Piano & Keyboard Basics 2

Continue to build your keyboard skills in this hands-on course while gaining practical musicianship knowledge. Designed for students who have completed Piano & Keyboard Basics 1 or who have prior keyboard experience and want to further their musical journey, this course offers a dynamic exploration of music performance and theory, featuring arrangements of classical and contemporary pieces.

The course begins with a focus on major and minor five-finger patterns. You'll explore rhythmic nuances with triplets and learn to recognize musical expression through dynamics. You’ll examine time signatures, advanced articulations, and various musical mapping features. Then, you'll discover how to transpose, or change the tonal center of a musical excerpt, based on your newfound skills.

As you progress through the course, you will be able to apply your knowledge of major and minor scales, intervals, and primary triads by developing a harmony accompaniment to a basic melody. The goal of the course is to equip you with comprehensive keyboard skills, a deep understanding of music theory and notation, and the ability to play a wide range of musical arrangements.

What you will learn:

✔ Decipher commonly-used time signatures and apply them to musical works           
✔ Gain proficiency in transposition, allowing you to change the tonal center of a musical excerpt           
✔ Construct major, natural minor, and harmonic minor scales in six different tonal centers in parallel motion           
✔ Identify and calculate the three primary triads (tonic, subdominant, and dominant) in various key centers            
✔ Demonstrate arpeggios, both major and minor, including hand-crossing techniques            
✔ Compose and play a harmony to accompany a basic melody            
✔ Perform a variety of classical and contemporary pieces

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Prerequisite skills

• Completion of Piano & Keyboard Basics 1, or equivalent knowledge and/or experience.

What you need to participate:

• Computer or mobile device with Internet. Internet speed must be at least 1.5Mbps download and 800Kbps upload. For students using a mobile device, download the Canvas mobile app and select “Interlochen Online” as your school.
• Electric or acoustic keyboard/piano, minimum of 61-keys
• Sustain/damper pedal (example pedal)
• The Complete Book of Scales, Chords, Arpeggios & Cadences by Willard A. Palmer, Morton Manus, and Amanda Vick Lethco

How the course works:

Interlochen Online courses are designed to be inspiring and flexible with weekly learning units that combine video segments and guided instruction that you can complete on your own schedule during the week. You will interact regularly with your teacher and peers inside the learning environment. 

You can also participate in an optional weekly hour-long video class meeting, where you can learn from the teacher and interact with your classmates in real-time. At the beginning of the course, you will complete a survey indicating your preferred times for the class meeting. The teacher will make every best effort to identify a meeting time that works for everyone. The teacher will also post recordings of the meetings and you can view them when it is convenient. 

The goal is that you walk away not only with practical skills and friendships but that you are inspired and motivated to pursue your art and realize your potential.