Stepping & Skipping

Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman.
Today we're learning a finger exercise that I call "Stepping and Skipping."
Let's take a look at the notes to "Stepping and Skipping" on the staff.
Here, I have all the notes to "Stepping and Skipping" dictated on the staff.
We've got our treble clef here. So, can you tell me the letter name of this note?
If you said C or middle C, you're correct.
Now, taking a look at these first few notes, the blue notes,
tell me what you notice about how the notes are moving.
If you said they're stepping, you're correct. First, they first step up all the way to G:
DO RE MI FA SO. And the way you can tell they're stepping is because they go:
line, space, line, space, line, and then what? They step right back down:
SO FA MI RE DO. Let's sing all of that together in solfège.
Point with me and sing. Go: DO RE MI FA SO FA MI RE DO.
And then, what do these kind of pinkish purple notes do? That's right they skip up,
and you can tell that because it goes: line, line, line.
So it skipped over the space notes. So we have: DO MI SO.
Then what would the solfège be for these two notes? If you said MI DO,
you're correct. Now let's put that all together starting on this blue DO:
DO MI SO MI DO, and then, here with these red notes,
you notice how they're stacked over each other, and whenever notes align,
stacked like this, that means to play them together in a chord.
So here, you're going to play DO and SO together in a chord.
Now, let's sing the whole thing together in solfège. Go:
DO RE MI FA SO FA MI RE
DO MI SO MI DO,
Chord.

Next, we're going to take :Stepping and Skipping" to the piano,
but first I wanted to mention why we do finger exercises like this anyway.
Finger exercises are a great way for you to develop agility and technique
with your fingers, to prepare you to play more advanced music in the future.
Whenever we learn a finger exercise, it's super important
that you use your very best piano posture as you practice it.
Otherwise, you're training bad habits instead of correct habits.
If you practice the wrong way long enough, you could actually become an expert
at doing it wrong. That's no good. So, always make sure you are building good,
correct habits with great piano posture every time you practice.

So, let's do a quick rundown of our piano posture checklist,
and then we'll learn how to play "Stepping and Skipping."
Number one: your bench position.
Make sure you're not too close to the keys,
or you'll get those Tyrannosaurus Rex arms.
Your bench should be positioned so your elbows are slightly in front of your torso,
just comfortably floating out there.
Number two: tall back, shoulders down.
Number three: let's test your arm weight, and today let's try it this way:
float both of your arms up, pretend like you're a puppet,
when you have some strings holding up your arm, and then when I say, cut!
The strings get cut and your arms, because you can't control yourself
since you're just a puppet, just fall. Try it with me.
Someone's pulling those strings up, and then cut the strings.
Your arms drop. Good.
And then, number four: check in with your hand and finger shape.
Make sure your fingers are relaxed and curved.

Okay, go ahead and hold up your right hand with me,
and we're going to move our fingers to "Stepping and Skipping."
Remember, the words of the song
are just going to say exactly what your fingers are doing, like this:

♫ Stepping up, and stepping down, and skipping up and down ♫

And then, chord. Now, try it with me starting with right hand, finger number 1.
Ready, go:

♫ Stepping up, and stepping down, and skipping up and down ♫
Chord.

Good, and remember there are no repeating notes in this,
so unlike "Chocolate," when you get to the top, not going to play this finger again,
it just goes: as soon as you play that finger 5, it immediately starts stepping down.
There's not a single repeated note in the whole thing.
Now, this time let's try singing the finger numbers as we go.
So, we're starting with 1, sing the finger numbers with me, ready, go:
1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2
1 3 5 3 1,
chord, 1 and 5.
Okay, let's try it with our left hand, and this time,
let's again sing the finger numbers, and remember,
what finger number are we starting on, starting on with the left hand?
If you said 5, you're correct. So it will go: 5 4 3 2 1 2 3 4 5 3 1 3 5.
Okay, try that and see if you can keep up with me. Start on finger 5, ready, go:
5 4 3 2 1 2 3 4
5 3 1 3 5,
chord
Good. Right, now bring that nice piano posture, relaxed hand shape
up to the keys and find the C pentascale, and we're going to try
"Stepping and Skipping" using ...