Piano / Keyboard

The Beginner Piano/ Keyboard course is aimed at complete beginners, music industry pros, producers, songwriters, DJ’s, electronic musicians and Classical piano students. The main aim here is to generate a fair level of comfort on your instrument after 16 weeks at Nathaniel. If you have been playing for a while, this course will still help you to build up core concepts, start composing and play with a band. 

By the end of this course, you’ll be able to:

• Understand and recognize notes on the keyboard
• Play different rhythm patterns, melodies, and chords
• Gain independence between two hands while playing
• Compose songs
• Train your ears and understand the foundational concepts of music.
• Gain knowledge about various techniques of playing the piano like arpeggios, broken chords,  chord inversions and dynamics.

Curriculum:

Introduction:

• We prepare ourselves to learn one of the most diverse instruments in history by figuring out what it can and cannot do, along with all the tools essential to being a solid piano/ keyboard player. We’ll start by understanding and recognising the notes in music and on the Piano.

Role of the Keyboard:

• Demonstrating Melody, Harmony and Rhythm
• Exploring the range
• Evolution with Technology
• Use of the keyboard in Multiple Genres
• Song composition

Understanding the skills required to play:

• Independence (Finger and Hand)
• Finger Strength
• Mind to finger transfer
• The approach to making music on the piano
• Physics and Mathematics basics related to sound and music
• Ear Training
• Music Theory and Notation

Exercises:

• Note Recognition Exercises
• Playing the piano and singing
• Posture and 5 Finger Exercises for Left and Right Hand  to build up agility, flexibility, strength, speed and control
• 5th Chord Exercises
• Adding Grooves to the 5th Chord
• Adding Chords in the Left Hand
• Spider Exercises
• Czerny and Hanon classical exercises
• Crossing over exercises

Technique:

• Posture rules
• Composing and Transcribing melodies on different signatures
• Staccato and Laccato
• Playing scales
• Chord playing techniques using full, broken chords and arpeggios
• Practicing chord inversions
• Basic styles and progressions on the piano: Rock n Roll, Blues, Country, Reggae, Waltz and Ballads
• Developing independence of hands
• Working with accents and syncopated phrases
• Playing melodic and rhythmic patterns via notation and grid-based approach
• Playing with Dynamics