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If you are just starting out there are a few basic ideas to get acquainted with. Most of this information is located throughout the CD-ROM but it has been provided on this page for those players who are just started out and need to get started correctly.

The first thing to know is how to hold your hands while playing. Relax your hands and hold them with a gentle curl to the fingers as if you were holding an invisible ball. Place your hands over the keys so that all of your fingers are over the keys. Experiment with holding the keys down, striking them quickly etc. It is really important not to straighten out your fingers as this will actually tense your muscles and make it harder to play.

Another thing to get used to is numbering your fingers. Pianists have numbered their fingers for years, giving them the ability to hand down fingerings and combinations of fingerings for scales, phrases, chords etc. The thumbs are called "1" and the numbering continues outward through to "5" for the little finger on each hand.

Once you’ve had a go at playing the keys it is time to memorise their names. The keyboard is made up of twelve keys repeated over and over. The twelve keys are broken into seven white keys and five black keys. The black keys forming two groups, one group of two and another of three. Knowing which white keys surround each black key is also important to remember. The keys are named by the first seven letters of the alphabet A, B, C, D, E, F, G and are repeated up and down the keyboard. These letters are placed on the white keys and the black keys represent the flats and sharps of those keys.

After looking at the key names we should then get used to where the keys are represented on a piano staff. Notes on the staff are placed on the lines and in the spaces. Try pointing to a note on the staff and find where it is on your keyboard. Learning to read music is like learning a different language and it is essential that you memorise the keys, notes and the symbols that represent them so you will be able to read music fluently.

You’ll notice that there are a few notes in this example that are circled. These could be considered goal notes, notes that we memorise their position on the keyboard and the staff so we have anchor points to use to help us find the other notes around them. Two of these goal notes represent the clef names and the rest are five positions in which the note "C" can be played.

  • "C" two octaves above Middle C

  • "C" one octave above Middle C

  • "G" above Middle C (which is also the note represented in the G Clef)

  • Middle C

  • "F" below Middle C (which is also the note represented in the F Clef)

  • "C" one octave below Middle C

  • "C" two octaves below Middle C

    The next step is to memorise the notes in between these goal notes and become more acquainted with their position on both the music and the keyboard.

    When you have memorised and understood the contents of this page move onto the Standard Notation page to learn more about reading music or browse around the Technique pages to get used to some of the more involved techniques that keyboardists use. If you're keen to get stuck into how to play certain styles of music then try out the first couple of examples in the Rock, Blues or Country sections.

    Don’t forget that the accompanying VanBasco MIDI file player that comes with this CD-ROM can be adjusted to play slower with the “control” feature.

    You can also single out the part you want hear by pressing the blue solo button for the relevant part with the “output” feature. This is very useful when an example contains more than one instrument. The blue button makes an instrument the focus by turning down the volume of all of the other parts. You can completely mute the other instruments by clicking the red button next to them.

    By isolating instruments you can determine what parts are displayed on the virtual keyboard.

    This CD-ROM covers a wide range of information so take things slow and steady. Remember to be patient as you're teaching your hands to do things they have never done before. This CD-ROM is not set up to go from beginning to end but as an “at your own pace” approach. If you don’t understand a page then move on to another page that you can grasp and then go back to the difficult material later. All of the pages have hyperlinks to related pages. Use these and the glossary to clear up possible queries. Good luck and have FUN.

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