[Christopher B. J. Smith:]
>Berlin is not the only one to start piano on black keys. My six year
>old son started out piano lessons on only black keys, my father
>played "Derby Town" in F# (the only tune he could play) and taught it
>to me that way when I was about eight.
I've read that when Chopin taught students, he didn't start scales with
C major and A minor, then gradually work up to more sharps and flats. He
started with B major, which he said was the easiest scale to play, went on to F#
major, Db major and others like that, worked through the other keys, reducing
the number of black notes gradually, coming to C major last, because he said it
was the most difficult scale to play evenly.
>It reduces the chances of
>hitting the keys on either side of the correct one if you are not
>very accomplished. Plus the hand position and fingering is most
>comfortable in F#.
On the other hand, I find that, in very fast passages of piano music,
especially where every note for a bar or so is black, it is much easier to play
wrong notes because your fingers tend to slip more easily off the narrower, but
higher-up, black keys.
Try playing falling parallel 4th figuration (with the odd major 3rd) all on
black keys in one hand, and you'll see what I mean. Exactly this arises in a
piece I was practising not so long ago (in the right hand), and I still haven't
quite got the hang of it yet; but if had been all on white keys, I would have
got it up to speed far more quickly.
Regards,
Michael Edwards.
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