16 LESSON COURSE steps 1-64 The music your'e hearing if your speakers are turned on is Pachelbel's Canon. You also have a similar version of it on your casio songbank keyboard. ( though your'e only hearing the first few lessons of it here) is the result of years of work with beginners, to help any keyboard or pianist beginner to teach you to read music fluently from the very beginning. Its arranged as a series of lessons for complete beginners. Pachelbel who wrote the Canon in D would have loved I'm sure to see beginners playing easy parts alng to his famous piece

Turn your volume up or down on your soundcard mixer and speakers if needed. Press STOP on the browser to stop the music and REFRESH to start it

LESSON FORMATS

1) Each lesson has supplementary EZ read letter fonts, finger positions and keyboard images for correct placement of fingers in adobe acrobat format .(screenshot below )

2) Noteworthy viewer file formats. Each lesson has a Noteworthy audio visual animated scrolling file in for each lesson (see screen shot below which plays simple parts and also the entire orchestra) Once youre set up and ready, each lesson takes about 15 minutes only. The plug to download is animated, the red highlighted parts moving in real time. Here is a clipped off screen shot from the program:

Click back to STEP 1 download

Lesson instruction is contained within each lesson software file :

• Press the "i" button to read instructions about each lesson as it plays including how to use the PDF files.

INTRODUCTION 16 Lesson course

Your'e hearing the first 4 of 16 lessons background music you will play with. Dont worry ! Your'e only going to play the easier beginners keyboard strings part !

Each of the 16 mini lessons takes about 5 minutes to complete

If a guitarist you will play your Guitar instead of the keyboard string sound or sound of your choice.

There will also be rock, dance and bossa nova jazz and piano versions of the course to come though all will have the exact same parts as here for you to learn. They will just have different accompaniment styles and allow you to feel comfortable in the kind of style you prefer. You will be able to choose which one youd prefer to learn with. Contact us if youd like to be kept up to date

SKILLS AQUIRED IN COURSE

• Right hand dexterity of your 5 fingers coordinating in strict musical time.
• Very fluent application and recognition of the Note Names D, E, F# G and A to their position on the 5 line music staves and on the keyboard. (thos is because it suits the casio canon piece on the keyboard.) Also a more standard C D E F G version soon for other instruments)
• Very fluent recognition of Rhythmic symbols on the 5 line musical stave of whole notes, half notes and quarter notes and application of these rhythms to different notes/ pitches on the keyboard and the musical staves.
• Fluent application of all skills enabling you to hold your own rhythms and notes against the background of the complex rhythms and notes of Pachelbels Canon.
• The 16 lessons each have fingering, counting, note name modules for you to learn and apply immediately to the sound of the music and in the 4th lesson of each group to PLAY your instrument with the entire orchestra.

WHO is THE COURSE SUITABLE FOR ?

INSPIRATION BEHIND THE COURSE

The idea behind this course to learn each step of FINGERING, NOTE NAMES, RHYTHMIC COUNTING interacting at all times with live music. In Africa a small child used ot learn learn the drums every step of the way WITHIN the inspiring sound aura of an advanced drum circle. This meant that a child would not be placed in a position where the would be playing anything "simple" at any time, even though there part was simple.

An adult would tap on his shoulders helping him have the confidance to add simple stready beats , progressing in complexity to the complex beats played by others in the drum circle around him or her.

In the western world, except for the USA school band tradition instrumental, teaching has put people into little isolated boxes where they aspire to "eventually " play complex interesting music, meantime having to be content with dry excercises or tunes that for beginerrs are often less than inspiring that they practise alone.

We choose to learn music because we are inspired by what we hear. Then we wait 5 years to pay it ! Digital accompaniments can bring back the original inspiration we feel when we hear a piece of music we enjoy into the process, so in this course you are always learning basic theoretical, fingering, note recognition skills whilst simultaneously enjoying the panorama of Pachelbels music too which all the steps of your lessons are fitted.

SKILLS I WILL LEARN

• Right hand dexterity of your 5 fingers coordinating in strict musical time.
• Very fluent application and recognition of the Note Names D, E, F# G and A to their position on the 5 line music staves and on the keyboard. (thos is because it suits the casio canon piece on the keyboard though with the midi file can be used for any other keyboards too on a floppy or internal memory/ A 3 step lesson file is also available.) Also a more standard C D E F G version soon for other instruments)
• Very fluent recognition of Rhythmic symbols on the 5 line musical stave of whole notes, half notes and quarter notes and application of these rhythms to different notes/ pitches on the keyboard and the musical staves.
• Fluent application of all skills enabling you to hold your own rhythms and notes against the background of the complex rhythms and notes of Pachelbels Canon.
• LEVEL 1 2 3 4 courses. Each level adds to fluency of reading presenting more complex mixed rhythmic patterns finger stretches and jumps between notes.

APPLICATION OF SKILLS

You are going to learn every one of your skills within the inspiring sound aura of this piece of music " Canon " composed by Pachelbel. Everything you do , whether that be counting aloud, tapping the correct fingers on a table, saying the notes aloud WILL ALWAYS be done to sound of the Canon piece.

The 16 lessons each have fingering, counting, note name modules for you to learn and apply immediately to the sound of the music and in the 4th step of each lesson to PLAY your instrument with the entire orchestra.

REPETITION vs INSPIRATION

Whilst the first few lessons have been broken down to simple Fingering , Counting and Note Name recogition and Keybvoard note recognition skills to make it as easy as possible for you to learn, please DO the repetition suggested. If you are following the steps to the dot and not missing out any .

You will find that every lesson decreases dramatically in difficulty. This course is aiming at FLUENCY ! The idea is that when you see these notes DEF#GA and Whole , 1/2 and 1/4 notes and changes of your five fingers in simple steps and jumps ( explained later) in OTHER MUSIC later you will be fluent and comfortable and confident then too !

You could have taught you far more in 16 lesson but it would just be "head knowledge" as all to often happens in music lessons. So much theory, so many new notes and fingerings and positions are learnt so quickly that they arent assimilated fluently, and believe me I've seen the slow frustration that pupils taught that way feel later on, as they are continually are forced a couple of steps back every time they take one step forward .

learning to read music CAN be fun , and CAN be interesting especially in digital format and if students arent ovewrloaded during each module. Courses differ but we pride ourselves on NOT sacrificing all the repetition with variation to ensure you become a fluent, not a stuttering reader. So beware of falsi promises. Learning takes time and anyone clainming to teach fluent reading overnight is perhaps just making a quick profit. But yes there is learning which takes time and is boring and learning which takes time and is fun. Thats out goal . Thorough yet fun !T

WHAT ABOUT OTHER COURSES or SHEET MUSIC for Keyboards, Guitar and other instruments ?

• LEVEL B, the follow up to this 16 lesson LEVEL A course, will introduce additional LEFT HAND Parts played over the canon but this time in another style. LEVEL C will introduce chordal playing ( playing notes sounding together.)
• Other smaller courses introducing rock riffs, trance, basic jazz, and country styles as well as courses based on the moonlight sonata and fur elise will be coming soon
• I have developed these and many courses over the years in hard copy printable form. This is our new digital project to convert them into digital form. Our uploading schedule is enable a new digital version about every week in 2005. We specialise in beginner courses. Each course is to be developed to LEVEL A (complete beginner) , LEVEL B (beginner) and LEVEL C (advanced beginner) at minimum in digital format. Some to more advanced beginner levels.
• Many LEVEL A Courses, even up to 16 lessons in a LEVEL A course as is this course, will be free. I hope that you will benefit enough from the the LEVEL A courses to want to purchase LEVEL B and C courses at very reasonable costs.

WHICH KEYBOARDS ARE SUITABLE to do the course with ?

• This course version is designed for Casio songbank keyboards with the song "Canon by Pachelbel" on the Songbank. However ANY other keyboard would be suitable. Preferably Id have preferred it to be in the key of C But the Canon is wirtten in D > Nevertheelss I will get round to changing and creating anothe rone in C
• You dont need a disk drive keyboard or even the songs on the Casio. the software will provide the accompnaiment in that case.
• If you do have a casio or any make floppy disk drive keyboard, the lesson accompaniments coming with the full course are available as a file you can save to floppy disk and insert in your disk drive too.
• If you aquire a USB midi connection kit or if you have no USB on your PC try to find a SERIAL midi connection kit though they are becoming extinct fast. Then you can play the lesson accompaniment disk file from your PC through any MIDI keyboard. Lighting keyboards will light up the RED keys too.
• Remember though ANY keyboard is fine as you can play along with the Noteworthy software audio lesson files on your PC anyway.

GUITAR: LEVEL A 16 lesson pachelbel canon guitar course

• WHO IS THE GUTAR COURSE SUITABLE FOR?

• Athough children beginners from 6 to 7 years up can use the keyboard version of this course with parental or teacher help, only adult beginners are advised to use the guitar version.

• FRETS

  The guitar version of lessons is lessons 1 - 8 based on pachelbels canon uses notes on the first 3 frets of the 1st and 2nd string. in the first few lessons. the 5th fret is added later. You will use all the same material sheet music and animated noteworthy viewer lessons as the keyboard course, with additional guitar TAB guitar instruction. TAB ( tabular fingering) is a method showing guitarists on which FRETS fingers to use. So Guitarists merely ignore the keyboard fingering modules replacing them with the TAB

• Download guitar TABs of fret positions for the first 8 of 16 sample pachelbel canon lessons
• Go to other downloads needed (make sure you do STEP1 and STEP 2 Step 2 (16 lessons for keyboard are ALSO applicable to guitar. Simply replace the keyboard fingering with tab fingering downloaded above)
• To understand guitar TAB go to an excellent lesson by Howard Wright

• GUITAR FINGERING

• Below is the guitar fingering for the LEVEL A 1 16level pachelbel canon beginners reading course

   

• FLUTE FINGERING

• Below is the flute fingering for the LEVEL A 1 16 level pachelbel canon beginners reading course

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