Gravity Falls Theme (Elementary)

Welcome back to Hoffman Academy. I'm Alex. Today we're going to learn the theme from Gravity Falls the TV show, and even if you haven't seen this show it's a great theme and I think you'll love to play it. be sure to grab the sheet music at the link below so you can follow along with me. This is the easy version of the tutorial, so I'm going to show you just the main melody that we can use our right hand for. This basically takes place in two different positions. The first part of it is going to be in D minor position and then later on it's going to move over to F major position. The whole song's in D Minor so even though I'm calling it F major, I might refer to these notes in their D minor form, like this is ME in D minor and that's going to be ME even if my thumb is there. Anyway, let's start at the beginning. This is in D position and that D right there is with finger 1 the thumb, and I'm just going to go through the notes and the skips first and then we'll get to the rhythm after that. So it starts here on DO on D. Steps up, and steps up again to the F. Then we're going to skip up to our 5th finger, and then this is a funky rhythm. It looks weird, so don't worry about it. This is a G, and you're going to tie it across to the next G. So basically just put that G once, and then you're going to go back to the A, and then stretch down a little bit to this C, which is not where our thumb was our thumb was here. So we just have to stretch a little farther to that C. And then notice on the next measure it's back to D, but it says finger 1 also. So we have that rest to move our thumb back to D again. And I'm going to move on to the next step up. E, step up to F, measure six, step down, skip up to G, step up to A, step down to G, step down to F. Good, let's go that far from the beginning and introduce the counting. So, the first part's pretty easy. You count to 3. 1 2 3 1 a beat on there, and then counting to 4 on this F. Now I'm going to talk about that rhythm on measure three. So this one you want to play the A on 1, and you can count 1-& 2-& 3-& 4-& for this measure, And that G lands on the & after 2 so you have to make sure you say 2 and then play the G on the & like this: You'll say 1-& 2-& 3-& 4-& One more time right there. Here we go. 1-& 2-& 3-& 4-& and then stretch down right after that. Okay, from the beginning I'm going to count 1 2-& 3-& 4-& 1-& 2-& 3-& 4-&, 1-& 2-& 3 skip up on1-& 2-& 3-& 4-&, stretch down, 2 3 rest and move. 1 2 3 4, and then a lot of half notes right here. 2 beats, 2 beats, 4 1 2 3 4 Great, now in this next rest, in this next measure I'm going to use that moment of rest to move my hand over to this F position. So when I played these first notes here this is my thumb, but I might say, you know, ME ME ME SO SO FA ME. And if it's easier for you to think DO DO DO MI MI RE DO like In F major position, that's okay too. Okay, starting here on measure nine, this is where that D minor chord starts and the quarter rests. And I'm going to count 1 and then play on 2 3 4, skip up to A, and then step down, step down, and then another rest on measure eleven, and then play on the 3rd finger A. There's three of those. Step down, step up, step down, step down. Rest, play that F again for three times, and then skip up to A. two of those. Step down, step down, and then rest measure fifteen. Three A's, and then a rest, and then this is a C-sharp, so my my pinky is here on the C. I'm just going to stretch it up there like that just a little bit. three of those, and then rest, and I'm going to come back to my thumb here. One, two, three of those, skip up, step down, step down, good. One more rest right there, and now this is a B-flat, and if I'm in F major position, and I know how F major position works. My fourth finger should be right there. I'm going to go three quarter notes, and then skip down to the G. That's where my second finger is, and then up to this C. This time it's C natural, and then I skip down to the A. Now I got that C-sharp again, so I just stretch up just a little bit like that, and then I leap back down to the D where I started the whole thing. So it's kind of a big jump from this C-sharp to the D, and it'd be really cool if you can kind of stretch the hand while you're holding that C-sharp so that you can play that D without having to take a pause and move the hand over like that. Okay, let's try it from the beginning. I'm going to count 4 beats, and then we'll start together. Here we go. 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4, 1 2-& 3 4, 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4, rest and move, 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4, rest, 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4, rest 2 3 4,1 2 3 4, rest 2 3 4, stretch, 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 stretch, 1 2 3 4. Awesome, okay now let's talk about these chord symbols up above the staff. These are totally optional if you want to play along and try to play chords at the same time. I'll show you what those are briefly. If that's a little challenging for you you can give this to your teacher or a parent or sibling if they know how to play chords and they can play chords along with you while you're playin ...