Schumann, Melody: two hands

Two lines of notes at once

This is the opening of Robert Schumann's Melody, bars 1–4, with both hands. Press “Listen”. Above, the tune moves along unhurriedly; below, one low note sounds for every half bar. At the end of bar 4 the cursor goes back to the start and runs through the same bars once more.

Two lines of notes: the upper one for the right hand, the lower one for the left. They are played at the same time.

You know the upper staff from the Ode: the treble clef, quarter notes, 4/4 time. But the notes sit above G, where the Ode never went. The lower staff starts with a different sign, and without it not a single left-hand note can be read. The two staves are joined on the left by a bracket. In bar 4 the right hand has a small sign on the last beat, shorter than the rest in the Ode. Before the double bar line after bar 4 there are two dots, and the first note has the letter p beside it.

By the end of the lesson you will read all of this and play the Melody with both hands, all twenty bars, slowly first, then in tempo. The lesson builds on lesson 1: the treble clef, quarter and half notes, the dot and counting to four. If you have not done it, start there.

Above G

In the Ode the right hand stayed on five keys, from middle C to G4. The Melody starts on E5, five white keys above that G. The staircase from lesson 1 has to go further up. Listen to it: from G4 up to A5.

Nine notes up the treble staff: from G on the second line to A above the staff.

The counting is the same, step by step: line, space, line.

• G (G4) on the second line, as in the Ode;
• A (A4) in the second space;
• B (B4) on the middle, third line;
• C (C5), the C above middle C, in the third space;
• D (D5) on the fourth line;
• E (E5) in the top space;
• F (F5) on the top, fifth line;
• G (G5) above the staff, just touching the top line;
• A (A5) on a ledger line above.

The ledger line above is the same short line as the one under middle C below: the staff has run out, and the note needs somewhere to sit.

A note from A4 to A5 appears on the staff. Play it on the keys, in the right octave, or choose its name.

Two right-hand positions

From G to A there are nine white keys, and only five fingers. So in Schumann's piece the right hand sits in one place, then in another. In bars 1–2 the thumb is on A4 and the little finger on E5. Let us call this the A position. In bar 3 the hand moves higher: the thumb on D5, the little finger on A5. This is the D position.

The A position: the thumb on A4, the little finger on E5. The D position: the thumb on D5, the little finger on A5.

The finger numbers in the score show where the hand changes place. A number stands wherever the finger would otherwise land on the wrong key:

• bar 1: a 5 over E, the A position, and the tune comes down with fingers 5, 4, 3, 2;
• bar 2: a 1 over A, the first of four eighth notes, and a 1 over the last G: the thumb reaches from A to the next key down;
• bar 3: a 4 over G5, the hand jumps to the D position and comes down with fingers 4, 3, 2, and a 3 over C at the end of the bar takes it back to the A position.

Moving the hand gets a closer look in lesson 3. Here one rule is enough: when you see a finger number, put that finger on that note and let the others fall on the keys beside it. In “Wait for me” the site waits while the hand moves.

In bar 2 four notes share one beam: eighth notes, as in bars 10–11 of the Ode, only there are four of them here, over two beats. Count “one-and-two-and”: A on “one”, C on “and”, B on “two”, D on “and”. Eighth notes get a closer look in lesson 3 too.

The first phrase with the right hand: the next note is highlighted, at any tempo. Watch the finger numbers in bars 1, 2 and 3.

The bass clef: where F lives

Now the left hand. With the left hand, play five white keys from B2 to the right: B, C, D, E, F. Or listen: five left-hand notes. These are all the keys the left hand presses in the Melody.

In the treble clef these notes would need four or five ledger lines below the staff each, and reading them would be torture. So the lower staff has a sign of its own. It looks like a large comma with two dots to its right, and the dots hug the fourth line from the bottom. The note on that line is F3. This is the bass clef, also called the F clef: the treble clef marks G, the bass clef marks F.

The same five notes in the bass clef, up and back. F3 sits on the line between the clef's dots.

The other notes are counted from F. The lines, from the bottom up: G2, B2, D3, F3, A3. The spaces: A2, C3, E3, G3.

The staff is the same five lines, but each line means something else. The bottom line is E4 in the treble clef and G2 in the bass clef. What happens if you read the lower staff in the treble clef out of habit?

The left hand of bars 1–4. The switch changes only the clef; the noteheads stay where they are. Tap a note to see its name in both clefs.

The mistake is not in one note but in the whole part at once. In the treble clef every note is named two letters earlier in the alphabet and moves twelve white keys higher: C3 becomes A4. The bass then collides with the tune in the same register, and the piece loses its low support. That is why the first thing you look at in a score is the clef.

Put your left hand with the little finger on B2 and the thumb on F3. The rule from lesson 1 works here too: odd finger, line; even finger, space. The little finger, 5, is B on the second line; 4 is C in the second space; 3 is D on the middle line; 2 is E in the third space; 1 is F on the fourth line, between the clef's dots.

The left hand in the Melody: the little finger on B2, the thumb on F3.

A note appears on the bass staff. Play it with the left hand in the right octave, or choose its name.

A note is named in words. Click the line or space where it sits in the bass clef. Start counting from the F between the dots.

Which note sits on the top, fifth line of the bass staff?

F5, as in the treble clef F3: the bass clef is the F clef A3

F3 is on the fourth line, between the clef's dots. Above it is the G space, and on the fifth line is A3. F5 on the top line belongs to the treble clef.

The left hand: one note per half bar

In the easy version the left hand plays only half notes: one note on “one” and one on “three” of every bar. All its notes are those five keys under the fingers, and the hand does not move for the whole piece. So the lower staff has few finger numbers: 4 and 2 in bar 1, then a 1 on F in bars 5, 7 and 15.

In Schumann's original the left hand plays not one note per half bar but almost unbroken eighth notes, broken chords. The easy version takes the first note of each half bar, an octave lower. You play the full figure in lesson 7.

The left hand of the first phrase from the bass staff. Count aloud: each note lasts two counts.

Two staves, one line

Now both staves together. On the left a curly bracket joins them, and the bar lines run straight through both. This is the grand staff: the upper staff for the right hand, the lower one for the left. The curly bracket itself is called the brace.

It is read not line by line but in columns. What is written one above the other sounds at the same time. In bar 1, E5 stands above C3: they are pressed together, on “one”. On “three”, C5 stands above E3, together again. The tune's notes in between, on “two” and “four”, the left hand skips: its half note is still sounding.

There is a gap between the staves, but it is mapped too. Middle C (C4), where the Ode began, is written on a ledger line below the upper staff or above the lower one: it belongs to both. The Melody has no such note.

The exercise below has only the columns of bars 1–4: the tune's note on “one” and on “three” and the bass under it. The tune's notes in between are left out, so every note value here is a half note.

The right-hand note is above, the left-hand note below. Press both together, at any tempo. Place the fingers first, then press.

“Together”, but how together? The fingers of two hands rarely come down in the same instant, and the ear forgives that, though not always. Listen to what happens if the left hand is late.

Bars 1–2: the right hand above, the left below, one cell is an eighth note. The bass can be shifted by half a beat or a whole beat, and then you can play the pairs yourself.

Half a beat late, the bass sounds apart from the tune, and the piece starts to limp. A whole beat late, each bass note lands under someone else's melody note: the notes are the same, the harmonies are wrong. And in “Your turn” you can see how many milliseconds apart your hands are. If one keeps hurrying, do not rush the other: first hold both fingers over the keys, then lower them in one movement.

Rests: silence keeps time too

Listen to bars 4–6 in the right hand. Each has three notes, and on the fourth beat, silence.

A rest on the fourth beat of every bar.

The sign on the fourth beat, like a stretched-out lightning bolt, is a quarter rest. A rest is silence for an exactly measured time, and every note value has one of its own. You met the half rest, a block sitting on the middle line, in bar 12 of the Ode. The whole rest is the same block, only it hangs under the fourth line, for the whole length of the bar. A quarter rest lasts one beat, as long as a quarter note.

A rest is a note value too, and it is counted just like a note. “One, two, three” are three notes; on “four” the right hand is lifted, and the count goes on. In the Melody a quarter rest falls on the fourth beat of bars 4, 5, 6, 12, 13, 14 and 20. The left hand has no rests: it sounds through the whole piece without a break.

These rests are useful to the hand. After the rest in bars 5 and 13 the next bar starts on F5 with finger 3: during the silence on “four” the hand has time to move to the D position.

The right hand of the Melody is made of five rhythms. Tap each one after the count-in, counting aloud; do not tap on the rest, but do not stop counting.

The dotted quarter and the eighth in the fourth rhythm you know from bar 4 of the Ode. In the Melody they come in bars 8 and 16: F is held for a beat and a half, D sounds on the last “and”.

Two dots after bar 4

At the end of bar 4 there is a double bar line, its second line thicker, and before it two dots, one above the other, on each staff. This is a repeat sign: when you reach it, go back and play again. Where to go back to is shown by its partner, dots on the other side of a bar line. If there is none, as here, you go back to the very beginning. So bars 1–4 sound twice, and then the piece goes on from bar 5.

The bar numbers do not change: the second time round these are still bars 1–4. Repeats with different endings, the first and second endings, come in lesson 5.

These four bars are not the only ones that come back in Schumann's piece. Bars 9 and 10 are bars 1 and 2, bar 11 is bar 7, bars 13–16 are 5–8, and 17–20 repeat 9–12, except that at the very end the bass goes to C. What is new in the piece is bars 1–8 and bar 12.

How many bars sound in the whole Melody, from the first note to the last?

Twenty: that is how many the score has Twenty-four Forty: with the repeat sign the piece is played twice

The repeat sign stands only after bar 4, and it leads back to the start, not over the whole piece. Bars 1–4 sound twice, the other sixteen once each: 8 + 16 = 24. At ♩ = 60 that is 96 beats, exactly 1 minute and 36 seconds.

Quietly: p and touch

The first note of the Melody has the letter p beside it. This is piano, Italian for “quietly”: the whole piece is played softly. Such signs get a closer look in lesson 4. For now, where quiet and loud come from on the keys.

Press one key of the EZ-310 gently, then hard. The second sound is louder: the instrument feels how hard the key is pressed. This Touch Response can be set on the EZ-310: it is function 004, “TouchRes”. There are four values:

• 1 Soft: fairly loud even with a light touch;
• 2 Medium: normal response, the factory setting;
• 3 Hard: loud only if you press very hard;
• 4 Off: every note at the same volume, however you press.

The keys themselves get neither lighter nor heavier. Only the volume that the same press produces changes.

Touch Response

Playing quietly does not mean a weak finger glancing off the key: the finger rests on the key and takes it all the way down, only more slowly. Try quiet and loud here: with the cable the exercise hears how hard you press the EZ-310's keys.

Play any note with the strength named: p, quietly; f, loudly. The scale shows where your press landed.

The Melody on the instrument

With the cable you can also put the course's recording of the Melody onto the EZ-310: both hands, ♩ = 60. The file is loaded and selected just like the Ode in lesson 1: songs from the computer go into the [USER&STORAGE] category, from number 158.

The whole Melody with two hands

The ladder is the same as in lesson 1, only with more rungs: each phrase with one hand first, then the other, then both. While you play one hand, the “teacher” plays the other. In “Wait for me” with both hands the site waits until both notes of a column are pressed together, no more than 0.12 s apart. Practise for 15–20 minutes, but every day.

Bars 1–4, right hand. They are written with a repeat, and in the practice they also sound twice. Watch the moves in bars 2 and 3.

The same bars with the left hand. The little finger on B, the thumb on F, and the hand stays put until the end of the piece.

Both hands. Slowly, column by column: on “one” and “three” you press two keys at once, in between one with the right hand. If it does not work, go back a rung; that is normal: two hands need more repetitions than each one on its own.

Bars 5–8, right hand. Bar 5 is in the A position, with finger 4 on D; during the rest, the move to the D position, finger 3 on F. Bar 8 is entirely in the D position: four eighth notes, F for a beat and a half and D on the last “and”.

Bars 9–12. Only bar 12 is new here: D with finger 1, F, and straight away B with finger 2: in the middle of the bar the hand returns to the A position. If bar 12 will not come, play it on its own with the right hand a few times and go back to both hands.

The whole piece with both hands in “Wait for me”: twenty-four bars including the repeat. Bars 13–20 you have already played: they are bars 5–12.

Now in tempo, slowly: bars 1–8 at 75%, which is ♩ = 45. First a count-in bar, then play along with the clicks. Count the rests on “four” aloud: in tempo the site does not wait, and the rest is the only time you have to move the hand.

And the last rung: the whole Melody with both hands in tempo. At 75% it takes a little over two minutes. Add 5% each time a run is passed: the result line shows at least 90% right notes and 75% “on time”. A hundred per cent, ♩ = 60, is the tempo the course's score is written in. A passed run puts a mark next to the Melody on the course's shelf.

What next

Now you read the treble staff up to A5 and the bass staff from B2 to F3, you read two staves in columns, you count rests and you know where the repeat sign takes you. Both hands play together, and the whole Melody sounds with two hands, from the first bar to the last.

Test yourself at the keys:

• Name the left-hand notes of bars 1–4 aloud from the bass staff, without playing and without labels.
• Bars 1–4 with both hands in “Wait for me”: not a single red note.
• In “If the left hand comes in late”, play the pairs yourself: all four “together” or “nearly together”.
• Tap bar 5, counting aloud, and do not tap on “four”.
• Without the cable: press “Listen” on bars 1–4 at the start of the lesson with the tempo at 75%, and play along on the instrument, checking by ear.

And go back to the Ode: now you can read its lower staff and play both hands.

The next wall is the Minuet in G major. Three beats to the bar, a sharp by the clef, eighth notes running four in a row, and five keys are not enough for the right hand.

Three beats to the bar and a sign by the clef. Reading them is for lesson 3.

3/4 time, the key signature and changing position come in lesson 3.