Introduction

Face the middle of the keyboard, so middle C is in front of the middle of your body. Sit toward the front of the bench, feet flat on the floor. If your feet do not reach, put a book or a stool under them.

• Set the bench so your elbows are about level with the keys and your forearms are roughly level.
• Sit tall. Let your shoulders drop. Keep a little space between your elbows and your sides.
• Wrists stay about level with your forearms — not collapsed down, and not cocked up.

Middle C (C4) is the C nearest the middle of the keyboard. The white keys run A B C D E F G and then start again. One full repeat is an octave.

The black keys repeat in groups of two and three:

• C is the white key just to the left of any group of two black keys.
• F is the white key just to the left of any group of three black keys.

Notes get higher as you move to the right, and lower as you move to the left. The right hand takes the higher side. The left hand takes the lower side.

A black key has two names. The one just to the right of a white key is that note's sharp (C♯ is the black key right of C). The same key, named from the white key on its right, is a flat (that C♯ is also D♭).

Curve the fingers as if you were holding a small ball. Play on the fingertips, not on the flat of the finger. The thumb rests on its side, a little curved, near the front edge of the key.

Both hands use the same numbers, counted from the thumb outward. These are the numbers you will see on the scales lab.

The first shape is five notes, one finger each, in C:

• Right hand. Thumb (1) on middle C, then 2 on D, 3 on E, 4 on F, 5 on G.
• Left hand. Pinky (5) on the C an octave below middle C, then 4 on D, 3 on E, 2 on F, and the thumb (1) on G.

Press the key straight down to the bottom with the fingertip, then let it come all the way back up. A quicker drop is louder. A slower drop is softer. The arm stays loose either way — volume comes from the speed of the drop, not from a stiff wrist.

• A little every day. Ten focused minutes beats an hour once a week.
• One hand, then both. Learn the right hand alone and the left hand alone before you put them together.
• Slow enough to be clean. The metronome is the bar at the bottom of every page. Start near 60. Raise it only when the notes are even.
• Stop if it hurts. Pain means a tight wrist, a raised shoulder, or a collapsed hand. Shake the arm out and check how you are sitting.
• Leave the right pedal alone for now. It holds every note that is still ringing, and beginners blur the sound with it. Use it when a piece asks for it.
• Warm the hand. The five-finger patterns on Drills are this shape, repeated. They live with the technique pages, after the path.

Learn one thing until you can play it slowly, then take the next step. This list is the book. Previous and Next follow it.

1. Sit, number your fingers, and find a note. You are here: how to sit, the finger numbers, middle C, and a five-finger shape in C.
2. Play tunes you already know. Simple melodies is the right hand only: Hot Cross Buns, Ode to Joy, Twinkle. Five fingers are enough.
3. Name that shape. C major is C D E F G A B C. The pattern is on the major scale page.
4. Stack 1, 3, and 5. How chords are built turns the scale into a chord, still in C.
5. Learn the seven chords. Diatonic chords writes that family, ready to grab. Am arrives here, as the chord on the 6th.
6. Change chords in time. Chord changes is the loops under songs.
7. Put the tune on top. Melody and chords: the right hand sings, the left hand plays the root and the beat. The chord, one note at a time, comes before the tune.
8. Keep the jobs apart. Independence is twelve steps. This is the end of playing in C.
9. Open Am into its own scale. The minor scale is that chord, stretched into a row. The scales lab plays major and minor side by side.
10. Name the lengths you already used. Note values, then time signatures.
11. Read a note, then catch one. Sight reading starts in the five-finger shape. Highway Game is the game, once you can name a note.
12. Leave C. The circle of fifths is the map. Other chord types is sus, sixths, and extensions. Every chord, every key spells them.
13. Move home, then change the list. Modes is the minor-scale trick for every degree, and the modes lab plays them. Beyond the major scale changes the notes themselves. Its lab plays those lists.

Drills, exercises, Hanon, the solo lab, and training routines sit after that, in Technique. Use Drills when the five-finger shape is new, and Exercises when a scale or the independence ladder wants a faster pattern with no tune.