Ishaan's piano project-E Book.pdf - Ishaan Leonard Rao

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1 ISHAAN’S PIANO PROJECT Learn the piano through Indian music by Ishaan Leonard Rao 2 INTRODUCTION Hello! Welcome to your first piano lesson! My name is Ishaan and I’m going to help you in this wonderful journey of learning the piano, my favourite instrument. I’d like to start with a simple question: do you know what a piano is? If you don’t, a piano is a musical instrument that you can play by striking black and white keys, of which there are 88 in total. It’s very old and was invented by an Italian man called Bartolemeu Cristofori more than 300 years ago! I’ve been playing the piano for 10 years and I’d like to share what I’ve learnt with you. Now for the second question, when you hear the word piano what is the first thing that comes to mind? Some of you might think of a huge instrument which we call a grand piano, while others might think of a smaller digital instrument that also has black and white keys, which could be either a digital piano or a keyboard. The difference between these two is that first of all, a digital piano has 88 keys and secondly each key has a certain weight to it when you play it that isn’t there with keyboards. All of this is important because before we start learning this course, we should know which instrument it is for. Although more advanced playing techniques for the piano cannot really be applied to the keyboard, since you’re starting off you’ll be happy to know that you can follow these classes on any instrument. Now on to what you can expect to learn in this course: I’d define it as an Indian music-based beginners’ piano programme. We can play many different kinds of music on the piano, and I’d like to teach you how to play the piano using a style of music that might be familiar to most of you: Indian Classical music. This is a genre of music that is very close to me since my parents are both Indian Classical musicians and I’ve grown up listening to it my entire life. Moreover, it’s not a style of music you might directly associate with the piano, so I’d like to show you that you can play any kind of music on any instrument if you know the techniques of both. By the end of this course, not only will you know basic piano techniques and exercises, but you’ll also learn 5 ragas, with a famous song that you’ll definitely recognize in each raga. Learning the technique of the instrument you’re learning is just as important as the music you play, because without a proper technique you’ll find yourself very limited in the kind of music as well as the difficulty of music that you play. At the end of the introduction, I’ll share a couple of links to performances of mine that you can listen to, and remember: if you want to be able to play pieces as difficult as that, you need to develop your technique. As you learn each raga, I’ll also be giving you an exercise in that raga with which you can develop your technique. Look at it this way, you do exercises to become fit and teach your body how to do certain things. The exact same applies to piano, we do exercises to develop our technique and teach our fingers how to do certain things that they wouldn’t be able to otherwise. One more important part of piano technique is that we play with both hands at the same time, so any- thing you play will be with both hands together. Now that you have an overview of what you’re going to be learning, let’s start off! And before you turn the page, remember to have fun, because that’s the most important thing! THE PIANO GRID When we want to learn music through a book, the best way is to write it down as you would with anything else you want to learn. The same way we read words, we can also read music. We do this by learning certain symbols, letters in the case of words or specific symbols for music that can be different for different systems. To make learning this course easy for you, I’ve created a special musical language that you can use to learn music easily! If you look at the top of the page, you can see a grid that shows all 88 notes on the piano. On each note there’s a specific combination of a letter and a number which is unique to each note. The way this system works is that whenever the com- bination for a specific note is written, you play that note at that exact time. You can also make it easier by taking whichever instrument you have and writing the note names on its keys to make them easier to remember. It may seem complicated at first, but you’ll get used to it! Now on to how we actually write the music, I’ve created a kind of table for everything that you can read: 3 For example, the progression of notes here is (both hands at the same time with one note each at a time): RH: C4 D4 E4 F4 G4 A5 B5 C5 LH: C3 D3 E3 F3 G3 A4 B4 C4 It’s very important to know that the notes within the grid might be different, but the rhythm of how you play them will be the same. You can also play two notes in one beat, which takes the same amount of time but the notes are twice as fast. If you have any confusion, I ex- plain everything you need to know to read this in a YouTube video, for which the link is at the end of the book. Now that you know how it works, why don’t you try to create your very own piano grid? Fill the empty boxes in with notes and then play it! See if you can create something you like. The grid I’ve made for you has 8 beats and 3 measures (pairs of columns), so each hand plays 24 notes. 4 5 GETTING READY TO PLAY A very important part of piano technique is how to keep our fingers, our hands, our wrists, our elbows and our shoulders, and even how we sit! I’m going to explain each one, working backwards from how we sit to how our fingers move. Here is a series of movements with which you can make sure that your entire body is ready to play. 1. Sit in front of your piano with both your feet planted flat on the floor. Keep your back straight and make sure your shoulders are relaxed. Let your arms hang straight down and make sure they’re relaxed. Sit at a length where your arms reach the piano comfortably with a slight bend in your elbows. Also make sure you’re sitting high enough (this is different for each person and the way you can find your optimal height is if you can do all the next steps comfortably). If everything is comfortable, move on to step 2. 2. Keep your hands on the piano with your shoulders relaxed. Keep your wrists in the same line as your forearm (from your hands to your elbows), which should be close to parallel to the floor. Keeping your wrists relaxed and loose is very important, so shake them a couple of times before putting your hands on the piano. Your elbows should have a slight bend in them to keep your forearm in the right position. You can adjust the height of your seat to make it more comfortable. If you’re ready, move on to step 3. 3. To keep your hands in the right position is the most important part of piano playing. If you don’t curve your fingers, they can lock and you won’t be able to play properly, but if they’re too curved then they’ll turn into a kind of claw which will affect the sound of your playing. First of all, make sure none of the joints on your finger (the parts that can bend) are straight and that all of them are relaxed. Secondly, try to curve your fingers in a way that the fingertips of all your fingers apart from your thumbs touch the piano, maintaining the arm position from step 2. Thirdly, keep the side tip of your thumb (the tip to the side of the fingernail instead of above it) on the piano. If everything goes right, your hand should look like this: 4. Now finally, actually playing! When you play, every part of your arm should be relaxed enough that it doesn’t lock but tight enough that nothing falls down. Try not to move any part of your hand but the finger you’re playing with. An exercise to practice this is to keep your hand with one finger on each note and just lift them up and down one at a time, playing one note at a time. Strike the notes with your fingertips and only move from your knuckles. Think of your finger as a kind of hammer that strikes the notes of the piano. If you’re not completely clear with how to play, please refer to the links at the end of the book for a video on this entire topic. If you are, then let’s get playing! 6 RAGA 1: PILU Now that you know the correct posture for playing the piano and can read the notation that we’re going to be using, it’s time to learn your first raga! The first raga we’re going to be learning is called Pilu. It’s a light classical raga usually used in folk music and thumri. The ideal time to play it is in the evening and early night. Going up, which we call the Arohan (the progression of notes that go from left to right on the piano), it consists of the notes Sa, Re, Ma, Pa and Ni. Going down, which we call the Avarohan (the progression of notes that go from right to left on the piano), it consists of the notes Sa. ni, Dha, Pa, Ma, ga and Re. For further information on the notes that we use in Indian Classical Music, please watch the video on Raga Pilu that is linked in the book. On the piano, we can play raga Pilu (with both hands) as: Why don’t you practice the Arohan and Avarohan a couple of times with one hand at a time first? Once you’re comfortable with each hand separately, try to put them together and play them at the same time. Remember, start practicing it slowly and once you’re confident at that speed, only then should you make it faster ! 7 PIANO GYM 1 Welcome to your first piano gym! In the Piano Gym, we practice our technique through finger exercises so that our fingers can become stronger. At the same time, we also practice our knowledge of the raga we’re learning by using only the notes of that raga in the exercises. Since we’re learning Raga Pilu right now, your first Piano Gym will be in Raga Pilu! Follow this grid to learn it, starting with hands separately and then together once you’re comfortable with them separately. And very importantly, make sure you follow all the steps of getting your hand ready before playing! Playing the piano requires many movements, each of which is very different but needs to be mastered if you want to progress as a pianist. In the Piano Gym, we isolate these movements and work on one at a time to make our hand be able to play that kind of movement in any situation with only small adjustments to the notes we play. The movement you’re going to learn in this Piano Gym is called the bridge. We call it this because it involved the movement of one finger either over or under another finger. For example, if you’re going from left to right and you want to play a note with your first finger after your third finger, your third finger plays a note and then your first finger goes UNDER the bridge that the third finger makes to play the next note. Similarly, if you’re going from right to left and you want to play a note with your third finger after your first finger, your first finger plays a note and then your third finger goes OVER the bridge that the first finger makes to play the previous note. So remember, when the first finger makes the bridge the next finger goes over the bridge, and when any other finger makes a bridge for the first finger, the first finger goes under the bridge. These are the only two situations where you’re going to use this. The following piano grid will help you practice the bridge as well as learn Raga Pilu in more detail, and for more information on how to practice it, please look at the accompanying video on the First Piano Gym linked in the book! 8 SONG 1: SARE JAHAN SE ACCHA Now that you’ve learnt the basics of Raga Pilu and finished your first Piano Gym, it’s time to learn a song that you’ve definitely heard and can probably sing. The first song you’re go- ing to learn on the piano is Sare Jahan se Accha, one of the most famous Indian patriotic songs, if not the most famous. The words to this song were written by the famous Urdu poet Muhammad Iqbal, and a fact that a lot of people don’t know is that the music to those words was composed by world-renowned sitarist and my father’s guru Bharat Ratna Pandit Ravi Shankar. In sargam notation, which is what we call the traditional way of writing Indian music in terms of the seven swaras (Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha and Ni), the melody of Sare Jahan se Accha is written as: ga - ga Re Sa Re - Ni Sa - Sa - - - - - .Pa .Dha Sa - Re Ga - Ma Ga - Ga Re Ma Ga Re Sa ga - ga Re Sa Re - Ni Sa - Sa - - - - - Ga Ma Pa - Pa Pa - Ga Ma Dha Pa - - - - - Ga Ma Pa - Ma ga - Re Sa - Sa .Ni Sa .Ni .Dha .Pa ga - ga Re Sa Re - Ni Sa - Sa - - - - - Ga Ga Ga - Ga Ga - Ga Re Ma Ga Re Sa - .Ni - .Pa .Dha Sa - Re Ga - Ma Ga - Ga - - - - - Ga Ma Pa - Pa Pa - Ga Ma Dha Pa - - - - - Ga Ma Pa - Ma ga - Re Sa - Sa .Ni Sa .Ni .Dha .Pa ga - ga Re Sa Re - Ni Sa - Sa - - - - - ga ga ga - ga ga - ga Re Ma ga Re Sa Re .Ni - .Ni .Ni .Ni - .Ni Sa - ga Re Sa Sa - - - - - Ga Ma Pa - Pa Pa - Ga Ma Dha Pa - - - - - Ga Ma Pa - Ma ga - Re Sa - Sa .Ni Sa .Ni .Dha .Pa ga - ga Re Sa Re - Ni Sa - Sa - - - - - .Ni .Ni .Ni - .Ni .Ni - .Ni .Ni Sa Sa - - - - - Sa Pa Pa - Pa Pa - Dha Ga Pa Ma Ga - - - - Sa. - Sa. - Sa. Sa. - - Sa.- Sa. - Sa. Sa. -- Sa. - Sa. - Sa. Sa. - Pa Ga Pa Ma Ga - - - - Ga Ma Pa - Ma ga - Re Sa - Sa .Ni Sa .Ni .Dha .Pa ga - ga Re Sa Re - Ni Sa - Sa - - - - - (Remember that a ‘-’ in music notation means that there is a beat at that point in time but we leave it silent rather than fill it with a note) On the next page is my own simplified transcription of Sare Jahan Se Achha for piano in the system that we’ve learnt, a Piano Grid. For instructions on how to practice it, please check the accompanying video linked at the end of the book. 9 10 RAGA 2: MALAHARI The second raga we’re going to be learning is called Malahari. This raga is from South India and is part of the Carnatic tradition. It is associated with a calm feeling. The Arohan of this raga is Sa, re, Ma, Pa, and dha The Avarohan of this raga is Sa, dha, Pa, Ma, Ga and re On the piano, this can be played as: Remember to practice this hands separately first before playing it together. Try to incorporate the bridge technique you learnt from your first piano gym to make your own fingering. However, if you’re not sure what to use, try 1 2 1 2 3 4 and 4 3 2 1 2 1 for the right hand and left hand’s arohan respectively, and 5 3 2 1 3 2 1 and 1 2 1 2 3 4 5 for the right hand and left hand’s avrohan respectively. 11 PIANO GYM 2 Welcome to your second piano gym! This will be in the raga you just learnt, raga Malahari. Today’s piano gym is going to focus on finger dexterity, which is how well you can move your fingers within one certain hand position. This is comparable, for example, to putting your fingers over five notes and just going from your first finger to your fifth finger and back. However, since we want to make it interesting as well as learn raga Malahari even more, I’ve created a new exercise that you’ll practice as part of your piano gym! The way to practice this is hands separately first, focussing on getting your hand in the right position over all five fingers before playing any one of them so the only movement is either your fingers lifting and falling to play notes or your entire hand shifting in position. Also try to develop a sense of confidence in each finger’s movement before speeding it up or putting the hands together. 12 SONG 2: LAMBODARA LAKUMIKARA The next song we’re going to learn is based on the raga Malahari. It is, in fact, the first song taught in the Carnatic music tradition. The name of this song is Lambodara Lakumikara, and it is sung in praise of the god Ganesha. It was composed by the great saint Purandara Dasa almost 600 years ago! In Sargam notation, it can be written as Sa re Ma - Ga re Sa re Ga re Sa - re Ma Pa dha Ma Pa dha Pa Ma Ga re Sa Sa re Ma - Ga re Sa re Ga re Sa - Ma Pa dha Sa. Sa. re. re. Sa. dha Pa Ma Pa re Ma Pa dha Ma Pa dha Pa Ma Ga re Sa Sa re Ma - Ga re Sa re Ga re Sa - The piano grid for this is: 13 RAGA 3: DESH The third raga we’re going to learn is called raga Desh. It’s a beautiful raga that has a certain song-like quality to it which led to great people like Rabindranath Tagore compose a lot of music in this raga. It belongs to the monsoon group of Ragas and is usually played in early night, between around 9 and 12 pm. One unique thing about this raga that you haven’t seen in other ragas yet is that its avarohan isn’t completely linear, and doesn’t just progress straight downwards. The arohan of raga Desh is Sa Re Ma Pa and Ni The avarohan of raga Desh is Sa. ni Dha Pa Ma Ga Re Ga On the piano, we can play raga Desh as: As you can see, in the avarohan you can see that after a Re you play a Ga again. You will encounter this in many more ragas, and this is one of the things that sets a raga apart from just a scale. A raga is multi- dimensional, with its own intricacies and progressions. Two ragas can have the exact same notes but completely different characters due to how we play those notes, whereas a scale is just a simple linear progression of notes. 14 PIANO GYM 3 Your third piano gym is going to be in the raga you just learnt, raga Desh! As you know, in the piano gym we zoom in and focus on one specific aspect of piano technique until we’re comfortable with it, while also learning the raga that it’s in in more detail. Today’s piano gym will focus on teaching your wrist to move along with your piano playing. As we learnt earlier, your wrist should be flexible and relaxed yet solid. This means that when we play the piano, our wrist has to move along with our playing and help the fingers reach places they wouldn’t otherwise be able to. It also helps with progressions of notes that have some space between them, as our fingers don’t need to move as much when the wrist helps them by rolling over the notes. If you want a demonstration of how this works, please refer to the accompanying video linked at the end of the book. The Piano Grid for this piano gym is: For instructions on how to practice this, please checked the accompanying video linked at the end of the book. If you’re done with it, move on to your third song! 15 SONG 3: VANDE MATARAM The third song that you’re going to learn is again one that every Indian should know and you’ve heard many times. The name of this song is Vande Mataram, and it is the national song of India. It was written by the poet Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and put to music by the great Rabindranath Tagore. The Sargam notation for Vande Mataram is: Ma - Pa - - Ni Sa. Ni Sa. - - - - - - - Ma - Pa - - Ni Sa. Ni Sa. - - - - - Sa. Re. ni - Dha Pa - - Pa Dha Ma - Ga Re - - - - Re Pa Ma Ma Ga Re - Ga Sa - - - - - - - Sa - Re Ma Pa Ma Pa - - Pa ni Dha Dha Pa - - Ma - Pa - - Ni Sa. Ni Sa. - - - - - - - Ma - Pa - Ni - Ni - Ni Ni Sa. Ni Sa - - Ni Sa - - - - - - - Ni - Ni Ni Sa Ni Sa. - Sa. Re. Sa ni ni Dha ni Dha Dha - Pa - - Re Ma Ga Ga - Re - - - - - Re ni Dha ni Dha Pa - Dha Pa - - - - - Ma Pa Ni - Ni Ni Ni - - - - Ni Sa. Ni Sa. - - - Ma - Pa - - Ni Sa. Ni Sa. - - - - - - - 16 Here is the piano grid for Vande Mataram: 17 RAGA 4: HANSADHWANI The fourth raga we’re going to be learning is one that is originally from South India as part of the Carnatic tradition but has been popularised in Hindustani music as well. The name of this raga is Hansadhwani, which means ‘the sound of the swan’. This raga is pentatonic, which means that both its arohan and its avarohan have only 5 notes! To play it on the piano we need to stretch our fingers a bit as well as really master the bridge movement which we’re going to be using a lot, so if you want, go practice your first piano gym! The arohan of raga Hansadhwani is Sa, Re, Ga, Pa and Ni The avarohan of raga Hansadhwani is Sa, Ni, Pa, Ga and Re On the piano this can be played as: If this fingering feels uncomfortable, you can also try a 2 3 1 2 3 4 and a 4 3 2 1 2 1 in the arohan and avarohan respectively of the right hand. Make sure to keep your fingers curved here, even though the space between notes is wider than what you’re used to. What you learnt in the third piano gym is also really important, as the notes have spaces between them and we can roll our wrists over them as we learnt. 18 PIANO GYM 4 When we play the piano, we don’t always just play one note after the other, we mix and match notes in an order that makes sense and sounds good. In your fourth piano gym in raga Hansadhwani, I’m going to introduce you to the technique of skipping notes. Your wrists are going to be really important here, as you need to quickly and constantly rotate them from side to side while making sure that your fingers are on the right keys and that they lift before touching the keys so that all the notes sound the same. Since Hansadhwani has the exact same notes in the arohan and the avarohan, we can go back and forth between notes in an ascending and descending order, which is what this piano gym consists of. For more instructions on how to practice this, please refer to the video linked at the end of the book. This is a relatively difficult exercise, so make sure you practice it slowly many times before even thinking of putting your hands together or speeding it up! 19 SONG 4: VATAPI GANAPATIM BHAJE The fourth song you’re going to learn is one of the most famous songs of the Carnatic tradi- tion and one I learnt when I was very young. The name of the song is Vatapi Ganapatim Bhaje and it was written and composed by the great Muthuswami Dikshitar. In Sargam notation, it can be written as: Ga - - - Pa - Re - - - Sa - Sa - .Ni - .Pa - Re - - - Sa - Re - - - Sa .Ni Sa Re Ga - Re - Ga - Pa - - - - - Sa. - Sa. Ni Pa - - - Ga Pa Re - - - Sa .Ni Sa Re Ga - Re - Ga - Pa - - - - - Ni Sa. Re. - Sa. Re. Sa. Ni Pa - Sa. Ni Pa Ga Re - Sa .Ni Sa Re Ga - Re - Ga - Pa - - - - - Pa Ni Sa. Re. Ga. Re. Sa. Re. Sa. Ni Sa Ni Pa Pa Ga Re Sa - Re - Ga. - Re. - - - Sa. Ni Pa Ga Re - Sa - .Ni .Pa - Re - - - Sa - Re - - - Sa .Ni Sa Re Ga - - - Pa - Re - - - Sa - Sa - .Ni - Sa The Piano Grid for Vatapi Ganapatim Bhaje is: 20 RAGA 5: KHAMAJ The fifth and final raga you’re going to be learning as a part of this course is called raga Khamaj. It uses the same notes as Raga Desh!! This is one of the most widely used ragas in Indian classical music as well as in light classical music such as Thumri as well as pure classical music such as Dhrupad and Khayal. It should ideally be played late evening and early night. The arohan of raga Khamaj is Sa, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha and Ni The avarohan of raga Khamaj is Sa, ni, Dha, Pa, Ma, Ga and Re It can be played on the piano as: An alternative to this fingering could be a 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 for the arohan and 4 3 2 1 4 3 2 1 for the avarohan in the right hand if you find that more comfortable. This is, however, the only fingering for the left hand where you can maintain a proper technique, so practice both the right hand fingerings for extra practice and see which one you prefer when putting the hands together! 21 PIANO GYM 5 Welcome to your last piano gym, in raga Khamaj this time! Today, we’ll be combining aspects of everything we learnt earlier as well as introducing a new kind of movement. When we play the piano, we often need to make big jumps to reach notes that we couldn’t reach otherwise even after stretching our hand. This piano gym has aspects of training your hand to make those jumps. The proper technique to do that is to play one note, move your entire hand and position your finger on the correct note BEFORE lifting the finger and playing so you’re sure that you play the correct note. For a demonstration of this, please look at the accompanying video linked at the end of the book. Here is the Piano Grid for this piano gym: 22 SONG 5: VAISHNAVA JANA TO The last song we’re going to learn, in raga Khamaj, is called Vaishnav Jana To. It is a bhajan written in the 15th century by Narsinh Mehta and was one the the favourite songs of Mahat- ma Gandhi, and you’ve almost definitely heard it. The Piano Grid for Vaishnava Jana To is: 23 More information: ishaan-leonard-rao.mailchimpsites.com [email protected] Copyright 2021 Ishaan Leonard Rao