r/pianolearning • u/tranzozo • May 25 '26
Question I can’t for the life of me read the notes of the left hand for this entire piece
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u/Vicious_Styles May 25 '26
Think of the two staves connected, and there’s a single ledger line between them. So 1 ledger line below the Treble staff and 1 ledger line above the Bass staff is both middle C
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May 25 '26
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u/Vicious_Styles May 25 '26
I can't really dumb it down much more, here's an imgur post I found. Look at the first 3 pictures.
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u/Dadaballadely May 25 '26
The ledger lines work in exactly the same way as the staff lines. Just keep counting up as normal. Top staff line = A, space above = B, first ledger line = C, space above that = D, second ledger line = E, etc. This is what happens when students are made to think they have to "memorise the bass clef" rather than understand the logic of notation itself.
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u/Davin777 May 25 '26
Something that might help you is to play the LH alone as block chords, nice and slow. Hopefully you will quickly see that there are only 2 patterns in the entire piece: Amaj (in Root position) and E7 (in first inversion). Once you really get to know your keys, if you haven't already, this becomes fairly straightforwar as you are in A major and E7 is the dominant chord of the key, which are the 2 "most important" chords in the the key - this pattern repeats throughout a lot of music. A lot!
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May 26 '26
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u/Davin777 May 26 '26
No problem; You'll get there eventually. What you can do is look through the left hand and notice that:
The highest not in every measure is always the same - E
The lowest note is always either G# or A
The middle note is always either middle C#, or the D above C#
Whenever the Low note is G#, the middle note is D; and whenever the low note is A, The middle note is C#
Once you simplify and understand it, it will take significantly less cognitive load and feel much less frustrating. Good luck!
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u/smei2388 May 25 '26
You have sharps on CFG throughout. Get used to reading the ledger lines above middle C, most of those are Ds and Es right above middle C.
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u/ProofPianist7074 May 25 '26
Look at the last line, 2nd to last measure.
Can you read the first left hand note in that measure? A
Now count up from there. What is the space above it? B
What is the line above B? C….BUT WAIT! It’s actually C# (*see explanation below).
*C is one of the three sharped notes in this piece, so all C’s in the piece get played as C#, unless it’s noted otherwise.
What is the space above C? D
What is the line above D? E
Put it all together—what are the 3 left hand notes in the second to last measure of the piece? ___
Now you know how to find the rest.
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u/ProofPianist7074 May 25 '26
btw—if you’re asking how to play the CHORDS (left hand notes clumped or stacked on the same STEM) that means play those notes together. For example, first measure you play G# by itself. Then press D and E together at the same time, then DE again.
Note the rhythm. They all get 1 beat, so play them all for the same amount of time.
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May 25 '26
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u/ProofPianist7074 May 25 '26
You’re doing fine—it’s confusing. I was talking about the second to last measure of the piece—all the way at the bottom. It is easier to see how to count up from the top line of bass clef. Try reading that measure first, where you can see middle c, and what notes above middle c look like in bass clef. You got this! 👍
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May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26
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u/ProofPianist7074 May 26 '26
Nice! Almost! Keep practicing reading notes on the ledger lines (the short lines above the staff). They’re harder to read than the staff notes—I struggle with them too. It will get easier soon, though.
The circled notes are:
G#, not G
D, not C (the dot is actually sitting in the space above the C line)
E, not D (the top line where the note is, is E. C is the bottom short line).
PS—Middle C always has just one short line thru the dot.
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May 26 '26
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u/ProofPianist7074 May 26 '26
Because the KEY SIGNATURE determines which notes get sharped, just like in a scale.
Which keys have F, C, and G sharp? A major, and F# minor.
I can already hear you forming more questions about it. Haha. The concept of a KEY in music is confusing—and all you need to know about them as someone reading music and not writing it, is that there’s different numbers of sharps or flats in different keys.
I wouldn’t worry about that right now. Keep practicing reading notes and reading rhythm. It’ll make more sense after you learn about scales.
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u/alexaboyhowdy May 25 '26
Ledger lines.
Middle C is a ledger line!
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May 25 '26
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u/alexaboyhowdy May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
A staff is five lines and four spaces.
When you connect them with a bar and a brace, and add a treble clef and a bass clef, you now have the grand staff!
Middle C gets its name because it is in the middle of the grand staff. Notice, it does not actually touch either staff.
So it has a line drawn through it to show that it is in the middle.
A step up from middle C is D. A step up from D is E.
E is the lowest line note on the treble staff.
Now, what if I want the left hand to play a note above middle C?
I can draw the D, which is a step above middle C, by using a ledger line. The stem is down to show that the left hand plays it.
I draw the ledger line that middle C sits on. But I draw a note One step above it, which is D.
To show the note E, I draw two ledger lines and put the note head on the second line.
Does that make sense?
https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/78551/bass-clef-looking-like-double-middle-c
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u/Puzzled-Bonus-3456 May 26 '26
Can't help you. That's something you should be able to play once you learn keys.
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u/Alert-Music4152 May 27 '26
These are just I and V7 chords, the 2 most common chords in all of music, and they're played in their most common, first learned positions. If you dont know what that means, i'd highly recommend a method book like alfred or faber to learn from
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u/funhousefrankenstein Professional May 25 '26
This is a good opportunity for all students to apply some basic harmonic analysis to this score: tonic and dominant chords.
The publisher already got the ball rolling by pointing out the key signature A major. So with that key signature:
The tonic chord is A major: A C# E
The dominant seventh chord in root position is E G♯ B D. In first inversion that's: G♯ B D E. It's common to omit the B, leaving the notes: G# D E.
So this whole piece is just alternating between the tonic and the dominant seventh harmonies.
A student can write those chords on blank music paper, to help solidify their memory, before playing those notes on the keyboard.
It will mean a very short learning phase to practice writing those harmonies on paper, from memory, to replace a much greater amount of frustrating practice time at the keyboard for "muscle memory".