Work Text:
Credentials: I’m officially Grade 6 on the piano but I’ve played Grade 8 exam pieces to a decent standard without taking the exam. I’ve been playing the piano since 2005 aged seven and I’ve completed two theory exams including Grade 5. The rest of my family also play the piano to various examined and unexamined degrees, so, yes, I think I’m probably qualified to write this… I hope… I mean, I’m not a concert pianist or anything…
I was actually inspired by the (possibly not as mad) violin and clarinet versions of this by JessamyGriffith, and gelishan who started it all.
Contents:
- Glossary of Terms
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Types of Pianos
- Grades, Theory and Exams
- Music
- How to Play
- What a piano is like to have and handle
- How to make an awful racket on a piano
-
Bad pianos
Glossary of Terms:
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Piano |
(Pronounced normally) That thing what you is playing, mate |
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Notes/keys |
The white and black panels on the piano, which is how sounds are made. Notes are named by the letters A to G. |
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White notes |
The white notes, which are played more |
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Black notes |
The black notes, which are played less. Black notes are spaced in groups of two and three. This is how pianists tell which note is which. |
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Keyboard |
The part of the piano containing all the notes |
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Lid |
The panel that folds over the keyboard. It sometimes can be locked and often has sections to make it easier to fold up and down. If you trap your fingers under it, it hurts. |
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Piece (of music) |
A musical piece; a sheet of music; a song; a tune; a melody |
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Sheet music |
Music on loose-leaf paper |
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To read music |
To look at the music and be able to understand the notes. Being able to read music is different to being able to play music, but usually people can do both, however, music is written in the same way for most instruments, so someone could be able to read piano music but not be able to play it on the piano. |
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To sight-read |
To play a piece of music that you haven’t learnt. |
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Forte |
Pronounced ‘for-tay’ as it is Italian. This means ‘loud’ and it is a direction for how to play the piece. |
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Piano |
Pronounced ‘pyar-noh’ as it is Italian. This means ‘soft’ or ‘quiet’ and it is a direction for how to play the piece. This is where the word for the instrument comes from because it used to be called a Pianoforte (a loud-soft). |
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Beat |
The rhythmic repeat of a piece, so, basically, what the beat of a piece usually means. However, piano music is written in beats per minute and is split up with ‘bars’ accordingly. |
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Bar |
A vertical line to split up a piece of music into the same number of beats. |
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Clef |
A clef is a symbol on the music to tell you the position of the piano the line of notes is at. There are treble clefs and bass clefs (and a few other weird ones, but we won’t bother with those) and treble is higher whilst bass is lower. Usually treble is played in the right hand and bass in the left. |
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A pause written into the music. |
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Staccato |
(Pronounced ‘stah-car-toe’.) This means to play the notes jerkily and sharply. |
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Legato |
(Pronounced ‘leg-gar-toe’. Rhymes with staccato.) This means to play the notes smoothly and fluidly. |
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Pedal |
There are two or three pedals at the base of a piano. The left one is to soften the sound of the music (and often doesn’t work – nobody really bothers with it). The middle one can be pushed down and left and also keeps the sound muffled, a bit like a muffler on a trumpet: it’s just for practising quietly and sometimes can make the music sound a bit rubbish. The right one is what people refer to when they want to add ‘pedal’ to a piece. This blurs the notes together and, to play it properly, it needs to be let up every few notes, then pushed down again. |
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Accidentals |
Umbrella term for sharps and flats (and naturals, double sharps, and double flats, but let’s not get too complicated). |
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Sharp |
Played on the black note (or white note, rarely) one higher than the note that is being sharpened. If you want a C sharp (a C#), then you play the note above a C. |
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Flat |
Played on the black note (or white note, rarely) one lower than the note that is being flattened. If you want a B flat (a B♭), then you play the note below a B. |
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A one-beat note. |
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A repeated pattern of eight notes walked up and down the piano. There is a different one for each musical note with a different pattern of sharps and flats. |
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More than one note played at once. |
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A repeated pattern of notes walked up and down the piano that, if they were played together, would make a chord. There is a different arpeggio for each musical note with a different pattern of sharps and flats. |
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Middle C |
The C note in the middle of the piano. |
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The collection of sharps or flats at the beginning of the line of music which tell you which notes to repeatedly sharpen or flatten. |
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The numbers written almost like a fraction at the beginning of a line of music which tell you how many beats are in a bar. 4/4 is most common. |
Types of Pianos:
Upright pianos: These are the most common type of piano because they are cheaper than grand pianos and also more compact. Some people (eg. my dad) like to buy them second-hand because they apparently develop a ‘character’ to them over time. Look online for prices, but as a rough guestimate, I’d say pianos, both secondhand and new, match up well to the prices of cars secondhand and new.
Grand pianos: These are more expensive and make a nicer sound. They rarely fit in people’s houses, but you’ll often find them in concert halls etc. The right way to play one is to have the lid propped up (so that the strings and hammers inside the piano aren’t muffled). Baby grands are smaller.
Electric pianos: Electric pianos are often more practical than ordinary pianos, most of all because you can wear headphones to practise. However, given the choice, usually ordinary pianos are nicer to play because the notes have a heavier quality to them and, therefore, it’s easier to control how loud and soft you play on an ordinary piano. I feel very disorientated when I play electric pianos because the notes just flop down when you press them; like trying to poke a person who moves out of the way.
Keyboard: Very, very practical, but horrible to play because the keys give way even worse than on an electric piano: there’s no weight to them! If you cannot guess, I have a bias against keyboards. Often the notes do not let you play them louder or softer unless you use the volume slider and, and just… urgh! They are, however, compact, cheap, transportable and usually ¾ of the size of a piano in length.
The best make of piano is supposed to be Steinway, a bit like how Rolls Royce cars are known to be nice cars. But not like ‘Stradivarius’ violins are good violins. Steinways are not rare; it is just that they cost about the same as a very nice car bought new.
Yamaha is a common make of piano and usually make black-bodied shiny pianos.
Grades, Theory and Exams:
Grades are the official levels in piano. They go from Grade 1 to Grade 8 officially, but younger children can do a Preparatory Grade which comes before Grade 1. Prep Grade can be examined but it doesn’t have to be. So, in a list, it looks like this:
Prep(aratory) (optional)
Grade 1
Grade 2
Grade 3
Grade 4
Grade 5
Grade 6
Grade 7
Grade 8
The exams to pass for each of these are practical exams and involve sitting at a piano with an examiner behind you at a table, making notes. You usually would spend about a year preparing for an exam, learning three exam pieces taken from a list of pre-approved pieces for that year’s exam grade. Then, after you’ve sat the exam, your piano teacher gets the certificate posted to him or her and they give it to you.
You can get either…
Fail (a fail, obviously)
Pass (a pass)
Merit (a better pass)
Distinction (the best pass)
…and it gets harder and harder to pass as you go up the grades. It's not even possible to fail the Preparatory Grade 'exam'; you're just given a certificate for participation.
Theory exams are exams that accompany each grade if you want to do them. They are theoretical: so, you sit down in a room and are given ample time to complete an exam paper with the option to leave when you’ve finished. Theory exams are all optional exams with the exception of Grade 5 theory, which you have to complete if you want to do exams in Grades 6-8 (or, at least, this is true of the ABRSM exam board; apparently it is not so true of some others such as Trinity).
You’ll probably start playing hands-together in Grade 1. It’s not as difficult as it sounds.
Grade 3 is when you can start to play decent tunes more often than not. If you want to play decent pieces before about Grade 3, it usually has to be a simplified version of the piece.
To play music for the first time without having learnt it beforehand is called ‘sight-reading’. In my opinion, Grade 5 is the stage at which you can start to confidently sight-read music, but it really varies because some people are better at sight-reading than others.
You are not allowed to join a lot of professional orchestras and music groups until you are Grade 8 officially.
Music:
Have a look at this website for different levels of music difficulty! It goes from Grade 1 to 8.
How to Play:
Two hands on the piano (you can mime it on a desk): left hand and right hand. I hope you know your left from your right, but, if you don’t, the left hand is the one that makes an L shape with the finger and thumb when it is face-down. Pianists often have to learn this very early on or risk embarrassment, so you will almost never find a pianist, even a child, who gets mixed up on a regular basis once they’ve been playing the piano for a bit.
Before you play, make sure your hands are sat as if there is a mouse curled under the palm, like this.
This is so you can move more easily over the notes of the piano. Then you read the music in front of you or improvise something, and play the notes specified using all of your fingers (not just index finger and thumb). To move along the piano in a long series of notes, tuck your thumb under your hand just after your third or fourth finger (ring finger) has played, and play the note your fourth finger (ring finger) or fifth finger (pinkie) would’ve played with your thumb. To move the other way, play the note after your thumb’s note with your third/fourth finger, etc.
Playing a piano is mostly muscle memory, so you can play a well-learnt piece with your eyes closed or not looking at the piano. Beginners and uncertain intermediate pianists often look at their hands rather than the piano music, and have to keep looking back up at the music (and losing their place in the music… from experience, may I tell you now that this is very embarrassing). As you get more experienced, you can look more at the music and less at your hands.
Playing both left and right hand is not as difficult as it sounds: left hand is usually simpler or repeated and, when learning a piece properly, you usually learn the music hands-separately anyway to start with.
What a piano is like to have and handle:
The notes have a weight which allows you control over the softness or loudness of the sound. Leaning closer often helps to control the notes, but sitting up straight is recommended as a posture. The notes feel smooth and cold, like porcelain, but can get warm and slightly finger-oil-sticky after playing. At the top and bottom ends of the piano, there is often a lot of dust and bits and pieces. In a house, the top of an upright piano can end up covered in piles of clutter.
Tapping the keys with a nail makes a ‘thoc’ or ‘tic’ sound and sometimes your nail slides a bit when you tap it because the notes are lacquered and shiny. An old piano that has gotten dulled (not shiny, I mean, as in lost its lacquer), will make a scrapey sort of sound and your nail won’t really slide much.
Pedals are hard and cold, especially metal ones with bare feet. They have weight to them and different pianos have pedals that press down shallowly or deeply. It can be very odd to play shallow pedals when you own a deep-pedalled piano (like I do).
Literally anything can bother a pianist about a piano that is not theirs: the weight of the keys, the height of the piano stool, the depth of the actual keys, the depth of the pedals… etc. Oh the woe of playing a large, stationary instrument!
Before a person plays the piano, they will have to put the stool about an arm’s length away and change the height (if possible) and possibly shuffle the stool back and forth by millimetres if necessary. This can take a while. I, myself, like wiping the piano down before playing (because sticky fingers and urgh).
An upright piano makes a nicer sound when it is slightly away from the wall.
Pianos need to be tuned occasionally to make the piano sound better (eg. once a year).
Pianos usually have wheels, but moving one is like moving a bookcase in weight. They don’t like being moved. Sometimes they can fall on people who move them.
How to make an awful racket on a piano:
- Make sure that, if the piano has a middle pedal, it is not pushed down. To push it up, sit down at the piano stool, shove your foot under, give the pedal a light pressure whilst sliding it to the right, and it should clunk upwards, a bit like a gear-stick going into reverse.
- Press the right pedal with your foot. You ought to have shoes or slippers on, but un-shod feet work just as well for just constant pressing. Now keep the pedal down for the entirety of the chaos: this will merge all the notes together so that they slowly fade out; minutes per note, usually.
- Turn your hands into claws but leave them flexible…
- …This is so you don’t hurt your hands when you slam them down onto the keys involving both black notes and white notes. Keep slamming them down in different places. Involve both ends of the piano as far down as you can each way, because the highest and lowest keys are usually the most out of tune.
- Sit innocently at the piano with the pedal kept down and maybe let the lid fall down a couple of times just for maximum effect. Lids make a nice loud banging sound. Push it back up afterwards, though: there’s a chance it might muffle the notes.
- And don’t feel bad: in households with pianos and children, this is a regular occurrence. Feel secure in your normality and repeat as often as you feel is a nice amount. Pianos are very difficult to break.
Bad pianos:
What can be wrong with a piano (especially public pianos such as those in churches or schools):
- Looking like people have spilt tea over the piano: the white notes are brown. This is just due to finger oils, however, not due to spills most of the time. It doesn’t affect the sound quality, but it does warn people off playing it. Usually a stained piano will have other things wrong with it as well.
- Chips on the notes. Not common, but sometimes the notes are chipped or dented. Plastic keys on electric pianos get chipped more easily than other types, but ordinary pianos are normally much more resilient. Chipping is more common on the black notes on ordinary pianos and on the white notes of electric pianos or keyboards.
- Out of tune/out of key: the notes sound slightly off what they should be. This is very common very high or very low on the piano.
- Notes sticking. Sometimes you can press a note down on a piano and it’ll hold there for a little bit before going up. This can really mess up your playing and is, coincidentally, also really common. It’s less common on electric pianos.
- Notes not playing. Sometimes notes will not make a sound at all because the bits inside them are stuck even though the key still goes up and down. When you play these you get a numb muted ‘thump’ of no specific pitch.
- The notes can take longer to fade out than usual, leaving a drawn-out mess of sound in the air behind you.
- No piano stool/one at the wrong height. Just being pedantic, but the piano stool being too low or two high can really put some people off. It should be roughly about two-stacked-chair height (which is what I did for a piano stool at our church). Normal chair height is too low and forces people to play with their elbows sticking out.