11. Major and Minor

As we talked before, scales varies. But there are two main kinds of scale we have to know first. Major and minor.

One the differences between them you can easily hear from the music. Major sounds solemn and bright, while minor is usually discribed as sad and grave. Another is difference is how we arrange the chord of pitches in the two kinds of scale.

So, what is Chord? Chord is some certain notes combine together as a set to establish the music's vibe. (You can observe that next time when you play piano. We usually use the left hand to play the chord in the primary music.) For example, Do, Mi, and Sol is a major triad chord. And if we lower the second note half step, which means take Mi down to flat Mi, then the chord will be a minor triad. Another example is 

10. Scale

The scale is the listed order of pitch in music. From low to high, the general names of pitches are Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, and Si. Do to Si as a loop, their another well-known names are C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. Yes, A is not atarted from Do, instead, it is started from La, so keep going Do will be C.

Remember the keyboard order? Almost every pitch has sharp and flat type, but there is no black key between Mi to Fa and Si to Do. That is because a scale loop is like that. From Do to Re, you need to lift two scales (sharp Do then Re); from Mi to Fa, it only takes one scale (Mi). It is important, with 2212221 this order of scales, the music become harmonious.

One interesting thing is different scales has different style. For example, major C is the most general and basic scale. It feels stable and spacias, and perfect. Some music even they start with other scales, they may back to major C scale to make endding. 

To change the scale is an easy problem of counting. Just follow the order of 2212221, you can start the pattern from any pitch, and make a new scale. For example, E scale is stared from E, and the next one in this scale is sharp F because it takes 2 pitches to go sharp F from E, then sharp G, and A, B, sharp C, sharp D, then back to E.

9. Cresendo and Decrescendo/ Diminuendo

A little diffreent from dynamics, crecendo and decrescendo request the player make the music volume louder or lower gradually. They usually appear in the little space between the two clef staves.

Crecendo looks like the "greater than" mark in math but much longer, and decrescendo looks like "less than" but much longer too.

7. Rest

Rest mark is used to discribe the empty meter in the stave. Their shapes vary a lots just like notes, and the shape decides the meter as well. 

Whole rest and half rest are quite similar, both are rectangles, but whole rest is bonded to the fourth line's lower side, while half rest is bonded to the third's upper side. Quater rest is a lightning and some times people also draw it like a stick holding a fruit on its the left side. Eighth rest is a stick holding a fruit on right side. Sixteen, Thirty-second, and sixty-fourth's varies have the logic with notes, every time they get half shorter, they hold one more fruit than next one.

6. Time Signature

Time signature is combined of two sets of number. You will see them following the clef in the beginning of the staves. The upper number decides how many values a bar contain, while the lower number shows the standard of the value of meter in the stave. (A. bar is a little section on staves, it gets divided by barlines, which is the straight lines drwan from the top to the bottom of the five lines) For example, in a 3/4 stave, spoken as three-four time stave, every bar can contain three values, and a quater note is one value; in a 6/8 stave, every bar can contain six vaslues and an eighth note is a value.

5. Beat of Note- Practice

To play beautiful music requires good sense of rhythm. Some born with strong sense of rhythm, some might be not that good at that, like me. Fortunately, we can strengthen the sense by practice, and best news is beat practice is fun!

We can start the practice from four meters set, like a 4/4 stave. Take out an empty stave and range the bars by yourself. Quarter note is the basic unit so  we can make the first bar full of four quarter notes. Then we replace one of the quarter notes in the second bar by two eighth notes. Then gradually add the options like sixteenth note, rest, or even dotted note.

After the rhythm practice, we also need to practice to play two diffrence rhythm by both hands. Start from playing the basic four beats with left hand and varied rhythm with right hand. Then swich them. Eventually, youi will be able to hit the beat with your both hand individually.

5. Beat of Notes 

As you see, there are so many kinds of notes on the staves, and all the differences have reasons. Just like we mentioned before, the shape decides how long the note last.

A circle without any stick we called whole note, it is the big brother in those notes; the second one witch is also empty but with a stick called half note, is only a half beats of whole note. Then half of a half note is called quarter note, which has a solid black core, and followed eighth note, sixteenth note, and thirthy-second note. Eighth note looks very similar to quarter note, but eighth note has a little tail on its stick. The rest notes are easy to recognize, every time the note gets smaller, it will gain one more tail on the stick, so two tails for sixteenth note; three for thirty-second note. Some times, composers even creat smaller notes, you can count how many tails on it to not its beat.

Sometimes you may even see some notes with a dot behind them, they are dotted notes. Dotted notes last half of themselves longer. For instance, a dotted half note on 4/4 stave is three beats. How comes the number? It is two original beats plus one beat of the dot. A dotted quarter note on a 3/4 stave is 1.5 beats because the dot only value 0.5 beat for a quarter note when it is one beat.

4. Piano Keyboard and the Scale

We had mentioned how to recognize the Do notes. Now is time to know the whole keyboard. Although, there are eighty-eight keys at total on the keyboard that seem a lots, actually we only need to know a set of twelve keys, which repeats over and over on the whole keyboard. And the set is with only seven white keys we mainly need to recognize, and the rest are five black keys which are sharp or flat types of the main notes.

A set of keys are from Do to Si. You can locate them by the black keys' pattern. Two and three black keys a set, and the key of Do is left to the fist black key; the key of Si is right to the last black key. So, as you see, a set of Do to Si including the black keys between are white, black, white, black, white, white, black, white, black, white, black, and white. They are Do, sharp Do, Re, sharp Re, Mi, Sharp Mi, Fa, sharp Fa, Sol, sharp Sol, La, sharp La, and Si.

Actually, every black key has two identities. They are their neighbor's sharp or flat type. Sharp means half scale higher, while flat means half scale lower. For example, sharp Do is also flat Re, and flat Mi is sharp Re as well. You may noticed that there is no black key between Mi and Fa, also Si and Do. That is because Fa is just half scale higher than Mi so there is no more place for another key, the same as Si and Do.

3. How to Read the Staves- Practice

If you are teaching your children palying piano, you can lead them practice a little after explain the notes and funger numbers, just like games. 

You can draw some notes on an empty stave and mark the number to ask the children which keys the notes are and which finger they should play with. 

Start from singular notes then soon you can try rhythms. And you can even invite your children to create their own music during the game. Remember, when you are ranging the finger numbers on a series of note, you need to think about which is the best way to play the rhythm. It inculdes how to continue the next notes or rhythm.