12 Week Major Key Challenge - #3: D Major

[@maryg9963]

I love the way you teach. I enjoy the way you put a clear route forward in clear steps. Thanks 🙏

[@PianoRoadmap]

Thank you for your kind words 😊

[@anniecasey9731]

Thank you

[@michaelamatthe]

This course is GREAT! Thank you for sharing all of this!!!

[@comepletely]

Best song so far tysm for teaching us

[@manu-singh]

Excited to practice this scale, Susan!

[@PianoRoadmap]

Yay! Let me know if there are technical things you'd like me to address in a future major key video. :)

[@jimmax3278]

Thank you. Awesome tutorial

[@PianoRoadmap]

Thank you!

[@bupechikumbi3082]

Thank you teacher for this. I'm in week 3 now🎉

[@PianoRoadmap]

Awesome!

[@niinkos]

Another nice video and challenge! 🎹

[@PianoRoadmap]

Thank you!

[@caigor]

You're a criminally under subscribed channel. Thank you very much for releasing these free lessons. I have a question, is there a list of skills/knowledge you need to have before you're intermidiate? I find it hard to know what I should learn next and sometimes what is considered intermediate depends on the person you're talking to or genre you're studying. I leanrning F. Beyer's method(my tutor's choice) and doing practice exercises in the major scales but I'm not sure what else I need to do to suplement because playing actuals pieces can still be quite tricky.

[@PianoRoadmap]

That's a good question. These labels that we use (intermediate, advanced) are extremely broad and there is not a standardized list of skills to reach intermediate level. I've decided I'm going to do a video on this very question. I'll try to remember to reply here again once it's up because it's hard to fit in a comment. :)

[@caigor]

@@PianoRoadmap Thank you very much for your response. I'm really looking forward to your take on the subject

[@chlorine8477]

Hello Susan, I've been practicing Gymnopédie no. 1 on the piano and I'm having trouble with chord voicing. As an instance, in bar 25 I can't seem to get the left hand chord right. It's supposed to be C, E, A, and D, but I can't emphasize the upper D like I'm supposed to. The E and A keep coming out louder! I'm already stretching my hand as far as I can, so I can't really adjust my hand position by much. For this chord, I've been using the fingerings 5-4-2-1. Do you think there's a better way to finger this chord that would allow me to bring out the upper D more prominently? I've tried playing the upper D with my right hand, but that's not how it's written in the score sheet. So, I was wondering if you have any tips or techniques that could help me out? I hope you're doing okay, thanks for being such an awesome piano teacher! 😊

[@chlorine8477]

I'm really questioning my fingering strategy on this piece. In the first bar, there's a B-D-F# chord that I usually play with my right hand fingers 1-3-5. However, the emphasis seems to be on the D instead of the F#, which I think should stand out more. As far as I understand, the higher the finger is on a key in a chord, the more emphasized it will be when played. To achieve the desired voicing with B-D-F#, I can try using a less natural fingering (to me) like 1-2-4 or rotating my wrist inward while keeping 1-3-5, which feels awkward. I'm wondering to what extent it's justifiable to change fingering for the sake of voicing rather than altering the hand position. Up until now, I've only chosen fingerings based on ease of execution, like minimizing skips. To add to the confusion, I noticed that in your performance, you use two different fingerings: 1-2-4 at 00:01 and 1-3-5 at 08:30. This piece is proving to be much more challenging than it appears. 🤯

[@PianoRoadmap]

Hello! These are all great questions, and I will try to answer most of them as best as I can via a quick comment 😃 Your idea of the top note of a chord always needing to be the loudest is not always correct. In this case, it's not part of the melody, which is in the top voice in the RH. Instead of voicing these accompaniment chords, aim for a nice blend of all the notes so we can really hear the "color" of the chord. Think of if this were written for an orchestra. We could imagine maybe a solo clarinet playing the upper melody while very soft strings play the chords. They're all blending together to support the melody. And you may ABSOLUTELY take some of the chord notes with the RH. Check out this score of the Gymopédie, where it divides the chord in m. 25: www.mfiles.co.uk/scores/Gymnopedie1.pdf As far as the fingering of chords goes, I change them depending on what comes before and what comes after. It's very contextual and never a "right" answer for everybody and every situation. In the beginning stages of piano, we learn the most common fingerings for chords and scales, so we have a solid technique to draw from. But once those are natural, we can "improv" as needed. And TRUTH! "Simple" looking pieces are rarely actually simple! Good luck with this piece, and I hope I've been able to provide some clarity!

[@mikaelhellstrom2411]

🙏 thanx

[@PianoRoadmap]

You're welcome! 😊

[@goorackerelite]

can you hear a song and know what key it's in?

[@PianoRoadmap]

Nope, but I wish! Those with perfect pitch or very good relative pitch can. Are you one of those people?