Playing notes on Leger Lines, how?

[Richie]

Hey everyone,

First of all, English is not my native language, but I hope you'll be able to understand my questions anyway.

Yesterday I bought myself a keyboard. I never played an insturment before, nor learned to read musical notes at school. So I started learning notes first from the lesson book which I bought aswell to learn the basic stuff.

But I'm stuck at some point already! xD I really can't figure it out myself so I wonder if anyone here could help me out.

The lessonbook I use is called "Organ & Keyboard - New Style" and in the lessons, they speak about both instruments, which is kinda confusing, but okay. Often, they speak about pedals, which I -ofcourse- don't have. I guess I have to press some keys on the left hand side of my keyboard to get the pedal effect?

So I started playing some easy stuff from the first few pages of the book. The problem is that sometimes they want me to play notes which are above the normal 5 lines of the Bass Clef, but still under the Treble Clef, so somewhere in the middle, on the Leger Lines. But I can't play these notes because I will hit the keys in the Treble Clef. There's not enough space between the Bass and the Treble to play those notes on the leger lines.

To make you clear what I mean, I scanned a music sheet which I'm trying to play now.

So how do I play these notes on the lowest bar? I don't have a clue.
Also, what is the difference between the "C" and the "G7" (on top)? Does this have something to do with the finger positions?

Hopefully someone can help me out so I can continue with my book, thanks!


Richie


(sorry for my other topic, it was a mistake.)

 

[PianoMan]

First the easy part: The "C" and the "G7" on top are chord symbols. The "C" means a C major triad... the G7 is a dominant seventh G chord. If you don't know what those mean, that's ok for now. It just tells you what chord is being played in the left hand at this point.


Now for the left hand: those notes on the ledger lines "in between" the treble and bass clef aren't actually in between them... there's a bit of an overlap. The top note, the "E", of the first chord, for example, IS the same "E" as the bottom line of the treble clef. It is written in bass clef to designate that your left hand is playing it. This type of overlap is completely normal. I hope this answers your question.

 

[letsel]

Well, not wanting to complicate thing(I'm going to anyway ), but that sheet music confuses me. I can't really figure out how that is suppose to be played. I'm no expert but I think it's impossible to play it the way they wrote it, assuming you want the notes to sustain the way it is written playing the notes with the hands they indicate. I could be wrong, havn't touched sheet music or classical music in ages.

Aside from the pedals you get in organs that play notes, there are 4 other types of pedals typically found on acoustic pianos, depending on the type and quality.

The first and most common is the sustain pedal(usually on the right), which sustains all notes pressed as long as the pedal is pressed. As soon as you release the pedal the sound stops(excluding any keys you are pressing down at the time).

The second most common pedal is the soft pedal(usually on the left), which you will typically only find in piano's, is the soft pedal, which shifts the strings a bit to one side so that the hammer strikes it differently to create a softer and different tone.

The third most common pedal is the middle pedal(guess where it sits ), also mostly found on piano's, which works like a sustain pedal, but only sustains the notes that you press at the same time you press down the pedal. So any notes you play after pressing down the middle pedal won't sustain, which the first bunch does.

The fourth(which usually takes up the place of the middle pedal), and pretty much only found on upright pianos, inserts a felt sheet between the hammer and strings, greatly muting the sound. This is meant for late night practise without disturbing others.

The whole point of pedals, and why the sit at the feet, is that your don't have to use your hands to use them, so I highly doubt you keyboard will have side buttons for it, since most music written to use pedals is written for piano. I would recommend getting a sustain pedal(most keyboards support this). I don't know much about the other pedals. I'm guessing that only a select few keyboards and digital pianos have support for soft and middle pedals, but I havn't looked and don't recall any.

On a side note though, I played the melody and it's exactly the same as a local song here called "Hansie Slim". I'm South African, so my culture has alot of dutch influence, and it seems like the writing on the sheet music is dutch. Didn't think I would find something like that here.

 

[letsel]

Oh, forgot to say welcome!

...

Welcome!

 

[PianoMan]

I'm adding to my previous post (and shedding some light for letsel perhaps). Regarding the bottom notes which, admittedly, seem impossible to play. I suspect that this piece is written for ORGAN (as opposed to piano). Organs have 2 keyboards and a bunch of PEDALS beneath that the organist plays with their left foot. Music such as this... the top staff would be played with your right hand, the bottom staff would be played by your left hand and your left foot. Seeing as you likely didn't buy an organ (they're really expensive...), just leave out the bottom note.

Also as an aside... it would probably be a good idea to take music lessons.

 

[Richie]

Hey people,

Thanks alot for the replies, much appreciated! Today I went back to the store where I bought my keyboard + lesson book and changed the book for another one which is for keyboards ONLY.
And these first lessons don't look hard at all. Thankgod, 'cause I was worried about the fact that my skills were so terrible that I couldn't even pass the first few lessons. xD

On a side note though, I played the melody and it's exactly the same as a local song here called "Hansie Slim". I'm South African, so my culture has alot of dutch influence, and it seems like the writing on the sheet music is dutch. Didn't think I would find something like that here.

Hehe yeah it's Dutch, the title says "Hansje Little" or something in that line. ^.^


It's kinda cool to just start playing some stuff from the sheet music and then suddenly, you recognize the melody I enjoy playing my keyboard very much!

 

[letsel]

Yeah, I was really suprised. I thought it was just a local nursery rhyme kids sing in elementary and pre-school around here. I'm actually curious about the lyrics for that, since the titles have different meanings. 'Slim' means clever or smart, where as 'klein' means little.

On a more surreal note, I did a google search for "Hansie Klein" to find lyrics, and the first hit was the website for the venue our band is playing at next week(The Klein Libertas Theatre). Weird. Small world.

Ah and PianoMan, yeah, it does make sense for an organ. Would explain the very low single bass note. Should have considered that since the book was for piano and organ *doh*