Row, Row, Row Your Boat

Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman, and in this lesson we're learning how to play a traditional song that you might have heard before. "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." Let's listen. Here's the sheet music for "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." First off, just tell me what you notice about this. When I learn a new piece, I love to just kind of scan for different things. Check out the clef. We're treble clef. What's our time signature? 3/4 time signature. That top number tells us well if 3 beats per measure. You might have noticed some other things like some dynamic symbols we've learned. Piano for soft Forte for strong, and this crescendo which means gradually get louder. You also might have noticed all these flat symbols. These are all great things to notice when you're first learning a piece. Now right here on line two there's a new symbol that I wanted to point out, and it's called a tie. A tie is a curved line that connects two of the same note or same pitch. A pitch is just how high or low you are on the staff. So you can see these are the same pitch. so when you see a tie in music it's telling you to play that first note, but continue to hold that note down through the value of the first plus the second note. So for example here we've got this dotted half note that equals 3 beats. 1 2 3, and then you're going to keep holding that down for another 3 beats. So for a total of 6 beats you'll play this one note, and then hold for 3 beats plus 3 more. It's a way to get an extra long note. A few other examples, like if you saw a quarter note tied to another quarter note. A quarter note is 1 beat. Another quarter note's 1 beat, so together that's going to equal 2 heart beats. If you had a half note tied to let's say another half note, that's going to equal 4 beats. You could have like a half note tied to a whole note. Half note is 2 beats, a whole note is 4 beats. You're going to hold that for a total of 6 beats. Remember it has to be a curved line connecting two of the same pitch. Now, in the sheet music can you find another tie somewhere and point to it? If you're pointing here, you're correct. Once again we have a dotted half note tied to a dotted half note which means you'll hold this one note for 6 full beats. Now let's hone in on the first line. Can you tell me the letter name for this first note? If you said D-flat you're correct. Remember, you want to not just figure out that it's a D, but notice if there's a flat or sharp in front of it. That's part of the note. So we have a D-flat here. Can you tell me the letter names for the rest of the notes on this line? Go. The correct answer is: D-flat, D-flat, E-flat, F Now let's keep going on to the second line. Can you tell me the letter names for these notes? My hint is that it starts on F. Now name the rest for me: F, The correct answer is F, E-flat, F, G-flat, A-flat, and one magic power a tie has is that it carries the flat across. So both of these are A-flat even though you only see the flat here. Now what I'd like you to do is pause the video if you need a moment to print this out. Remember that this sheet music is available from our website for download. So download, print this out, and I'd like you to pause the video and write in the counts for each measure. Remember, the time signature tells us that we'll have 3 beats per measure. So inside every measure we need 3 beats: 1 2 3 The bar line tells us we start over again at 1, and then in this measure we'd have 1 2, and then line up beat 3 with this quarter note because the half note gets 2 beats. Beat 3 comes right here. So try to line up your counts with the notes. Pause the video, just write in the counts for the first two lines, and then press play to see the correct answer. Here's what it should look like in your music. Remember we've got 3 beats for every measure, and the reason we do this is to help you with the rhythms. It's one thing to play the right notes, but music needs correct notes and correct rhythms. Let's practice these rhythms by counting the beat out loud while we tap. You can do it on your lap or on you know the edge of your piano wherever you like. Tap this rhythm while we count the beat out loud. I will count 3 beats to get us started, and then we'll start here on beat 1. Here, count with me. Go: 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 Remember, because of the tie, we don't tap this note we just keep holding. Great, let's try to play it on the piano. "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" is in the key of D-flat major. Do you remember the D-flat major pentascale? Hopefully you've been practicing that. Remember we've got black, black, white, black, black. Can you cover up this position and let's play DO RE MI FA SO, your turn. Good, now tell me the name of our starting note again. If you said D-flat you're correct. We play that with finger 1. Now take a look at the first line, these first four measures. You know how to read notes pretty well now. You know how to count rhythms. So I'd like you to pause the video and you figure out how to play these first four measures by yourself then press play and we'll try it together. Now if you like you can try playing along with me, or if you'd rather just listen that's fine too. I'll count 3 ...