The course › Unit 10: Play, improvise, create

Your first recital

Lesson 60 of 72 · Everything you know, in concert, and what comes next

In this lesson, you will:

• Review the essentials of the course
• Play complete pieces, from beginning to end
• Know how to keep going: the pieces and your own songs

1. Learn: Recital day

You’ve reached the end of the course: 60 lessons! To celebrate, a recital: a little concert where you play your pieces from beginning to end, for yourself or for the people close to you. But first, a big review.

• Don’t stop. In concert, a wrong note is no big deal: keep going in rhythm, and the audience will barely hear it. Stopping, on the other hand, everyone hears.
• Pick a comfortable tempo, a little slower than in practice: stage fright always makes you speed up.
• Breathe before you start, place your hands, hear the beginning in your head… then go for it.
• At the end, keep your hands on the keys for a second, then take a bow: you’ve earned it!

Why this way: The review mixes all the units. Alternating topics (“interleaving”) makes your brain find the right answer for each question: it’s harder in the moment, but you remember much better in the long run.

Did you know?: Franz Liszt was one of the first pianists to give whole concerts alone on stage: in London, in 1840, the word “recital” was used in this sense for the first time, to announce his concerts.

2. Quiz: The big quiz

• Which finger is number 1?
• C is just to the left of…
• What note is this?
• How long does a dotted half note last?
• How many sixteenth notes in a quarter note?
• C♯ and D♭ are…

3. Challenge: Reading challenge: both clefs

A note on the grand staff: play it at its exact place. Treble clef or bass clef, read it fast. 60 seconds!

4. Practice: All your chords

Play the notes of the chord together, in any position you like: root position or an inversion.

5. Piece: The full ballad

The recital begins! First piece: your ballad, with both hands, over C – G – A minor – F. Breathe, place your hands… it’s your turn. Melody and bass together. Pedal: change it with each new chord (twice in the next-to-last measure: F, then G). And above all, don’t stop!

6. Learn: Bravo!

Take a moment to look at how far you’ve come. At the start of the course, you may have been searching for C. Today:

• you read the treble clef and the bass clef, on the grand staff;
• you count rhythms, from whole notes to sixteenth notes, in 3 and in 4;
• you know sharps, flats, intervals and the scales of C, G, F and A minor;
• you build major, minor and seventh chords, with their inversions;
• you accompany, you improvise, you play by ear… and you already have a real repertoire.

What now? The music doesn’t stop here:

• Pianamo’s Pieces are waiting for you: famous tunes (When the Saints, Amazing Grace, Greensleeves, Für Elise…), the grooves of hit songs, then the real accompaniments of Let It Be, Imagine, Hallelujah or Stand by Me: lessons 21 to 40.
• Play your favorite songs: on the home page, upload a song (MP3, WAV…) and Pianamo turns it into piano sheet music. Already have the score? Import it directly (Guitar Pro, MIDI or MusicXML). Then play its piano part as falling notes, slowing it down as much as you need.
• Keep up today’s practice: a few minutes every day keep everything you’ve learned fresh.

Tip: The pianists’ secret: a little every day. Ten to twenty minutes a day are far better than one long session a week.

7. Piece: Right hand

The audience wants more: here’s the encore! The most famous theme in piano music, Beethoven’s Für Elise. Sixteenth notes, D♯, a hand that moves around: you now have everything you need. Start slowly. The theme in the right hand; the computer plays the left hand.

8. Improvisation: The finale

To close the recital, improvise your exit from the stage over C – G – A minor – F, using all the white keys. Put in everything you know: a motif and its variations, questions and answers, rests, dynamics, the pedal on each chord… and end on C. Bravo, pianist!

To practice

• Your first ballad: A melody and its bass over the hit-song progression
• Amazing Grace: Three beats to a measure
• Für Elise: Beethoven’s theme, in sixteenth notes
• Your pop song: A verse and a chorus, like a real hit
• Let It Be: The Beatles: verse and chorus on the piano

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