Are You Sleeping: Hands Together

Hello and welcome back, I'm Joseph Hoffman. Today we're learning how to do the left hand part of "Are You Sleeping?", and then we'll learn how to play it hands together. To do this lesson, you should have already learned and practiced the right hand melody part of "Are You Sleeping?" which we covered in a previous lesson. So if that means you, then let's get started by looking at the score. All right, today we're focusing on the left-hand part, so we'll be down here in the base staff. Can you tell me the letter names of these first four notes? These are some of our guide notes. We've got middle C, F, middle C, F 2 beats each. Now, what do you notice about measures three and four in the left hand? I have a little challenge for you if you're up for it. If you like, you can pause the video right now and see if you can try playing these notes without me showing you how. I'll just say that you're starting here on F, and use finger 5. Try to play these notes and see what you notice. Or if you prefer, let's take a listen together. Here's what the left hand of line one should sound like: I'll start with finger 1 on C. 1 2 3 4 Did you notice that the left hand in measures three and four sounds it's playing the same notes as what the right hand played in measures one and two. It has the ♫Are you sleeping? Are you sleeping?♫ melody. In music that's called imitation when one part plays the same part as another part or hand, but in an echo it plays after the right hand plays it. Now let's try to play it at the same time together. Remember that when you have these half notes, hold them for 2 beats, 1 2. Let's play all of line one together, and for an extra challenge I'm going to ask you to count the beat out loud as you play. Left hand in position. I'll count 1 2 3 4, and then we'll start. 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 And stop. If you had trouble with that, just rewind and try it again. If you got it, nice work and let's keep going. Now let's check out line two for the left hand. Looking at the first note, can you tell me what note we play? Tell me the letter name. If you said A, you're correct. We have a half note on A. 1 2, and then we skip up to C, then skip back to A. 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 Now can you play that and count the beat out loud? All right, now let's really ramp up the difficulty. We're going to try it hands together now. So notice that the left hand has an A for a half note. You'll hold that 2 beats while you're holding that A the right hand is playing: ♫Morning bells are♫ four eighth notes together like this: ♫Morning bells are♫ Now will you try that? Just do those first 2 beats of the measure. Play the A with the left hand while the right hand plays ♫Morning bells are♫. Now you try. Good, now next up the right hand plays ♫ringing!♫ from A to F while the left hand plays C to A. So notice both hands are skipping down although they're playing different notes. So we have ♫ringing!♫ Now will you try 'ringing' ? ♫ringing♫ Try that two or three times, go: Good, now let's put the whole measure together. We have ♫Morning bells are ringing! Morning bells are ringing!♫ Now press pause and try that on your own four or five times until you feel comfortable, then press play when you're ready to go on. All right now we're ready to put all of line two together, hands together. So with finger 4 of the right hand on C. It will sound like this: Now, press pause again, try all of line two hands together, then press play when you're ready to go on. All right, now that you know line two hands together, let's back up to line one to see how we'll play that hands together. Looking at measure one you'll see the right hand plays quarter notes. 1 2 3 4, while the left hand plays half notes. 1 2 3 4 Together we'll get this: 1 2 3 4 Now, press pause and try that three or four times on your own. Press play when you're ready to go on. All right, now let's put measures one and two together. It will sound like this: 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4 Now press pause and try measures one and two together. Great, now you're ready for measures three and four. Let's look at what the right hand's doing. We have starting on A, ♫stepping up stepping up♫ What's the left hand doing? Tt's playing the melody that the right hand played in measures one and two as we mentioned. We have DO RE MI DO, DO RE MI DO So you'll notice for the first 3 beats 1 2 3, both hands are stepping up. Although, as before they are on different keys. So remember the right hand starts on A, the left hand starts on F. They both step up, and then on beat 4 while the right hand holds, the left hand skips back down to DO. So we have: DO RE MI DO, DO RE MI DO Now press pause and work on those two measures for a few minutes. Play it several times until you feel comfortable, then press play when you're ready to go on. All right, now we've been through the whole song hands together. You may still be feeling not a hundred percent confident yet, which is totally fine. You're going to practice this for several days. I'm going to play the whole thing hands together for you, and if you'd like to try playing along with me you can, or if you'd like to just play the left hand, or just the right hand, or just li ...