Now we're ready to learn a skill that every pianist needs to know. And that is how to play with both hands at the same time, which we call playing hands together. Don't let this scare you. Watch. Now you can see that the music looks a little bit different, instead of having just one step If we have to one on top of the other piano music is written like this where the right hand notes are on the top staff. And the left hand notes are on the bottom staff.

And they're joined together by long bar lines, see how the bar lines go all the way through. And this fancy curvy line here, which we call a brace. All this together is called the Grand Staff. We read the grant staff kind of like an XY graph. Starting from the left and moving right. We read both staves at the same time, so we read horizontally as well as vertically.

Each line and space on the Grandstaff corresponds to a unique note on the keyboard. Now, do you need to memorize the names of all the notes? No, but you will and here's why. In music, we use only seven Letters of the English alphabet, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, after we get to G, we just keep recycling. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, you can even go backwards, G, F, E, D, C, B, A, G, F, A, D, C b a, g f e dcba. After practicing reading and playing music for a while, you will naturally start to remember the positions and names of the notes.

So, don't worry about memorizing anything and there's no need for flashcards. People ask me that all the time. You don't need flashcards unless you really love flashcards then by all means Knock yourself out. Just keep reading and playing music with me and you will learn by doing. And then remember that you can also use those memory tricks. You know all cows eat grass, good bikes don't fall apart all that stuff.

Okay, lots of ways to go about doing this. Now if we look very carefully at the music, we can see that we already know this. The right hand, we learned in lesson one. Right? Sounds familiar it should. And the left hand we learned in lesson four.

So there's no need to practice a chant by itself because guess what, we've already done that a lot. So we're going to play hands together. I'll play this time and I'll tell you what I'm doing. So I start both hands at the same time. time because I can see that the two C's are vertically aligned, they're lined up one on top of the other. See, now if you look at the left hand, that C lasts for form counts, so we're going to just sit there, not pushing, not doing anything but just letting it sit the same way that you're sitting on your chair right now you're not pushing yourself down, you're just hanging out there.

Same thing here. I'm doing this to show you that my wrist is relaxed. If I if it weren't, I wouldn't be able to do it. See, so we're not pushing the key is not trying to come back up. Okay, gravity's on your side. Alright, so on beat two, I see that the right hand keeps going.

And all three keeps going and on four keeps going. Now I'm on measure two, and I can see that both hands play at the same time. And left hand again hangs out for the whole measure while the right hand keeps going. Now measure three left hand hasn't arrest so I just lift that wrist gently and I see On the case, I don't have to find my way again later. radio plays. Here's beat one both hands play, left hand holds, right hand has a quarter rested lifts, then play and then lift.

I'll do the repeat without talking and then you can see all those motions that I just explained. Okay, you and I are going to practice this one measure at a time, just for now, so that you can really understand what you're doing. Find your starting point, right hand, first finger and middle C left hand, fifth finger on the C an octave below that. Let's play beat one together. Now Let your left hand sit there right hand place D, E, F. Let's do that again. Starting with our C's Ready, Go see their right hand goes on.

Okay, so no need to press or strain or anything like that it's very easy. Let's take a look at measure two. You see that the right hand has finger on G, left hand has first finger on G, play them together. Again, left hand just hangs out there on the note just hanging out easily. right hand plays F, E, D. Now we can see measure three is really easy left hand lifts because it has a whole rest and right hand plays c, e. g, e, no look at measure for both pinkies both fingers left hands On See, right hand is on G, let's play. Left hand stays there, right and lifts for the quarter rest, then right hand plays for middle C, and lift for the quarter rest.

It's a lot to talk about, it's actually easier to do than to explain just like riding a bicycle. You can probably ride a bicycle. But if I asked you to explain how you balance and what you do, at what order Do you pedal, it'd be really confusing, right? You would be accurate in your description, but it would be really hard to figure it out just from the description. So let's learn by doing. Find your starting point.

We're going to play all the way through nice and slow. Starting on CS, I'll count us off 1234 see my hand go. Now both hands on right hand, keep going Left hand left hand, fingers. Left hand stays right hand Left, left. All right. Let's play that all the way through two times.

And then you're going to practice by yourself. So one more time with me. Of course, you can always back up the video and do it a million times with me if you want to. There's no shame, okay, there's no hurry. There's nothing, there's no pressure. I just have to keep these videos short enough.

And so you can I can show you a couple of times you can go back and do it as many times as you need to. Nobody will know. Okay, so see Right hand, left hand. One, two. Ready, here we go. Play with me.

Have to repeat. Okay, pause here and practice as much as you need to. It might be a couple of days before you come back to go on with the lesson. It's okay. Remember to set a good foundation Don't rush through anything, because later on when we get very advanced compared to What we're doing now, you're going to be really glad that you laid a good foundation and took plenty of time to get comfortable with each step. How exciting.

You're now playing with both hands at the same time. You're also reading music on the Grandstaff. you're well on your way to being a great pianist. Congratulations.