In Greensleeves Lesson One, you learn to play the melody with the right fingers as a secure basis for your performance going forward.

Download the 'Greensleeves' Workbook PDF for the lesson notes and full-size music examples.

The teaching video

Here is the all-in-one teaching video. You may find it more convenient to learn section by section, as below.

The same video split up into convenient sections follows.

You are learning just the right hand melody in this lesson. Don't try to play the left hand chords yet!

The first line of music

Here is the first line of music, which you are about to learn.

Learn the music with this video, then play along with the chords (second part of the video).

The second line of music

Here is the second line of music. It starts the same but ends differently.

Learn the second line of the melody with this video, and play along (just the melody) with my performance

The first half of Greensleeves

Here are lines one and two combined - the first half of the piece.

The music shows the chords as well, but you are only interested in the melody (top stave) for now.

Use this video to make sure you can play lines one and two together.

Second half - line three

Here's line three of the music, and the teaching video.

Only the first bar is different to Line One, but that makes the fingering for the rest of the line different.

Line four

Here is line four, the last line of music, and the teaching video.

Second half of the piece

Putting lines three and four together.

Playing all the way through

Here's the music for the whole piece. Practice playing along  - just the melody! - using the video beneath as a soundtrack.

(This music is in the PDF Workbook download.)

Here is the scrolling-MS video of the same performance.

Outro

How did that go? Did you enjoy yourself? Did you play the tune right through?

Here's an admission: Rome wasn't built in a day! You may need to come back to this lesson more than once to reinforce your ability to play the melody, but it will be worth it - we want that melody secure when we start adding chords in the next lesson.

 The fingering lecture

It can really seem like 'too much' to use the 'right fingering' when you're struggling to find the notes and get your fingers to do what you want them to already. But if you don't have the fingering, you can't get to the notes, which means you can't play the music wanted to play. And it's much easier to learn the right fingering than unlearn the wrong fingering later.

 Visualisation

You don't have to be at the keyboard to practice the piano! You can do visualisation exercises anywhere. Just close your eyes, visualise the keyboard with its groups of three and two black keys. Head for a group of three and put your right hand thumb on the right of the two white keys in there - and off you go! (Right fingers too, please!)

This is the end of the free lesson in the course. I hope you'll sign up and do the rest! If you've learned to play the melody, I'm sure you can learn the left hand chords in the next lesson and come away playing a solo arrangement of Greensleeves.

Then you can take it onward into the 'creative stuff' and become a composer-arranger in your own right.

Now go on to Lesson Two - Adding the Chords.

Thanks for learning with MUSICARTA! Come back soon!