Star Wars Main Theme, Part 1

Hello and welcome back.
I'm Joseph Hoffman. Today we are learning how to play one of the great movie
themes of all time,
the theme from Star Wars composed by
John Williams.
All right, you'll notice in the score it
starts off with these three eighth notes being
together, with this kind of fancy italic
three underneath the beat.
This is called a triplet and it fits three eighth notes into one beat. It would sound like
this. Trip-o-let. See, it's on the step
above the middle C line,
so what we'll do with our left hand
finger one on the D a step above middle
C, we play trip-o-let, and then the melody
passes up to the right hand in the
treble clef.
So with your right hand finger one on
treble G, right here after the triplet we
have trip-o-let, one two, one two.
So, two half notes in a row, G then
skip all the way up to D. Watch that one
more time, left hand starts trip-o-let, one
two, one two,
Now you try. Good. Now checking out the
next measure,
we just finished playing D, and then it
has three notes stepping down, another
triplet, trip-o-let, starting on C
stepping down. Trip-o-let.
Now you try. Good, now let's go that far. It's going to sound like this.
Trip-o-let, one two, one two, trip-o-let.
Now you try. Good. Now here's where it
gets a little fancy. After that trip-o-let,
the next note we need is this
h gh G. Since our right hand is out of
range our left hand is going to cross
over and help us out with finger two of
the left hand.
We're going to land on that high G right
after this stepping down triplet, trip-o-let,
one two, D, and then the right hand
plays another D. Watch that again. We have
trip-o-let
one two, one two
I'd like you to press pause and try that
three or four times until you're really
comfortable with it, then press play to
go on.
Great, now from the beginning let me show you how it's going to sound so far.
trip-o-let,
one two, one two, trip-o-let, one two, tah, trip-o-let, one two, tah.
You'll notice that in measure three we do
the exact same thing again that we just did.
It's another trip-o-let, one two, tah,
and then in measure four we have
another triplet, this time it starts on
C, steps down, steps back up to C, and
then skips down to A. At full speed,
that's trip-o-let, one two.
Notice every time I have a half
note I'm counting one two.
That's very important for the rhythm of
this theme. It's not going to sound good
to just race through the note without
rhythm. Make sure every half note gets
two beats. Trip-o-let, one two. Good, now can you try that pattern?
We're going to go C, B, C.
Now you try.
Now let's try it a little faster, ba ba ba buh.
You try. Now, putting it together it will
sound like this. Trip-o-let,
one two, one two, trip-o-let, one two, tah,
trip-o-let, one two, tah
trip-o-let, one two.
Now press pause and try that much
five times, then press play when you're
ready to go on.
Okay, we've made it most of the way
through measure four. After we play the
trip-o-let
one two, ending on that A, now our left hand is going to start the melody again and
we'll have another trip-o-let on the
D and then we launch into the same
melody again.
trip-o-let, one two, tah, trip-o-let, one two, tah, trip-o-let, one two, then the left hand goes
once again
Triplet on D, trip-o-let, then we have a
quarter note on G in the right hand,
then we've got this low note in the bass
clef.
Do you know what note that is? It's a low
G on the piano. Sometimes I call it
"Ground G" because it's the bottom line of
the bass clef, so I think of it as the
ground. So ground G, we have a trip-o-let
tah.
Trip-o-let and then a quarter note.
so we're gonna have to move our left hand from up here, all the way down to here.
Listen to that one more time. The left
hand starts off with the triplet at the
end of measure 8.
Trip-o-let, tah,
Trip-o-let, tah.
Let's play that pretty strong, buh buh buh bum,
with a lot of energy. Now press pause and
try that ending, trip-o-let, tah, trip-o-let, tah.
Press pause and try that three times on your own, then press play and we can try
playing the whole thing together.
Ok, here is the entire main theme. You can
just listen if you like, or if you're
ready to try playing along with me
you can. It's up to you. Here we go. I'll
count, one, two, three, and then we will begin.
One, two, three, trip-o-let, one two, one two, trip-o-let, one two, tah, trip-o-let, one
two, tah, trip-o-let, one two, trip-o-let one
two, one two, trip-o-let, one ...