2-3 Finger Skip Hands Together

Hello and welcome back I'm Joseph Hoffman,

and in this lesson we're going to be working on the 2-3 finger skip exercise hands together.

Let's check out the score to get started.

Here's the sheet music for the 2-3 finger skip. What do you notice?

When I'm checking out something for the first time, I always check the clefs, treble and bass. Our time signature is 4/4 time,

then we should check out our starting note. What do you see for the right hand?

If you said middle C, you're correct.

What about for the left hand? What's the starting note?

If you said bass C, you're correct.

Both hands start on a C, and then can you tell me how the notes are moving? Let's say the steps, skips, and repeats.

Say start for the first note, and now say it along with me. Start, step up, skip up, step up, step up,

step down, step down, step down, step down.

So you notice we have all steps except for one skip

right here. Come on pen. There we go.

Now, tell me what you notice about the left hand.

It's important to check every note, but if you check carefully you'll see that every single note

follows exactly what the right hand is doing.

So we have another skip right here for the left hand.

Pause the video, and on your own if you haven't already ready download and print out the sheet music for yourself

so you can go through and find and circle all the skips on page one.

Pause to do that, and then press play and we'll check it out together.

Here are all the skips on page one.

So, have you found the pattern?

We always go up a step, and then the skip, and then the rest are all steps, and that helps us travel up the piano. We start on a C,

skip up, step up, step up, step down, step down, step down, and then we land on a D, and the pattern repeats.

Patterns are everywhere in music, but music also can break patterns, so you have to check every note. Where does the pattern finally break?

Still going, still going, aha!

We step down, step down, step down, step down to C and this is where the pattern breaks. So I'm going to put a star there

in my music to remind me look out, once we get to the C it's a whole note so we hold that for 4 beats,

middle C in the left hand, treble C for the right hand 1 2 3 4.

Let's check out how to play this on the piano.

So, with your right hand, place finger 1 on middle C, and notice we start with middle C step up, and then there's our skip.

So finger 3 is going to need to skip up to F, step up, step up, and then when we come down it's all steps

until we get to D, then step up, skip up, step up, step up, step down, step down, step down, then we land on E.

Now, pause the video and try just that section, that first line on your own until you get to finger 1 on E, then press play

to try hands together.

Now, for hands together place finger 1 on C, finger 5 of the left hand is on bass C,

and then notice the left hand is just going to follow what the right hand is doing. We have 1 2, and then a skip

in both hands. Step up, step up, then step down, step down, and then it's all steps coming down so we land on D this time,

then step up to finger 2, and then a skip up in both hands, and then all the way down. Now we're on E,

so this is how we travel up. Skip up on the way up, and then down it's all steps, so then we land on F, step up, skip up.

I'm going to speed up a little bit, now we're on G, skip up,

then we get to A, A step up, skip up.

So left hand's just copying what the right hand is doing. Skip up,

and then notice here's where we stop 2 3 4. We have to hold that C for 4 counts before we're ready to go on to the next page.

Now, pause the video and it's your turn to try it hands together both hands now.

Try page one, pause to work on that, and then press play when you're ready to go on.

Let's check out page two of the 2-3 finger skip exercise.

What note does the right hand begin on for page two?

Can you tell me it's letter name?

If you said G, you're correct. The easiest way to find that is to think the top line is flag F and it's just a step above.

So we're way up here, and then what note does the left hand start on?

With all these ledger lines, just find a ledger line you know. You know that this ledger line is middle C,

and then each ledger line is a skip.

So that's an E, and then the top ledger line would have to be this G. So both the right and left hand start on

a G. Now let's look for the steps and skips p ...