Hello everyone and welcome to EnglishPod.
My name is Marco. My name is Catherine and today we have a very... technical very advanced lesson for you this is all about one of my favorite subjects That's right, we're gonna talk about music, but specifically we're gonna talk about... the piano and learning how to play the piano.
So we're going to talk about very specific vocab related to this instrument.
So piano and playing music, not listening to music.
Right. So we're going to hear a lot of interesting words and phrases here.
Some of them actually come from foreign languages like Italian.
Listen up. We'll be back in a moment. And when we come back, we'll be talking about what these words and phrases mean.
Hi, Cody. How did practicing go this week?
Well, I had several tests and an oral presentation this week, so I didn't get a chance to memorize the second page.
But I think I mastered the tricky section.
Great. Warm up with some scales and arpeggios first.
Good, good. This week, work on keeping the rhythm steady when you play the last part with the 16th notes.
Now, let's take a look at this tricky section.
Before I start, I was wondering if it was okay if I put a small crescendo in here and then a decrescendo back to pianissimo. again over here hmm it might work i'll have to hear it show me what you've done Not bad.
It was horrible. I played it much better at home.
It's just nerves. Just play the right hand for now.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, ta, ti, triple E, ti. Good, good.
Don't forget the accidentals. The key signature says that note should be a G sharp, but now it's a G natural.
Now add the bass clef. You're going too fast.
Remember the temple for this piece is Andante.
Is that better? Yes much better. Watch where you lift your foot off the pedal.
What was that? Sorry, the stretch for that active is always hard to make.
That's okay. Keep going. You're moving ahead by leaps and bounds.
Watch your dynamics. Keep your elbows lifted.
Remember to stroke the keys. Don't pound.
That's better. Remember that as a pianist, single note, you're playing some notes in a scale.
All right, so da-da-da-da-da. That's an arpeggio.
Okay, very good. And as you said, these are usually for warm-ups, right?
Yeah, they're also very important because they come into play. later when you're talking about the key that a song or piece of music is in.
So this helps you memorize the key that some music is in okay very good so I think related to to this is the rhythm of the piece that you're playing That's right.
So rhythm is really important. Some people can even say, you know, he's got rhythm or they have rhythm.
It's a way to describe the beat of a kind of music.
So sometimes it has to do with how fast or how slow something is.
Other times it has to do with the way that the notes work together.
For example, a steady beat would be... 1-2-3-4 1-2-3-4
This is a complicated beat. It goes ta-ti-triple-li, ta-ti-triple-li.
So this is a very difficult... kind of rhythm okay so the rhythm is just kind it gives you the how fast how slow it is and and I guess if you can take a look at notes and you can play it in many different rhythms, but not necessarily they're going to sound correct.
Right, and actually it's interesting, in English we also have a group of instruments that are called rhythm instruments.
So this would be like the drums. Okay. So it gives the beat.
Yes. Very good. Well, moving on, I think some other Italian words. popped up in here.
Alright, well the teacher also told the student to be careful where they lift the foot off the pedal.
And the student said, oh, I'm just so sorry.
The stretch for that octave is always hard to make.
Okay, so an octave is really, really important in music.
Like we were talking about earlier with a scale, a scale is eight notes.
Well, the roots. And the place the word octave comes from is the number eight, like an octagon.
So, Octave means Eight notes together or like low C, high C. That's an octave.
Okay. So think about the piano when you're putting your fingers on the keys.
Covering eight keys means you have to stretch your thumb and your pinky out really, really far.
And so he's saying. Sorry, it's hard for me to do this because the octave, that stretch is really hard for my hand.
So this is different from an eighth, right?
Well, it depends. Are you talking about eighth note?
I don't know, because it just came into my mind.
Because an octave is eight, and an eighth note, is it different?
I imagine. Yeah, well, you heard in the dialogue, 16th note, 8th note.
That's actually talking about the length of a note, how long you hold it.
Ah, okay. So basically you're saying it's the way you measure the music.
It can have... four count or three count, but you divide that into pieces.
It's like a pie in math where you divide it into pieces.
So if it's a 16th note or an eighth note, that's the length based on the kind of music you're playing.
So I imagine 16th note is shorter than 8th.
Yes. Okay. At least I got that one right.
And 32nd note is shorter than a 16th note.
Wow, you have all the way up to 32nd. 64th note is short.
Okay. It gets very complicated, very mathy.
All right. And towards the end, the teacher recommended for Cody to watch his dynamics.
What does she mean with watch your dynamics?
We'll see you next time. stretching his hands, the octaves are so far away, and he forgets to play it loud or soft.
Because on the page it says, like we heard earlier, decrescendo.
So get much, much softer. So Cody completely forgot.
He's not listening. He's not reading the page and seeing what it says about. the volume of the music.
So basically the dynamics are like the instructions of how loud to play it or not so loud.
Exactly. So does it say peony? Or the opposite.
Does it say forte? And it'll actually say this on the notes.
Yes. Forte, it'll say that. F-O-R-T-E, or sometimes just F.
So P is piano. That means, like we said earlier, quiet.
Pianissimo is piano. PPP is very, very quiet.
F is forte, loud. Okay, so I think if anyone out there plays an instrument, you can relate and you can maybe... know about these things that you may know it in your original language.
I know many people who play musical instruments and don't really know the technical words in their original language.
I mean, things like andante and pianissimo, things like this I think are universal, right?
They're used in whatever language exactly very widely used but uh Things like The Accidentals or Bass Clef or scales and stuff like that.
I think it's obviously different languages.
For example, you know Italian. Scales or accidentals?
They're different. They're different, right?
They're different. All of the other words.
So the instructions on the page, because music is shared all over the world.
The instructions on the page are almost always in Italian, so piano andante, or they're in German.
Oh, really? But everything else, scales, octaves, these are all in your native language.
And so they're very, very important to study if you want to play and I think very, very useful if you want to study an instrument.
Yeah, of course. I think it's also a very good idea to just have a general knowledge about these things because Sometimes it's nice to know a little bit about it and maybe if a friend is talking about music, you can maybe understand a little bit more about what it's like or if you see music a sheet of music you can now more or less know what's going on with all those drawings and little scribbles.
Absolutely. And if you have any questions, of course, you're welcome to come to our website and ask or share your experiences as Marco has just said.
So please come to EnglishPod.com. We hope to see you there.
All right. We'll see you guys next time.
Bye.
