Two-octave Scales & Arpeggios

Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph
Hoffman
and in this lesson we're going to take
scales and arpeggios to the next level
by extending them to two octaves instead
of just one. Let's come to the piano to
start learning. So, when we say two
octaves, if we started here on middle C
we'd go up one octave, and then one more
octave, then we're going to come back for
the total distance of two octaves. Let's
play this together. On your own piano can
you play middle C, then go up an octave,
we call that treble C, and then go up one
more octave, we call that high C. So now
we've traveled two octaves. Let's go back
down one octave and then two octaves
back to where we started. Now, to play a
full two octave C major scale, we're
going to think of the notes in groups of
three and four, like this. You can see for
these purple, that's our group of three,
and when we play the scale, that's going
to be with fingers 1 2 3 of the
right hand, and then next you'll see a
group of four. That's these orange and
that will be fingers 1 2 3 4,
and then when we get back to C we'll
start that pattern over again. Fingers
1 2 3,
then fingers 1 2 3 4, and then
you'll notice this one blue on top.
That's for your finger 5, your pinky,
when you're playing a two octave or more,
will only play one single note. And
that's because that's the top note and
then you can come back down a group of
four, group of three, group of four, group of three.
Now, let's practice those groups
in clusters, which means we'll play all
of those notes together in a group. So
with your fingers 1 2 and 3, play
C D E together as a group. When you play a
scale that's the first grouping, then
come up to F G A B and play with fingers
1 2 3 4. That's your next
group of four, then come up you play
group of three on C D E, then a group of
four F G A B, and then finger 5 is all
by itself. Plays that top note, then a
group of four,
then a group of three on C D E, then a
group of four, then a group of three. Good,
let's try that one more time. Play along
with me playing the notes in little
clusters of groups of three and four.
Here we go, group of three on C D E, group
of four starting on F, group of three
starting on C, group of four starting on F,
then finger 5 plays that high C all
by itself. Group of four, group of three
group of four, group of three.
Good, now press pause if you need more
practice with that, otherwise let's try
playing the notes one at a time now, and
when you finish a group your thumb will
just glide under. Remember, if you turn
your hand a little bit sideways, lead
with your elbow and wrist, and then your
thumb will easily be able to find its
way under. If your elbow is too close to
your body when your thumb comes under
it's going to cause a lot of jerky
motion, but if you kind of let your elbow
float out to the side so your arms kind
of at this angle, you can see by letting
your hand be at this angle your thumb will
more easily be able to glide under.
Your arm can stay in a pretty smooth
position.
What you want to avoid is this kind of
elbow and arm flopping to get your thumb
under. Try and find a nice angle so your
thumb can just glide under. So let's try
this together. Place your right hand
finger 1 on middle C and let's play
1 2 3, let your thumb glide under,
1 2 3 4, then your thumb's
gonna glide under again to land on C.
Okay let's try that one more time. Come
back to middle C, finger 1 on C, go 1 2 3, and as you're playing 2
3 your thumb should already be kind
of gliding across 1 2 3 4 1
and then we start over again.
We're on on treble C now, 2 3
finger 1 comes under to F, and then our
finger 5 plays high C. Now let's come
down, 4 3 2 1, finger 3
glides across, 3 2 1 4 glides
across, three glides across. So when
you're coming down it's important to
keep track of 4 3 4 3. If
you don't keep track of that you may
cross over instead of a 4, you may
cross over a 3, and then you'll run
out of fingers too soon. So it's very
important to think as you're coming down,
think 4
3
4
3
Another trick to remembering your
fingering, is that finger 4 plays B
and only B. Whenever you get to a B make
sure you're playing it with finger 4.
That's the only note that finger 4 ever
plays in the scale. Okay, now press pause
and on your own, work on your C major two
octave scale being very careful with
this fingering. I recommend that you say
3 and 4 out loud every time you
play a 3 or a 4, ...