playing with Jeffrey Yuba, Jadon Munonye, Yasmine Yuba, Trust Okeke and McMills Munonye at Akokwa sometime in 2016

We would now examine five points, these are things you need to do to enable you improve your proficiency in reading, playing and singing along at the same time.

1 Learn the Song by Heart Beforehand

In my previous post, I mentioned that knowing the song would help you play better. This time, the same rule applies, you need to somehow know the lyrics songs by heart.  So, even if you have the have the lyrics of the song along with the musical score, you may focus on reading the musical notes instead instead of the lyrics. This would improve your accuracy. This is because trying to read the song lyrics and at the same time reading the musical notes, is quite tasking when it comes to singing along.

2. Focus on the on Hand( Right or Left Hand)

As you know before, the right hand supplies the melody while the left hand supplies the accompaniments: chords, intervals, appergios, glissandos and so on. But when you sing along, your voice plays a role and so you don't really need the full coordination of both hands. This means that if you will focus on the left hand, then you get to play the chords while singing, or play appergios or any other accompaniment pattern you want to use.

On the other hand, if you will use the right hand, you can also play chords, but it is better to use the right hand to play the corresponding melody for each sound. 

Whatever the case, tries to do your best with one hand and then the other hand can follow up than to try both hands and the play the wrong keys.

3. Get a Friend to Sing Along

This is the interesting part of it. And this is a step towards becoming a professional where you can actually entertain an audience on the stage. Your friend would only sing  while for you, its play and sing along. The benefit of this is that if you mix up the lyrics, you can lower your voice at that point, but the voice of the person singing would take care of the error.

4. Get an Audience (possibly of kids) to Access Your Performance

To access your progress, you need an audience. This you can do by gathering  your neighbors kids. Make sure you talk to their mum first! So after playing for a few minutes you can stop to see what their reaction would be. At some point as you play, you can even look at their face to check the level of satisfaction.

5. Record Your Performance

This could have been the first point, just that I forgot, maybe because i was a little hungry when I was writing this post! Whatever the case, anytime you want to sing along while playing, you need to start a recorder. This can be the one on your phone, or iPod or walkman. For me I use my iPad sometimes and sometimes i use my Sony Walkman. At the end, replay and listen to yourself to know which areas you should give more attention.

Final Notes

At every opportunity, try to sing along with your voice while playing

I would like to say big thanks to you for reading and be sure to check back for more piano tips.