Amazing Grace - Early Elementary

Hello and welcome. I'm Joseph Hoffman and
today we're going to learn how to play
one of the world's most beloved
traditional Christian hymns, Amazing
Grace. This video tutorial is my super
easy, what I call, "preparatory level"
tutorial which means even if you're an
absolute beginner with just a few months'
experience or even no experience at all,
I will guide you step by step to be able
to play this song. If you're looking for
a more advanced tutorial where I show
you how to play not just the melody but
also chords and accompaniment, please
check out my level 2 or level 4 Amazing
Grace piano tutorials. Alright, let's come
to the piano to get started. So first off
let's find our position on the piano.
Here's my middle C. So, go ahead and find
your middle C on your piano. Our left
hand is only going to need to worry
about these two notes. This note is G,
this one's A and I'd like you to use
fingers two and three. Remember finger one
is your thumb, so fingers two and three
on A and G. Go ahead and get your left
hand in position there. Your right hand
only needs to worry about these four
blue notes, and you'll use fingers one,
two, three, and five on C, D, E, and G. So go
ahead and make sure your hands are in
this position, and let's go ahead and get
started with the first two notes. You'll
see the first note down here in the bass
clef which is G, so use finger three of
your left hand. Play that G and then we
come up to the right hand finger one on
C.
Okay now you try. Now you'll notice the
next two notes are both for the right
hand, and we have an E with finger three
and then a C for "amazing." Now you try.
Good, now let's add one more note after
"-zing" then it comes back to E for "grace."
So all together we have C, notice it just
kind of rocks back and forth between C
and E, now you try. Good now let's pause
to notice something about music and
that's how rhythm is notated. You'll
notice this first note is filled in in
the middle, and that's called a quarter
note. It lasts just one beat. It kind of
has the sound as if you're walking:
TA, TA, TA has a nice slow and steady
sound.
And then this next note is called a half
note. It's actually twice as long as a
quarter note, so it's good to think two
beats like this. You'll go ♫ "TA, one, two."♫
You can actually think "one, two" in your
mind while you hold that, and if you
don't do, that you won't hold that note
long enough, generally. ♫ "One, two"♫ and then these
two notes that are beamed together like
that, these are called two
eighth notes and they're a little bit
faster they go about the speed of like
if you were jogging. TI-TI. Jogging, jogging,
or ♫ TI-TI.♫ So altogether we have a quarter
note, two, one two.
To play this song correctly it's very
important that you not just play the
right notes, but that you have the right
timing, so be sure to think about the
rhythm. So what I'd like you to do is
press pause and just work on this first
phrase paying attention to both the
notes and the rhythms. ♫ "TA 1-2, TI-TI, 1-2,"♫ for ♫ "Amazing grace."♫
Press pause to practice that a
little on your ow,n then press play to go
on.
Now after "grace" on E, it steps down to
D, then down to C for ♫ "how sweet."♫ Then it
comes back to the left hand, ♫ "the sound."♫
So in letters we have ♫ "D, C, A, G." two notes for the right
hand, two notes for the left hand. Now you
try. Good now back to the beginning we
have: ♫ "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound."♫ Now, will you try putting all of
that together? Press pause to try that a
few times on your own, then press play to
go on.
Now the next phrase starts off the same
way as the first phrase. ♫ "G, C, E-C-E,"♫
and that's
for ♫ "that saved a wretch."♫ And then it's a little
different here, it steps down to D and
then skips all the way up to G with
finger five, which is your pinkie, ♫ "like me."♫
Okay so together we get (♫plays "that saved a wretch like me." ♫ )
Now, press pause and work on that phrase
on your own, then press play to go on.
Now let's notice that ♫ "me,"♫
the note we just played, actually is a new kind
of rhythm that we haven't seen yet in
this song. It's a dotted half note tied
to a half note. Dotted half note is three
beats, half note is two beats, so together
we'll hold this note down for five beats.
And again that's very important
in a little while when we play this with
an accompaniment. Or let's say you're
playing along with a singer, you'd h ...