 Hi everyone, this is Jason here. I teach piano at the Nathaniel School of Music and welcome to my beginner level piano course. So before we get started, I'd like to share a few things about the course. I'd like to also talk about the piano in general about its versatility and what you can do and also how you're going to practice what you should listen to and a few tech things to also help you along the way. So our course is going to pretty much cover a lot of aspects of music to begin with because piano ultimately plays music, isn't it? So we are going to learn theory, we are going to definitely have a lot of things taught to you about chords, about scales, about rhythm and the importance of timing and then we are going to execute it on the piano by playing various melodies, most of which will, I'm hoping, be your favorites. We are also going to compose melodies of your own, which you're going to do along with me in this course. Then we are going to learn how to accompany ourselves on the piano. There are two ways to accompany ourselves. One is you can accompany yourself by singing and playing a backing piano along with that to serve your vocals. The other thing you can do is pretty much be like a one-man show or a one-man orchestra where you play the entire melody on the keyboard, you play the rhythm, the groove, the chords, the bassline, everything. So the piano is an incredible instrument. What makes it very unique is the fact that it can play melody, harmony as well as rhythm all at the same time by one human being, just one guy sitting and you can play pretty much the entire deal. For example, if you have this sort of a melody, this is just the melody which you're going to probably do with your right hand or one of your available hands, but then that doesn't sound full enough and a piano offers a lot more. So you can perhaps add a little bit of rhythm, some movement and then some bass and you can dress the melody up with chords. The melody is still there, right? Let's bring back some rhythm. Still twinkle twinkle little star, I hope, but you see where we can go on the piano. So it's a very versatile instrument in that sense and the piano also works really well with other people. If you have a guitarist friend or if you have a band or if you want to work with a choir or if you want to work with a singer or if you are a singer and you'd like to support your voice with the piano, this is the instrument. So it plays everything and you can pretty much cover every genre of music on the piano. I think every style, every genre, every culture of music ever invented has a piano going with it, right? So the piano is an incredible instrument and I'm sure that you'll have a great journey learning this course with me. Coming to a little bit of technicalities before you start learning, now a piano can come in various shapes and sizes. You have the actual full blown grand piano or the upright piano. The challenge with those instruments is it's very expensive, fills up a lot of space in your house and is difficult to tune. You'll need an actual tuner, the temperature conditions, the humidity will change the tuning of the instrument. So it's a little tricky to own a piano. So then we come into the world of digital pianos. Digital pianos are things which are running on power or battery and you can purchase these things from a local vendor or Amazon or some e-store and what you get there is you'll get all the keys, you'll get 88 keys which a piano has. You will have sounds which are on board, okay, which are already awesome. I would recommend maybe Yamaha. Yamaha is a great brand for digital pianos and digital pianos are a lot more affordable somewhere between the 35 to 50,000 INR range, right? However, if that budget is also too much for you, you don't have to worry, you can get what we call as a portable keyboard, okay? A portable keyboard feels awesome. The only downside is it has lesser keys. It may not have 88 keys as what you see me play, it'll have a slightly lesser option and I would say don't go below 61 keys. 61 is a great size to start playing anything lesser and then you're going to start getting bored with the stuff I'm going to teach you, right? Your hands itself will not, they'll start colliding with each other. So get a 61 key. Again, Yamaha is a great brand. It's rugged and along with the keyboard, you may want to buy a nice stand which can be adjustable. You may want to work on a nice chair which can help your back because you'll be playing for long hours and you may want to get a power adapter. I'm sure most of them will come with a power adapter. Also, get yourselves a sustain pedal which is a great accessory to have for the piano, maybe a music stand or like a book stand or something and that's pretty much it. You got yourselves a very, very working instrument right there. So around the piano course, what I definitely encourage you to do is to have a great music listening environment. You cannot play a piano if you're not inspired to play it. So you need to have a nice listening system like get yourselves an Apple Music account or a Spotify Music account which are very, very affordable, just the price of maybe one coffee month is pretty much what it costs. So get yourselves an account and as you listen to music, there are going to be thousands of musicians, bands, pianists and all sorts of artists which will inspire you and you need to be inspired in order to play your instrument. So make sure you listen and have a system where you're always listening to new things. So that will challenge you more on your instrument. And a very important suggestion while going about this course or any musical activity in general is you need to always enjoy the journey and enjoy the process and the result will always come as an outcome. So don't only think of the result, what you need to achieve. Think about every little step and that's what this course is all about. It's going to be a lot of hard work but what we learn especially in things like sports, unless we sweat it out, we don't enjoy playing the game. So you have to enjoy the journey and you will enjoy the journey. You just have to think of it that way and don't think about the final outcome which there are so many final outcomes and music is more a culture and I would urge that it becomes part of your life, part of your day to day routine and that's what makes it a very, very pleasurable experience. So let's get started with the lessons.