Spinning Song

Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph
Hoffman
and today we're learning how to play the
right hand part for "Spinning Song",
which just may be our first song to learn
without lyrics.
That's right, there are no words.
Almost all of the songs I've
taught you so far started out as folk songs:
songs music that was originally meant to
be sung.
But I've just taken those songs and arranged them for the piano.
"Spinning Song" on the other hand was composed not as something to be sung,
but specifically to be played on the piano.
So it's an original piano piece by
composer Ferdinand Bever.
Let's get started learning "Spinning Song" by coming
to the staff.
To learn "Spinning Song", it's going to be helpful to learn a couple of new guide notes.
Remember, a guide note is a note I want you to know so well
the instant you see it you basically recognize it
and know where it is.
It's a good reference to learn any other note,
or to figure out any other note.
Now,
I've placed a ledger line here for
can you tell me what note this is?
Because this is a guide note, you probably know right away that's middle C.
Now you also
know, I hope by now
instantly what note do you have there?
That's right this is a
treble G. We know because it's on the G line.
And what note do you see here?
Bass F
On my piano, here's my middle C.
Here's that treble G, and below you'll find my
base F.
Now for "Spinning Song" we're going to extend up the staff so let's find another guide note up here.
You know that this is middle C here's treble G.
Let's
keep going up from there we have G.
A on the space, B on the line.
C
So this is
middle C, but then we have a treble C up here.
Let me just take away this treble G
to get out of the way
so you can easily see that there are one, two, three spaces up to get to this treble C.
Now, it so happens that in the bass clef if you go
F,
step down to E, step down to D,
step down to C.
The same pattern holds true for the bass clef.
If you count one, two, three spaces
down, you'll also get to a C.
See how these are kind of a mirror image of each other?
'C' how they are a mirror image.. ha, ha
Now, let's find those on the piano.
So here are those same three C's on my
piano. We've got middle C in the middle of course.
And treble C one octave up, and
bass C one octave down.
Okay, let's play a little game.
It's a C hunt. We're going hunting for C's.
Can you find and point on your
screen to all of the treble C's?
Remember, to find treble C just count up three
spaces in the treble clef.
If you're pointing here, here, or here you're
correct.
Now, can you find all of the bass C's?
Remember, count three spaces down.
If you're pointing here or here you're
correct. These are both bass C.
Now, how about all of the middle C's?
Those would
be here, here, and here.
Now, let's take look at the five notes that we're going
to be using for the right hand part of "Spinning Song".
Can you tell me the name of
this first note?
If you said treble C you're correct.
So if this is C, can you also tell me the letter names of these four notes? Try it.
Here's C, now you go ahead.
If you said C D E F G, you're correct.
This is the C
major pentascale,
but it's starting on treble C instead of middle C.
Here's the
sheet music for "Spinning Song",
which remember you can download from our
website as part of the materials for this unit.
Let's check out what's going
on here.
We've got our treble and bass clef for a grand staff. What's our time signature?
It's 4/4, and that top number 4 remember will tell us how
many beats per measure.
Now, let's check out the right hand part which is what
we're learning today.
What's happeneing here?
Can you describe the motion of the
notes?
You'll see that the notes are starting here on treble C, our guide note,
and then stepping up, C D E F G, then stepping back down to C,
then stepping back up to
G, then stepping back down
to C, then stepping back up to G, then stepping back
down to C,
and then finally we get some other stuff happening here.
And that constant stepping up and down and up and down is what creates the spinning feel of this song.
So can you try singing the first two measures with me in solfège?
It will start on DO, ready, point and sing, go:
DO RE MI FA SO FA MI RE
Good, and then that just keeps repeating. Now let's try singing the letter names.
It starts on C.
Ready, go:
C D E F G F E D
and then it keeps repeating. Pretty simple.
Now we see

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