I bought the "Dozen a day" technical pre-practice exercises book and I've outgrown the first group now after a couple of weeks.

Trouble is I don't understand some of the notation on the second group. I've only just started on music theory and it's still like a foreign language to me!!

I know some others have mentioned this book on this forum so perhaps someone is a little further ahead than me and knows what it all means.

Exercise 3 "Jumping off the front porch steps" on group 2 has diagonal lines going from one note in a C chord on the treble staff going down to the bass to another note. What does this diagonal line mean?

Number 6 in this group "Jumping like a frog" is a total mystery.
Any help would be great thanks.

BTW. Hi, I'm Andrea. I've only just started learning piano by myself. Getting lessons soon but I can't start until at least next month. I'm 44 and have a Casio PX130. I'm making some progress with learning to read music and to play but very very slowly!!

I wonder if it's just a visual guide from one note to another. Do you have a picture of what it looks like?

I think it means that you have to use your right hand for the upper c and your left hand for the lower c in the bass clef.

Agree with Peter. In Exercise 6 the small notes are called grace notes {also acciaccatura). You play the little grace bass notes with finger 3 but very fast, the accent being on finger 2 the normal sized note. Likewise with the Treble clef but here you play the small note with finger 2 and the normal size note with finger 3. Both notes together together form one beat.