Free online Intermediate course

Welcome to our free online course for Intermediate pianists with Finchcocks Musical Director David Hall!

You can pause and replay each of the videos as often as you like until you can get the hang of each exercise. Then, once you’ve mastered it, you can play along with David as a duet – to whichever backing track he provides! We hope you enjoy it.

If the below proves too tricky for your current level, why not tryour free online series for Beginner pianists. It assumes no knowledge of the learner at all and takes you right back to basics!

Lesson 1: Practice Tips

David shares eight practice tips that will help you focus your practice and make it more effective, including a secret that will help you become more confident as you progress through the piece and a method that helps you befriend your wrong notes.

Lesson 2: Harmony & the Circle of Fifths

In this second video for Intermediate players, David takes learners through the fundamentals of harmony and the circle of fifths. Explaining how keys are connected, he uses the circle of fifths to play all his scales in under a minute on our Steinway! It might take you a little longer at first, but you can pause and replay the video as often as you like until you can get the hang of each exercise. David then uses a clever “traffic light system” to pick out the root chord (using the tonic triad) of each key easily. By the end of the video you will have composed your own piano tune with two to six related chords!

Time to get playing and creative with your harmony: Click on the video below…

Lesson 3: Improving your Pedalling Technique

Learning to use the pedal properly is one of the most exciting and rewarding parts of playing the piano. In this third video for Intermediate players, David introduces you to the sustain pedal, how it works and three different types of pedalling. He highlights two common mistakes in using the pedal, and gets you to pretend to be a marionette doll to coordinate your arms and feet correctly – perhaps an exercise best left for when noone else is around!

Click on the video below to get pedalling…

Lesson 4: Introduction to Jazz & Pop Styles

Ever wanted to play like Ray Charles or Nina Simone? This week David takes us on a whistlestop tour of five popular pianist greats! Learn Hit the road Jack with Ray, how Nina used improvised parallel 3rds and 6ths in her classic My baby just cares for me, and all about chords charts with Elton John. Give it a whirl… and send us a video of what you’ve learnt to play, if you like!

Click on the video below to get boogying…

Lesson 5: Introduction to Accompanying

In this final online lesson, David gives you the confidence and tips you need to start accompanying other musicians: Find out about appropriate stage positions for different instrumentalists; learn (and sing along to!) some vocal warm ups; discover three different types of performer and think about how best to support, rehearse with and prepare them for a performance.

Click on the video below to learn more!

Thank you for joining us for the online Intermediate course! We hope you enjoyed it and found it useful. If you would like to find out more about our residential Lower and Upper Intermediate courses at Finchcocks, please check our course availability here, or drop us a line using the form below.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your musical background. We’d love to hear from you!