The Braille Piano Method - Lesson One 🎹 ~Melody~

"It takes the black keys and the white keys both, to make perfect harmony."
- Benny Goodman -

I recently related how I learned to play the piano:

The Braille Piano Method - Playing On The Black Keys 🎹

Though I consider myself a "music hacker," I might be able to give you "a leg up" if you've always wanted to learn a little bit about how it's done.

But a word to the wise...

You may not want to share this with your favorite music teacher; she'd probably be mortified.

On the other hand, if you like shortcuts and "quick and easy" hacks, this could but just what you've been looking for!

Playing On The Black Keys
Photo courtesy of Anja and http://pixabay.com

The Braille Piano Method - Lesson One

If you start with a goal, I think you'll pick up the piano very quickly. Our first lesson will be learning to play the traditional melody for the hymn, "Amazing Grace."

Let's get started!

Below is an illustration of "enough" of the keyboard for our purposes.

Notice that each note in the F# (F-sharp) scale is assigned a number. If you start with Note 1 in the middle section labeled Octave Y, and play each numbered key, you will hear the traditional "Do-Re-Mi etc." scale.

For notes in the octaves above and below the "middle" of the illustration, I will use the letter 'Z' or 'X' to distinguish them from the notes in the middle.

The lists of notes do not contain any timing indicators. Just use your memory of the melody to get the timing right. This is called "playing by ear," because you've heard it all before. You already know how the song goes, after hearing it so many times.

Here's the sequence:

X5-1-3-1-3           "Amazing grace,"
2-1-X6-X5            "how sweet the sound"
X5-1-3-1-3-2-3-5     "that saved a wretch like me."
3-5-3-5-3-1          "I once was lost,"
X5-X6-1-1-X6-X5      "but now I'm found,"
X5-1-3-1-3-2-1       "was blind, but now I see."

If you play this list of notes in sequence, all on the black keys, you'll produce the melody of "Amazing Grace."

Notice that each "octave" contains seven notes.

The "octave," or eighth note, is actually a repeat of the first note in the scale.

Here once again is a YouTube of the song:

Video courtesy of YouTube-er bobpeters61

You can more or less copy what you see in the video.

In coming lessons,

we'll learn how to add chords and a base-line to the song. For the moment, just concentrate on learning how to play the tune. Practice until you can make the melody sound like your memory of how it ought to sound.

Questions? Need help or encouragement? Just leave a "Reply" below.

Have fun!

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List of Braille Piano Method Posts

The Braille Piano Method - Playing On The Black Keys 🎹
The Braille Piano Method - Lesson One 🎹 ~Melody~
The Braille Piano Method - Lesson Two ~Chords~
The Braille Piano Method - Lesson Three ~Inversions~

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~FIN~

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