The reading courseLesson 1 of 13 · Level 1
C position, both hands
Read the left hand's C position, skips of a 3rd, both hands at once, and the dotted half note.
What's new on the page
The left hand's C position in the bass clef, a 3rd, and the dotted half note counted out.
In C position each hand rests on five white keys from a C, a finger to a key. First page put your left hand on the five keys down from middle C; now it moves to the C an octave below: C, D, E, F and G, played by fingers 5 to 1. In the bass clef that C is the second space, D the middle line, E the third space, F the fourth line and G the top space.
A 3rd is a skip: two notes a letter apart, from one line to the next line or one space to the next space, with a key left out between them. Notes written one above the other, across the two staves, are played together, at the same moment; and often one hand holds a long note while the other moves on.
A dot after a note adds half its length again. A half note is two beats, so a dotted half note is three: in 4/4 it fills three counts, and in 3/4 a whole bar.
Met on the page you play at the end, not on a card: hands playing together and one hand moving while the other holds.
The guides that go further: How to read piano sheet music: the grand staff, How to read the bass clef, How to read intervals by their shape, How to read rhythm: note values, rests, dots and ties, and How to read time signatures.
Pieces this lesson opens
Pieces in the library that read as ready once you know everything up to this lesson, and didn't before it.
- Exercise Piece in C, Op. 190 No. 23Louis Köhlerlevel 2
- Rule, Britannia!Thomas Arnelevel 2
- Twinkle, Twinkle, Little StarTraditionallevel 2