Piano Clues

There are a number of online sheet music stores, like Music Notes.com and Sheet Music Direct, that have a huge collection of sheet music for anything from classical to the latest hits.

These sites do not sell hardcopies, but sheet music in digital form. When you buy a digital copy, you pay for the right to print the sheet music (once). You will need to install a special plug-in for your browser to make this work.

The advantage of using these sites is that it’s relatively cheap to get a piece of music, and you can transpose it to another key before you print. So if the music is in the key of Ab, but you’d rather play it in C, you can transpose it up by 4 half-steps and then print it. Try doing that with a hardcopy!

If you’re a real cheapskate, then here’s a trick: You can usually view the first page of the piece for free in your web browser.

You can transpose this page to a more convenient key if necessary, print it out, and even listen to it online.

Often, the first page already contains the entire A-section (or the verse) of the song. This is a great way to get started on figuring out a piece, for free!

The “power chord” is a simplified chord, used mostly by rock guitarists but it also has a place on the piano.

Remember that a major chord consists of the first, third and fifth degrees of the major scale. A minor chord is like a major chord but with the 3rd lowered a half-step.

A power chord, however, just has the 1 and 5 and omits the 3rd. Because we leave out the 3rd in a power chord, it is neither major nor minor.

You can play a power chord whenever a major or minor chord is required. In fact, because the 1 and 5 are present in every chord except for diminished and augmented chords, you can substitute power chords almost everywhere.

The reason rock guitar players love power chords is that you only have to learn a single handshape in order to play all possible power chords. Also, when you apply a lot of distortion to the sound, power chords sound better than full chords.

Power chords are not very common in piano music. But they are useful if you want to play chords way down low on the keyboard.

With those low tones, adding the 3rd makes the sound too muddy, so playing just 1-5 will sound better than 1-3-5.

The notation for a power chord, for example the C power chord, is C5. Less common is something like C(omit3).

Chords are made by playing three or more tones at once. Often we will play chords in root position, which means that the lowest tone is the root tone of the chord.

For example, C major in root position is played as: C - E - G (from low to high)

Often it is useful to put the chord tones in a different order. We’ll go into the reasons why later, but for now I’ll show you how to play such inversions.

If there are three tones in the chord, as in the C major chord above, we can play it in three different positions:

1. Root position (or fundamental position)
2. First inversion
3. Second inversion

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We have already seen how to build chords using major scale degrees. But we can also build chords from intervals, by stacking minor third and major third intervals on top of the root tone.

For example, let’s look at a major chord, C major. It consists of the tones C - E - G.

The interval from C up to E is a major third (4 half-steps).
The interval from E up to G is a minor third (3 half-steps).

This interval formula, root + major third + minor third, applies to all major chords. The other chord types have their own formulas:

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This is the second installment of the two-part series on playing the Hanon exercises. You can find the first part here.

Exercise 2

Now that you’ve seen how Hanon works, we can go through the rest of the exercises quicker. They all work in the same fashion — a repeating pattern going up and down the keyboard — except that the notes and fingering are slightly different each time.

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“Hanon” is a famous set of exercises to train your fingers for the piano. Through this practice your finger technique will become faster, stronger, and more precise.

The name comes from French composer Charles-Louis Hanon (1819-1900), who bundled these finger workouts in his book The Virtuoso Pianist in Sixty Exercises.

This is the first article in a two-part series that explains how to play the first 5 exercises.

Don’t worry if you don’t know how to read sheet music — I’ll explain in detail what notes to play and which fingers to use.

Let’s get started!

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If you can’t get enough of piano music, then tune into the following internet radio stations. You can listen to them for free on your computer, provided that you have a reasonably fast internet connection (something better than dial-up).

Whisperings: Solo Piano Radio - Music to quiet your mind. Need I say more? (Also on Live365.com)

The Jazz - Great radio station from the UK that plays jazz all day long. Not just piano jazz, but all kinds.

NPR Piano Jazz - Jazz pianist Marian McPartland interviews famous jazz musicians. You can listen to old episodes online.

Solo Piano on SKY.fm - Top artists and undiscovered pianists in all kinds of genres.

Lucky Seven Radio - Several different channels, including Solo Piano, Piano Jazz and New Age.

Elena Kuschnerova Classic Radio - Classical piano and chamber music.