The course › Unit 1: Discovering the piano
Lesson 1 of 72 · Sitting well, low and high, your first sounds
Welcome to your piano course. You don’t need to read music: we start from scratch, and each lesson takes just 10 to 15 minutes.
Every lesson follows the same path: you listen, you play, then you read. Just like you learned to talk long before you learned to read.
Why this way: “Sound before symbol”: the great music teaching approaches (Suzuki, Kodály, Gordon) have you hear and play first, and bring in names and notation only afterward. Your brain remembers a symbol much better when it stands for something it already knows.
A good posture saves you from tiredness and aches, and makes everything easier. Check these points before every session:
Tip: Let your hand hang loosely at your side, then rest it on your knee: it naturally takes a dome shape, as if it were holding a ball. That’s the ideal shape for playing.
Watch out: Don’t let your fingers lie flat on the keys: play with your fingertips, and keep your nails short.
Toward the left, sounds get lower: big and deep, like a bear or thunder.
Toward the right, they get higher: light and bright, like birds.
On the left (orange), the low sounds; on the right (blue), the high ones.
Play a key in the area asked for.
Tell a story: a storm rumbles down low… then the sun comes back and the birds sing up high. Every key is allowed!