How to Read Piano Rhythms & Rests in D Major

Video Transcript

"RYAN LARSON: Now we're going to through and explain to you how to read in D major. So if we look at the piano, we have D, E, F, G, A, B, C sharp, D. Two sharps, D major has two sharps, so this is our pattern and all of the notes we play today will be out of that pattern so our first passage looks like this, right? 1, 3, 5, 6, 5, 6. We number it from one to seven, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. And once you know where D is on the staff, you can go through it and find all the notes by referencing to that. So we look at the music here. We made the first measure, very user friendly. We have D in both clef. Here's D in our right hand and D in our left hand. Now, this is bass cleft and treble cleft. D falls here in the middle line on treble cleft, and D falls here right below this space right below the staff on the right hand. And it goes up, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. So we have right here, we have 1, 3, 5, 6, right? So it goes line, space, line, space, 1, 3, 5, 6. Same here, we have D. Then it goes down a notch. So we have 1, then there's 7. And then it goes down a notch and up a notch so we have 1 and 6, right? 1 and 6 around 7, and then this moves down a notch so instead of 1 and 6, we have 7 and 5. So you can see how we're just reading a simple pattern here, and now, when we apply it to the keyboard, we can go all right; we have 1 then 7 then 1 and 6 and then 5 and 7. So we're just moving around this D major pattern which we will go over and over again, and I'll go through and analyze the tune and some of this analyzation would be on the copy that you print out at home so you can go through it and decipher it on your own time."