 Hi guys, this is Jason Zach from Nathaniel School of Music. In this piano tutorial, I am going to tell you how you can take any exercise which you are practicing on the piano and most of these exercises which we end up doing are on 4-4, 4 beats per bar. What I am trying to do here is to train your mind to focus on the other dimension which is time. Usually we just focus on pitch, fingering, when to cross, stuff, when to stretch our hand, when to bring our hand together, what notes we are skipping in terms of intervals. Those are the general things we practice but I find that piano students are not motivated enough to practice rhythm. So why not practice rhythm along with pitch? So the same thing you do, we are going to take an exercise which I am sure you are all familiar with which you heard in the intro video. And we will just make that exercise a lot more useful and make your time on the piano, your practice time very well spent and a lot more efficient. So for example, if you have 30 minutes to practice your scales or some exercise, you might as well do that and also benefit from having improved your sense of timing or your natural rhythm sense. So before we get started, our notes are available on our Patreon page for just $5 a month. You will also get a MIDI track, staff notation and not only for this lesson, notes and notation, backing tracks, MIDI, for all the lessons we have pretty much ever done on YouTube over the past 5 years or so. So do consider a Patreon subscription and there is also a subscribe button somewhere there for those of you who don't know it, it's a nice button to press, it won't bite, please hit that subscribe button and there is a bell also. So do consider ringing the bell for regular notifications. Let's get cracking. So I'm taking a very simple exercise which is Sare Gama, Pama Gare, Sare Gama, Pama Gare, which is just a scale going ascending, descending or Arohan and Avarohan as we say in Indian music. And I'm not even taking the whole scale, it's just 5 notes. If it was the whole scale, we would play the whole thing but all the 8 notes including the octave but we are just doing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. If you are uncomfortable doing it with both hands, fair enough, just do it with the right hand more than enough. Now the drill is just so you know, C, D, E flat, F, G, F, E flat, D and the scale I'm preferring happens to be the C natural minor or C minor in general because even the harmonic minor will have the first 5 notes like this, right? So this is your C minor, keep going, maybe speed it up if you wish, so a nice way to start off would be take the drill and just go in types of notes or note values which you know. Start with moving this or moving your head and playing every note to the pulse movement of your head. So if your head is moving like this, this is going to be your tempo of the song. So 1, 2, 3, 4, pulse, 3, 4, 1 and it seems to naturally align as a 4 by 4 song. There you go. So however, you can do this as 8th notes too. Let's see how that goes. Maybe if you are ambitious or if you are able enough, you can do 16s, 1e and a 2e and a 3 and a 4e and a 1e and a 2 or 8th notes, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 2 or crotchets or pulse notes, quarter notes as we also call it. 1, 2, 3. This is probably something you are practicing or I'm sure if you have learned the piano for about even 4 to 5 months, you would have definitely done an exercise very close to this. If not, I think you are having some problems out there. So you take this drill and now what we are going to do is to think of this from different time signature perspectives. So all we need to do is I'm just posing a challenge. So what if this is played on 4 by 4? Is it actually 4 by 4? Who is to say that? Who is to decide that or judge that? Is it a fact that this is 4 by 4? Well, if you play it, it seems so, isn't it? Because you are starting here and you are ending there. So it feels like a nice upper ladder down the ladder and it takes you this much time. 1, 2, 3, 4 takes you 4 to go up and 4 to go down. So it naturally feels like 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. It naturally feels like it's even or it's 4 beats in a cycle or something like that. I want to prove otherwise. So for example, why can't it be 3? So if you have to count sets of 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. Now normally when we play 3s, we might practice triplet exercises on the keyboard. Things like this, right? 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. What if we take the same exercise? I like this one. Why can't I just do it on 3 by 4? It doesn't seem designed for the process, but let's see. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1. You see what's happening there? I cannot change my pitch. I'm not supposed to change my pitch. So don't do. No, that's wrong. It's still 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. Now to become 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2. Your head can do 1 for every 3. 1, 2, 3, triplet, triplet. And another strategy to help you count better will be an Indian conical system where you can just voice out a word which could be ta-ke-ta, ta-ke-ta, ta-ke-ta, ta-ke-ta, ta-ke-ta, ta-ke-ta, ta-ke-ta, ta-ke-ta, ta-ke-ta, ta-ke-ta, ta-ke-ta, ta-ke-ta, ta-ke-ta, ta-ke-ta, ta-ke-ta, ta-ke-ta, ta-ke-ta. But if I bring this back to 4 by 4, it's the same exercise. If you see this, I'm not changing the notes at all. The same notes. It's just the accent or the volume. I'm controlling which parameter of music now in this drill. I'm controlling volume. Not pitch. Because I told you, don't change your pitch or the pitch ordering. It has to be like that. But now what can I control? I can only control volume. So that's 3. To propel yourself to get that better, ta-ke-ta, ta-ke-ta, ta-ke-ta, ta-ke-ta, ta-ke-ta, ta-ke-ta, ta-ke-ta, ta-ke-ta. If you're a singer, you can practice your swaras while doing this pretty well. It'll become a good swara challenge because I found that some Hindustani and some Karnataka learners tend to forget their swaras. It's sometimes easy to sing sa-re-ga-ma pa-ma-ga-re sa-re-ga-ma-pa. You kind of memorize the word. But if you have to do sa-re-ga-ma pa-ma-ga-re sa-re-ga-ma-pa-ma-ga-re. It forces you to know your swaras in and out, I think. sa-re-ga-ma pa-ma-ga-re sa-re-ga-ma-pa-ma-ga-re sa-re-ga-ma-pa-ma-ga-re. As you can see, even I'm taking a little bit of time, so even I need to practice this. Singing is an additional challenge, which is really good. I suggest that for you. Sing the swaras wherein sa-re-ga-ma pa-ma-ga-re. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. These are the degrees of the scale. One root, major second, minor third, perfect fourth, perfect fifth. We call it just to sing it easily or to speak it easily. sa-re-ga-ma pa-ma-ga-re. You can also do do-re-mi-fa-so if you prefer that medium of study. However, I don't use that a lot because I'm from India. In this part of the world, we use swaras a lot. And it's an interesting fact that anything you do, if you do a set of three notes, just so much, again, this feels like, you know, even 1, 2, 3, 4, 1. But you can make that three and it was naturally, so it's a bit annoying to do smaller sets of notes, but it's a good practice. Now, if you do coming back to R5, sounds a lot musical, I guess. Okay, now if we've done 3, 4 is anyway by nature. If you look at the pitch grouping, we can also now move into other numbers. Let's take a bigger number, like 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. It's not naturally 5, it's naturally 4. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. So you're doing your piano exercise, your run-of-the-mill exercise. Now you have to think about your accent grouping, develop your study of playing in odd-time signatures, and there is another thing which is being trained under the hood, which is your finger strength, because every finger which needs to accent will have to slam that key really hard. Normally we tend to slam our thumb and our pinky, but the ring finger and the weaker fingers are not used that much, so we kind of just slip them into the play. But in this case, you're forced to make every finger have its own voice. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1 ring, middle, index. Pinky, index, middle, ring, thumb. So every finger gets a chance to stand out. So let's do that with some changing bass notes. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. That is a rather long exercise. If you count the length of this exercise, if you didn't think of it with different time signature, it would have been just 8 notes in the phrase. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 4 up and then 4 down and you're done. While now if you go to 5 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. It ain't over until the thumb restarts the exercise. So that would be well, you're going up and down, right? So 5, I would say 5 8 za or 5 into 4 into 2 because 2 directions. 4 into 20 into 2. So if you do the math, that's 40 notes for one exercise. So it's going to take you 40 notes for it to recycle itself. So let me test the maths out and see if it works. You also count. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 8 cycle bang and it repeat. And if you do 3 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. Lessor cycles but still a lot more, right? 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. You're always going to do 8 cycles of that grouping. So if it was 5, 5 8 za 40. If it's 3, 3 8 za 24. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. So it's going to take you 25 beats for the recycle to happen. 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. So you're training every skill I think at the moment on the piano. If ever your left hand is coming into play, not if ever, the left hand should come into play. The left hand can support the right hand by propelling the accents forward. The accents would be every 1. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2. Or if you're doing it in Kono Koal, tuck it, tuck it. Every thaw would be whacked in the left. And you can obviously change your left hand over the C minor scale. I'm choosing a few nice notes here you can observe. A flat. F. G. I'm playing a pulse. Or I can do and I'm basically playing and I'm basically playing the accent hit points in the left hand. And if I'm doing 5 it would again be the accent. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Like that B going to C. Let's do one more number. Why not? We can keep doing it. We can do any time signature. Now what's the number after 5? 6. 6 is rather boring. 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Very similar to 3 but let's do that. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, go. Okay, so 6 is pretty much 3, 2's are, so it's easy to do there. What about 7? 7 you can do, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 1, 2, like that. So 7 would be, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 1. And finally it recycles itself after 7 into 4 into 2 beats, or 7 into 4 into 2 notes. How much is that now? Oh man, that's a long number, isn't it? 7 4s are 28, 28 into 256. So you're gonna play 56 notes before you feel happy about having completed this exercise. I actually started this exercise off way back in the day because I used to keep telling kids, see when you do that drill. They'll do it once and then tell me, sir, I've got it, it's over, you know, I mastered it and they feel very happy. So this was kind of a good way to get them glued to the piano and play it for a bit longer. And I think they kind of enjoyed it, at least I hope they did, anyway. So that's about 7. You can do, well, sky is the limit, which could end up being 7 only, or else you can go to 9 or 11 or anything. And mind you, if you're going to bigger numbers like 9 and 11 and 13, you can do these sub or mini groups. 9 could be considered as four meets five. So for instance, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, five, three, four, one, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, five, one. That was a rather long drill, nine into four into two. 9 4s are 36 in to do that's 72 notes in the drill. So you have to think a bit more when you do more and more numbers or more and more cycles of beats right guys. So this was the approach don't forget to consider singing it and if you are a guitar player or a horn player or a violin or a flottist watching this video or if you'd like to execute this on other instruments I feel it's the exact same principle. You can do this on any instrument really it's just that that instrument will have its own challenges both visually and physically more mentally I think it will challenge you because if you can already do well you have the physical capability to do it it's just mentally speaking you have to figure it out and don't forget to sing if possible sing the Swaraj if you have had some kind of Hindustani Carnatic exposure or at least sing the names of the notes that would be pretty helpful. Okay guys thanks a ton for watching the lesson hope this helps you with your practice and don't forget to head over to our patreon you can get yourself some supplementary notes for this lecture and a lot more which we've done in our on our YouTube channel and if you'd like a more structured environment towards learning music piano other instruments as well which we teach at Nathaniel School of Music you can consider heading over to Nathaniel School.com and filling up a form and reaching out to one of our course advisors and we can help plan a semester for you right thanks a ton for watching the video cheers catch you in the next one