Mad World: the intro
Lesson 7 · about 15 minutes · the opening 12 seconds, then straight into the verse
The video opens with four bars before the verse (0:10–0:22). The left hand only rocks between two keys. The right hand plays a winding line that dips below your thumb, and three times it arrives half a beat early, ahead of the left hand.Notes transcribed from the frames of PHianonize's EASY tutorial, 0:10.0–0:22.8, with tools/falling-notes.mjs. The video doesn't show fingering, so the fingers here are my suggestion.
1 · Warm-up: the verse, cold
Octave 0. Hands in the lesson 6 position (right thumb on D). Play the verse once, no hints. The score stays hidden. Only open it afterwards, to check.
2 · Left hand: D, G, D, G
Same keys as the verse, fewer of them: D (finger 4), G (thumb), D, G, one per bar, held. Nothing new here, so your attention can go to the right hand.
3 · Right hand: a new position
For the intro, move your right hand one key down from the verse position: thumb on the second C, in the middle of your keyboard. Then:
| Key | B | C | D | E | F | G | A |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Finger | 1 (slides down) | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 5 (stretch) |
Reading the score. From this lesson on, the drills show sheet music instead of letters. The top staff (treble clef) is the right hand, the bottom staff (bass clef) the left hand. Every line and every space is one white key, so a step up the staff is one key to the right.Staff, clefs, ledger lines, note values and ties: musictheory.net lessons, "The Staff, Clefs, and Ledger Lines", "Note Duration" and "Dots and Ties". The scores are drawn with abcjs. These are your intro keys, with names:
Landmarks: C, your thumb, sits on its own short line under the staff. That line is a ledger line. B hangs just below it, D just below the bottom line, and E is the bottom line. In the bass staff, the left-hand D is the middle line.There's no key signature (no ♯ or ♭ after the clef): this arrangement uses only white keys. It's in D Dorian, a minor mode with a natural B, the same mode as the Gary Jules record (Hooktheory: F Dorian).
How long a note lasts, in boxes of the count grid from §4 (one box = one "&"):
| Looks like | flag or beam (♪) | filled, stem (♩) | ♩ with a dot | hollow, stem | hollow, no stem | curve to the next note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | eighth | quarter | dotted quarter | half | whole | tie |
| Boxes | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 8 | add them, don't replay |
A dot adds half the note's value. A tie joins two notes into one long one: keep the key down.
Two moves are new:
- Pinky stretch to A. At the start, F (4) jumps to A, past G. Reach with the pinky. On mini keys it's a small stretch.
- Thumb slide to B. The line ends C, then B. Play C with the thumb, then slide the thumb one key down to B and let the hand follow. The B is long, so you have time to slide back up to C before the next F.
Tinted: right hand B to A for the intro. Left hand D and G.
Bar 1, right hand alone. Say the fingers out loud: "4 5 3 4 2 3 1 slide". The B is tied into the next bar: hold it while you count to 4.
4 · Pushed notes
Here is the whole intro as a score. Look for the three curves over the bar lines: those are pushed notes. They land on the last "&" of a bar, half a beat before the left hand's next key, and are tied over the bar line, so they keep sounding.
The same four bars on the count grid. The dark boxes are the pushes:
| count | 1 | & | 2 | & | 3 | & | 4 | & |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| bar 1 · LH D | F | A | E | F | D | E | C | B |
| bar 2 · LH G | ─ | ─ | ─ | ─ | ─ | ─ | · | F |
| bar 3 · LH D | ─ | A | E | F | D | E | F | G |
| bar 4 · LH G | ─ | ─ | ─ | ─ | ─ | ─ | ─ | ─ |
So the hands take turns at the bar lines. The right hand goes first ("&"), then the left hand lands on "1" while the right hand holds. Keep the right-hand key down when the left hand plays. Lifting it is the most common slip.Musicians call this an anticipation or a push. It's everywhere in pop music, and it's what gives the intro its forward lean. The verse from lesson 6 has the same thing at the end of bar 4: F E D, with the D carried into the next bar.
Tempo. Every drill now has a tempo. With Click: on, ▶ Hear it counts in one bar of clicks ("1 2 3 4"), then plays with a click on every beat. Press the button to switch the click off and hear the music alone. Start at 60: press Slower three times. Go up to 75, the speed of the video, once it's clean. The drill only checks the keys. The click is your judge of time.
The right hand alone, all four bars. Press ▶ Hear it first and listen for the early notes.
5 · Both hands
The drill shows each step. When the left hand plays alone (G, D, G) while the right hand holds, it's a single step. Don't re-press the held key.
6 · Intro into verse
At the end of bar 4 the right hand moves one key up, back to the verse position (thumb on D). You have the whole held G, about three seconds, to make that move. Then the verse begins with the left-hand D alone, and the melody comes in on count 2.
Then the video from 0:10, at 0.75× first. Stop at 0:35, the end of the first verse.
7 · Check yourself
8 · The next three days
- Tomorrow: the intro into verse drill cold, reading the score with the names off, at 60 with the click on. Then the video from 0:10 at 0.75×.
- Day after: Moonlight bars 1–5 (Octave −1!), then Mad World 0:10–1:00 with the video: intro plus the verse three times.
- Day 3: the same at 1×. Then tell me how it went. The chorus comes next. For that I'll capture the rest of the video in a visible browser, or ask you for a few screenshots.
Previous: Lesson 6 · Reference: Keyboard map · Glossary · Next: Lesson 8 (Tetris Theme, the opening)