Ode to Joy: the first notes

A third phrase you can't play yet

This is the third phrase of the Ode to Joy, bars 9–12, with both hands. Press “Listen” and follow the cursor.

The middle of the Ode. You play the whole right hand at the end of this lesson.

There is only one finger number for the right hand here: a 2 over the first note. The first phrase in lesson 0 could be played from numbers alone; this one cannot. Fingering is written only where the hand needs a hint, and the rest you read. And there is plenty to read: two short notes under a shared beam in bars 10 and 11, an odd little sign in bar 12 where the right hand is silent, and a lower line with a sign of its own at the start.

By the end of the lesson you will read these notes and play the whole Ode with the right hand, sixteen bars: slowly first, then in tempo. The left hand is written in another clef; you start reading it in lesson 2, but you can try it today.

If you opened the course at this lesson, look at lesson 0 first: it covers the keys, octaves, finger numbers and connecting the EZ-310.

Five lines

Play five white keys in a row from middle C (C4) to the right: C, D, E, F, G. Or listen: five notes up. Each one sounds a little higher than the last. Here are the same notes written down, up and back down again:

Up, C, D, E, F, G, and back. The higher the sound, the higher the note.

Notes are written on a staff of five lines. The lines are counted from the bottom: the first is the lowest. A note sits either on a line, with the line running through its middle, or between two lines, in a space. Higher on the staff means a higher sound and a key further right.

A step from a line to the next space, or from a space to the next line, is a step to the next white key. That is why five notes in a row look like a staircase: line, space, line, space, line.

The treble clef: where G lives

The staff alone does not say which note is where: the staircase could start on any key. The sign at the start of the line decides that: the treble clef. Its curl wraps around the second line from the bottom, and the note on that line is G4, the G above middle C. The others are counted from it:

• G (G4) on the second line;
• F (F4) in the space below it;
• E (E4) on the bottom line;
• D (D4) below the staff, just touching the bottom line;
• C (C4) lower still, on its own short line.

The short line under C is a ledger line. Middle C no longer fits on the five lines, so a sixth is drawn for it, just under the note itself.

Put your right thumb on middle C and the other fingers on the next white keys. Fingers 1, 3 and 5 land on the notes written on lines: C, E, G. Fingers 2 and 4 land on the notes in spaces: D and F. Odd finger, line; even finger, space. The rule holds as long as your thumb is on middle C, and in the Ode it stays there for the whole lesson.

A note appears on the staff. Play it on the keys, in exactly that octave, or choose its name.

What if a note moves by one step? Below is the first phrase of the Ode, bars 1–4, taken from the same score as the wall. Choose any note, move it up or down and play the phrase.

Under the notes are the finger numbers of the C position. The moved note is highlighted.

One step on the staff is the next white key and the next finger. That is why a reading mistake is heard at once: the tune stumbles on exactly one note. And if you move C down or G up, the note leaves the hand: there are only five fingers.

A note is named in words. Click the line or space where it goes. Middle C sits on a ledger line below the staff.

In the C position, which finger of the right hand plays the note on the bottom line of the staff?

Finger 1: the bottom line is the first Finger 3 Finger 5

The bottom line holds E4, and in the C position E is under finger 3. The thumb lies lower, on C, and its note is written on a ledger line below the staff.

The C position

A five-finger position is a place for the hand on the keyboard where each finger has its own key. In the C position the right thumb lies on middle C (C4) and the little finger on G (G4). Every note of the right hand in the Ode lies between middle C and that G, so you place the hand once and it never moves.

The C position: the thumb on middle C, the little finger on G.

The hand is as in lesson 0: rounded fingers, pressing with the pad near the tip, a level wrist. A finger that is not playing still rests on its key, so you never have to look for it.

Play the five notes up and down from the page. You can switch the names on with the tick box, but try without them: read the note from the staff and let the finger find the key, without looking at your hand.

How long a note lasts

Where a note sits on the staff tells you which key to press. How long to hold it, the note's shape tells you. The unit of length is the beat, an even step under the music, like your steps when you walk. Listen to three bars: four short sounds, two longer ones and one long one: listen.

Four quarter notes, two half notes, a whole note.

• A quarter note is a filled head with a stick, a stem. It lasts one beat.
• A half note has a hollow head and a stem. Two beats.
• A whole note is a hollow head with no stem. Four beats. The right hand of the Ode has none, but the left has many: it often holds one low note for the whole bar.

A stem points up or down only to fit on the staff; it does not change the note's length. Count aloud: “one, two, three, four”. A quarter note gets one count. A half note gets two: press on “three”, hold through “four”. A whole note gets all four.

Read the rhythm, listen to it if you like, and tap it after the count-in: on Space, any key or the big button. Count aloud.

The bar and 4/4 time

The beats of the Ode come in fours, and each four is closed off by a vertical line. Everything between two such lines is a bar (in America, a measure), and the lines are bar lines. In the course's scores each bar has its number above it, small and slanted; bar 1 has none, since it is the first anyway. Do not confuse these with finger numbers, which sit right over the notes, bold and coloured. The lessons name bars by these numbers: bar 4 is the one with a 4 above it. At the end of the piece the bar line is double, with the second line heavier: no more notes follow.

How many beats a bar holds and which note counts as a beat is written once, at the start, right after the clef: two figures, one above the other. This is the time signature. The Ode's is 4/4: the upper 4 means four beats to a bar, the lower one that a beat is a quarter note. The first beat of the bar, “one”, is a little heavier than the rest, and every phrase of the Ode starts on it.

Find the clef, the time signature, the bar lines and the bar numbers. Press “Listen” and count aloud, four to a bar.

The first three bars count evenly: one quarter note, one count. In bar 4 the count stumbles, and that is the first thing to read beyond quarter and half notes.

The dot in bar 4

Listen to bar 4 on its own, together with the bar before it. The first note, E, lasts longer than a beat, the second, D, is shorter, and then D is held for two beats. This is how three of the theme's four phrases end in Beethoven.

On paper there are two new signs here. To the right of the E is a dot: a dot makes a note longer by half its length. A quarter is one beat, its half is half a beat, together a beat and a half. The D after it is a note with a flag on its stem, an eighth note: it lasts half a beat. A beat and a half plus a half makes exactly two beats, like two quarters, only split unevenly: long, short. Eighth notes come properly in lesson 3; for bar 4 it is enough to count with “and”: “one-and-two-and-three-and-four-and”. Press E on “one” and hold it through “and” and “two”, D on the “and” after “two”, and the second D on “three”, held to the end of the bar.

Compare the bar as written with the same bar without the dot. The count under the notes lights up with the sound.

Without the dot the bar comes out even and a little wooden: the phrase walks to its end and stops. With the dot the E lingers, and the short D pushes on to the last note. Bars 8 and 16 have the same rhythm one step lower: a dotted D, C, C.

The first phrase from the notes: the next note is highlighted, any tempo. Try without the names first; if you get stuck, switch them on with the tick box.

If you slip, that spot needs slower reading. Stop on the note where you stumbled, play it and the next one two or three times, then start the phrase again.

Smoothly: legato

Play the start of the Ode, E, E, F, G, so that there is no silence between the sounds. The next key goes down at the moment the one before comes up: one finger rises as the other is already down, like your feet when you walk. This smooth, connected playing is called legato, and the tune of the Ode is played legato.

Two Es in a row cannot be joined: for a key to sound again, you have to let it go. Release it as late as you can, just before the repeat. Listen to what happens if you release earlier or later, then try it yourself.

Each note is a strip from press to release. Between the strips you see where the sound broke off and where notes ran into each other.

Gaps come when a finger hurries up straight after pressing, and a smeared sound when you forget to lift the finger before. Neither is cured by force. Do not press harder; watch the moment the finger comes up.

Bars 9–12: two eighths and a rest

Now the lesson's wall. You already know its notes: D, E, F, C, all in the C position. What is new here is the rhythm.

The third phrase: two eighths in bars 10 and 11, a rest in bar 12.

In bars 10 and 11, on the second beat, two notes stand under one crossbar: two eighth notes, E and F, half a beat each. The crossbar, a beam, replaces the two flags when eighths share a beat. Count “one, two-and, three, four”: E on “two”, F on “and”. Fingers 3 and 4 play them.

In bar 12 the right hand plays C and D, and on the third beat a small rectangle sits on the middle line. This is a rest: two beats of silence, as long as a half note. Rests come properly in lesson 2, and the tune shows why this one is here. In Beethoven the melody dives down on the third beat of this bar, below middle C, out of the position. In the easy version the right hand falls silent for those two beats, and the left takes the G instead, an octave lower still: G2. The right hand does not move: count the rest aloud, “three, four”, with finger 3 over E, because bar 13 starts on E.

The rest you have read already. Bars 5–7 repeat bars 1–3, bar 8 is bar 4 one step lower, and bars 13–16 are bars 5–8 again, note for note. Of the Ode's sixteen bars only nine are different, and you have played eight of them. There are even fewer rhythms in the right hand, four: every bar uses one of them.

The whole right hand of the Ode is four rhythms. Tap each after the count-in, counting aloud; do not tap on the rest.

How long is the rest in bar 12?

One beat: the sign is tiny Two beats Four beats, the whole bar

It is a half rest, and its silence lasts as long as a half note, two beats. Before it the bar already has two quarter notes, C and D; together that makes exactly four beats, as 4/4 time requires.

The left hand: two keys

The lower line of music, with its own sign at the start, is for the left hand. The sign is the bass clef; you learn to read it in lesson 2, along with how a brace joins the two staves. For now one thing is enough: the left hand in the Ode plays only two keys. The thumb takes C3, the little finger G2. Between them lie two white keys, A and B, and fingers 2, 3 and 4 simply rest over them. All its notes are long: whole notes for the whole bar, and half notes.

Both hands on the EZ-310: bright, the two keys of the left hand, G2 and C3; paler, the right hand's C position.

You can try the left hand right now by the lights: the key to press lights up on the on-screen keyboard, and the “teacher” plays the right hand. You do not need to read the lower staff for this.

The metronome and tempo on the EZ-310

Above the first bar of the music stands ♩ = 80. This is the tempo: eighty quarter notes a minute, 80 BPM. A beat lasts 60 ÷ 80 = 0.75 s, a bar of four beats 3 s, and the whole Ode, sixteen bars, 48 s. A metronome helps you keep the tempo: it clicks the beats evenly, and you play along. The EZ-310 has one built in, and it needs no cable.

The metronome at 80

The metronome's time signature is set separately, and Songs and Styles each set their own. Set 4/4 yourself: when the upper number of the time signature is not zero, the first beat of the bar sounds as a bell and the others as clicks, so you hear “one” at once.

4/4 for the metronome

How to practise with the metronome. Set a tempo below the written one, say 60, and play the phrase, counting aloud with the clicks. Clean twice in a row? Add 5 BPM. Slipped? Go back a step. 80 is the goal, not the starting point.

The Ode on the instrument

With the cable you can also copy the Ode itself, as the course recorded it, onto the EZ-310: both hands, ♩ = 80.

Once the file is on the instrument, press [SONG/STYLE] until SONG lights up, and choose the Song with the [USER&STORAGE] button: Songs from a computer are in this category from number 158. [START/STOP] starts and stops the Song. The Song's tempo is changed with the same [TEMPO/TAP] button: set 60 and play the right hand along with the instrument.

The whole Ode with the right hand

The ladder is simple: phrase by phrase in “Wait for me”, where the site waits for your note, then the whole right hand in “Wait for me”, then in tempo, slowly at first. The “teacher” plays the left hand throughout. Practise in short sessions, 15–20 minutes, but every day: that way your fingers learn the way more surely than in one long evening.

Bars 1–4. The first note is E, finger 3, though your hand sits with the thumb on C. Count aloud even while the site waits: the count will become a habit before you need it.

Bars 5–8. The start is the same, only the end is different: a dotted D, C, C. The phrase comes home to the thumb.

Bars 9–12. Finger 2 on D, the two eighths with fingers 3 and 4, a rest in bar 12. Keep your hand where it is: the next note is E with finger 3.

The whole right hand, sixteen bars in a row. You have played bars 13–16 already: they are bars 5–8.

Now in tempo, slowly: bars 1–8 at 75%, which is ♩ = 60. First a bar of count-in, four clicks, then play with the clicks. Here the timing counts too: a note must land within a quarter of a beat of its place. If you are late on the eighth notes in bars 4 and 8, count the “and” aloud.

And the last step: the whole right hand in tempo. Start at 75% and add 5% each time a run passes, that is, when the result line shows at least 90% right notes and 75% “on time”. A hundred per cent, ♩ = 80, is the tempo at which the course recorded the Ode.

After lesson 2: both hands

Once you have read the bass clef in lesson 2, come back here: both hands, first in “Wait for me”, then in tempo. A run with both hands in tempo that passes from the first bar to the last puts a mark by the Ode on the course's shelf.

What next

Now you can read five notes in the treble clef, from middle C up to G4, you know the quarter, half and whole note, you count a bar in four and can read a dotted quarter. Your right hand sits in the C position, plays smoothly and gets through the whole Ode, from the first bar to the last. The EZ-310's metronome counts with you at the tempo you need.

Check yourself at the keys:

• Name the notes of bars 1–4 aloud without playing: “E, E, F, G…”, from the staff, with no labels.
• Bars 1–8, right hand, “In tempo” at 75%: 90% right notes or more.
• C, D, E, F, G and back in the card “What happens between the notes”: not a single gap between different notes.
• Tap bar 4, counting aloud “one-and-two-and-three-and-four-and”.
• Without a cable: switch on the EZ-310's metronome at 60, or press “Listen” by the notes above with the tempo at 75%, and play along on the instrument, checking by ear.

The next wall is Schumann's Melody. There the right hand goes higher, the left plays along with it, and in bar 4 you will recognise the rest, only shorter.

Both hands at once, and the lower staff in the bass clef. You read it in lesson 2.

The bass clef, two staves at once and rests: in lesson 2.