 Hi guys, this is Jason Zach from Nathaniel School of Music. In this lesson, I'm going to give you an all-round piano exercise to improve your hand coordination, to improve your scale knowledge, music theory knowledge, interval knowledge, technique, timing, pretty much everything which a pianist needs to do, and this is going to be on some very modern pop-sounding music, something you'll find in maybe Coldplay songs or Chainsmokers songs, something you saw at the introduction performance which you heard. And that's what you're going to play at the end of the video. So make sure you get your pianos out or your keyboards out and play along with me throughout this lesson. Watch till the very end and get a book out as well. And to supplement this lesson, there are handwritten notes waiting for you on our Patreon page. Do consider heading over and supporting our channel there. You'll also get tutorials, you'll also get supplementary notes, staff notation, MIDI tracks, backing tracks from even the past lessons which we've done over the past four, five years or so. So head over to Patreon if possible. And if you haven't already, there is a subscribe button somewhere. Do consider hitting it and turn on the bell icon for regular notifications. Or maybe you'd like to turn it on after the video, which is also cool. So for this lesson, we are going to take a scale. I'm going to pick B flat major, a nice scale. It has two flats, namely B flat and E flat. So this is your B flat major scale. B flat, C D, E flat, F G, A B flat, B flat, A G F, E flat, D C, B flat. So the exercise is built around scale degrees. So I'm going to first explain the scale degrees of the right hand and then the scale degrees of the left hand. So right hand will play G A B flat F. In bar number one, for a start, you could use these fingers, index, middle, ring, thumb. Okay, second bar you would do G A B flat D. So G A B flat F G A B flat D, repeat. G A play along with me F G A B flat D again G very slowly A B flat F G A B flat D. Now while you do this, the left hand has to follow the right hand or support the right hand. And what better than to work on intervals, intervals which sound great together. And in this entire lesson, I'm going to focus our study to two intervals which will stand the test of time. These are the go-to intervals as you're starting playing the piano for sure. These are your thirds and your fifths. They are melody building intervals. They are chord building intervals. They are your go-to's. So to build the thirds and the fifths, you can just see the chart I have for you. In the first row, I've written the B flat major scale in a line. In the second row, I've written the thirds. In the third row, I've written the fifths. But in order to form these thirds and the fifths, I would encourage you to first draw the scale in a neat round circle. So B flat major in a neat round circle, B flat C D E flat F G A B flat. You could also draw it in a worm-like structure which is the visual you get when you play it on the piano. Black note, white note, white note, black note, white note, white note, white note, black note. B flat C D E flat F G A B flat. So the worm and the circle will help. And after you've done that, it's very easy to find a third, especially in a circular manner. So what is a third from B flat? You look at B flat, skip one and the next one is the third. See, very important to draw it in a circle and then do it. I wouldn't mind if you pause the video and then do it with me. So B flat, skip one, skip the C and then whack or play the D or write the D. So that's your third. Also what we call as a diatonic third. Diatonic means derived from the scale or from the scale. So this is a major third, but that's not what we are curious about right now. So these are diatonic thirds, meaning which they come from the scale of B flat major. So B flat's third is D, B flat to the D. Skip one, play the next. Then C's third, diatonically will be E flat. Look at the circle. It can be of great help. Then D's third is F. E flat's third is G. F's third is A. G's third is B flat. A's third is C. And then of course you can repeat the B flat with its D. One more time let's do that. B flat to D. C to E flat. D to F. E flat to G. F to A. G to B flat. A to C. B flat to D. Now this is the first type of interval I wanted to figure out. And the next interval would be the fifth interval. So fifths. The circle of fifths can be of great help. You can watch some of my circle of fifths videos. We'll put a few in the description. That'll be helpful. Otherwise you can just use the scale circle. B flat C, D, E flat F. Just count your way up the scale circle. And prepare your list of fifths. B flat to F. C to G. D to A. E flat to B flat. These are all, by the way, these are all perfect fifths at least so far. B flat to F. C to G. D to A. E flat to B flat. F to C. G to D. This is where you get an anomaly. You get A to E flat. It's not the fifth. It's not the perfect fifth because there's no E in the B flat major scale. Instead there is an E flat. So that makes it a diminished fifth or also known as a tritone. A to E flat. Let's do that again. Just the fifths. B flat F. C G. D A. E flat B flat. F C. G D. A E flat. B flat F. You could even go descending. That's a nice exercise. You could also do one at a time. You could even do the thirds that way. Now the actual exercise I have for you will hand pick or pluck out a few notes chosen from the scale but I wanted to tell you the essential theory so then we just get on to playing. So from now on you just follow me. The notes I've picked for this lesson again in the right hand just to recap G A B flat F. G we've already done this. B flat D. Now in the left hand you need to ask yourself a question what note shall I play in my left hand in the bass register such that its third is G or its third is A or its third is B flat. So that's where you need to look at the rows of thirds and fifths which we've populated. You'll realize that E flat's third happens to be G. So my treble clef was playing G its third is what? E flat. Played in the bass clef with the left hand and just to reinforce it you could play it with octaves pinkies and thumbs would be used. And this exercise will sound beautiful on every register of the piano. Every single register will work. So same story. You take A in the treble clef and you ask yourself what is its third or what is its lower third or what's third is A. So you look at the chart and you'll clearly look at it and say F. That's your second pack of thirds. You could also go down two steps in the scale circle. So B flat down to would be G then D down to would be D. So let's look at the first bar. G with E flat in the bass A with F in the bass B flat with G in the bass and then F with D in the bass and then G with E flat in the bass A with F in the bass B flat with G in the bass and then you do D you jump up and you play B flat there. Let's try and look at the finger ring. If you do it without octaves let's do it slower. You could start with your ring finger on E flat. Two, three, four. E four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Two, three, four. Climbing. Two, three, four. So the starting finger would be index in the right and ring in the left. That could work. So to play that B flat you can just slide it with your thumb and move your hand slightly inside without curving it or bending it too much. Ring again, slowly again. Second bar. So now let's try and build some variations to this exercise. First off you can play both with octaves. You can play the whole right hand and left hand with octaves. Then there are no fingering issues. You just go pinky and thumb in the left hand thumb and pinky in the right hand. There we go. You can play it higher. I think this sounds quite musical already but let's take this to town. Before we start embellishing, adding and moving a lot of things on our hands I'd like to introduce you to a few simple hand ratios. Hand ratios are nothing but hand ratios. So left hand versus right hand or left hand is to right hand. The simplest hand ratio would be one is to four where you start both hands together one, two, three, four. But one is to four meaning right hand goes four times faster than the left hand. One, two, three, four, one. So you start together one, two, three, four one, two, three. This is how I like to count my ratios left hand on the chest right hand on the leg. So one, two, three, four one, two, three, four one, two, three, four. Let's try and execute that on the piano. We'll do single fingers. There we go. It's four in the right hand and one in the left hand. You can play it lower if you wish. Don't lift the left hand. Hold it for the entire duration. You don't lift it like that. It'll sound bad. So I understand there are sustained pedals on pianos but try to practice it so that your fingers actually down. That's one is to four. What's the opposite of one is to four? Four is to one. So left hand goes faster than the right hand. Let's try and execute four is to one. This is all notated for you. You could download or get yourself a copy of the notes. Four is to one. Four. And why only do stuff on four by four? Let's do a waltz or a three by four. So good waltz hand rhythms would be one, two, three, one, two. I would call this one is to three. One, two, three, left, two, three. Left and right are together at the one but the right goes faster. One, two, three. Similarly, what's this? Three is to one. Two, three, one, two, three. Let's try this with our piano exercise now. So that's three is to one. One is to three. Don't worry about fingering too much. Focus on the control and actually playing it to sound the way it should sound. Maybe the other three is to one. Let's cap off the hand ratios by introducing you to two is to four which will be one, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Your left hand hits twice, minims and your right hand hits four times, crotchets or quarter notes. How will that sound? Slightly tricky. You need to practice. There we go. Let's try four is to two. Maybe octaves in both hands. Maybe make the right hand higher. Sounds good either ways. Or make both the hands higher. Or both the hands lower. Four is to two. So we've been able to practice this exercise with a third interval. Left hand and the right hand are thirds with respect to each other and we've done them in a bunch of hand ratios. One is to four, four is to one. One is to three, three is to one. Two is to four and four is to two. Now let's try and stack up some more intervals to make it a lot more professional sounding. So first off, I'd like to stack something in the left hand then we'll go to the right hand. So in the left hand, what are you playing again if we isolate it? E flat, F, G, D, E flat, F, G, B flat. And if you refer to our fifth and third chart, now I want you to play fifths for each note of the left hand. So E flat's fifth would be B flat. F's fifth would be C. G's fifth would be D. D's fifth would be A. E flat's fifth again would be B flat. F to C. G to D and then can do B flat to F or lower B flat to F. Let's do that again. E flat to B flat. F, C. G, D. D, A. Then E flat to F, B flat. F to C. G to D. B flat to F. Let the right hand play the same thing and let's see how we go. First of all, semi-brieves. Whole notes. Let's try a few ratios now with this. Maybe one is to three. Octave the right hand maybe. Maybe three is to one. You get the idea. Those ratios we learned earlier. So what has happened? We have stacked up the left hand to play fifths. Let's not forget the right hand. The right hand can also stack. So with our G, why not we stack up another fifth? So G is fifth. What is the right hand playing again? G, A, B flat, F. So G to D. It's fifth. Not A to E. Be careful. It's A to E flat. Because of that tritone thing which we wrote earlier. B flat to F and then F to C, sorry. G, D. A to E flat. B flat to F and then D to A. So together and then so you form a very sophisticated sound by playing with here and then a different fifth there. In this case, this is a major seventh chord. And then that's a dominant seventh chord. F seventh if you will. That's a minor seventh chord. And then now the minor seventh chord. Back to major seventh, E flat major seventh. F seventh. G minor seventh. B flat major seventh. These are proper chords. Let's try that with a ratio. One is to four. Put in some dynamics. Again. One is to four or maybe you don't have to play it always with ratios. You can even play them together. Sounds nice just like this. Come back or maybe you can kind of cluster it. Play it one by one. And you decide your pattern. Right now I'm just doing one by one. Just cascading it from the left to the right. Again. Deep down is a great exercise to learn your fifths and sound quite musical while doing so. Define your own pattern if you wish. Or just hold it and sing something. Get the idea I hope. So two fifths happening. One in the left and the other one stacked in the right. To make it a bit more interesting or just to add another flavor. Instead of playing a fifth in the right if you wish you can add a third in the right. However the third in the right will then copy the fifth of the left. But if you like this sound it's a more simpler sound but a nice modern pop sound. So thirds in the right and fifths in the left hand. So fifths Thirds. So put that together. It'll be nice if you put a pattern to it. Fifths. Kind of like fifths more because it gives you that extra four, it gives you four notes in total. Or a more simpler pop sound. If you're not comfortable with these rhythm patterns don't worry just go back to the hand ratios. The hand ratio should be more than sufficient really. So moving on this entire exercise was practiced on the G minor scale or the B flat major scale. We wrote it down very meticulously. We figured out the degrees we have a chart with thirds and fifths. So why not use this to help us practice our piano on multiple scales. So you could write down a great way to transpose and to plan or prepare before you transpose would be you write down everything. You write down B flat major, B flat C, D, E flat F, G, A and then you write under that you write 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and then under that you write down the new scale which will then be superimposed over this exercise. So let's say you do it on G major. So G major will be 1 is G, 2 is A 3 is B, 4 is C and so on. So the exercise is G, A, B flat F that would be with respect to B flat the 6, the 7, the 1 but played higher the 5th and then again 6, 7, 1 higher 3. So if you map that out with respect to the G scale it's 6 would be E. And then you would need to play the 4th in the left hand or E is lower 3rd after writing down this whole chart system again. So after writing all this down it will end up being E with C in the left F sharp with D G with E B with G. Some stacking Pretty much whatever we did in the on B flat scale you're doing on this new scale. Okay, so I hope this whole environment works well for you to get used to scales, get used to transposing get used to hand coordination and play music which is quite quite pleasant sounding I think. You'll find this progression used a lot in the modern pop hit songs. And I want to leave you with one final trick to build melodies in your right hand just using a stack or a cluster of notes and then we'll pack up the lesson. So we do sets of 3. So let's first go back to the original scale and play our usual work. G A B flat F G A B flat D Now this G find 3 notes from G above it. So that's G A B flat So that becomes a set of 3. So an E flat you can stack it up with its 5th then A what is A's upper 2 more notes sets of 3 so and build a melody or just do next F with A originally but now F is stacked with C and A we are just adding those sets of 3 notes there. So now A next one climbing then so G will have a pack of 3 A will have a pack of 3 A B flat C B flat will have B flat C D and then F G A and then and when you end it there with B flat you end with D E flat F So you can play a melody like maybe this one with just with these 3 notes in a pattern I would encourage you to try and make your own create your own just using these 3 notes make a melody and make sure the left hand is not at all compromise you should be playing the same old and what you used to play throughout this lesson right guys I hope you will be able to digest all this information again the main intention here whether you are a beginner or any level on the piano is just to put all the tasks or all the skills needed to play the instruments in one lesson so I hope I have done justice to that and hopefully you enjoy the music as well which is being played otherwise a lot of the piano exercises out there don't seem to sound good so that's one of the main reasons why as musicians we just tend to stop the practice routine so have fun with the exercise and to supplement your learning there are always a notes on patreon and if you like the lesson do give the video a thumbs up leave us a comment with what you thought and leave us a comment also with something you would like to learn in the future and if you haven't already do consider hitting the subscribe button and turn on the bell icon for regular notifications thanks a ton this is Jason