For this week’s sight-reading journal, I decided to begin with a simple song, “Nocturnal Tangier” by Leopold Godowsky. The piece had a sort of waltz-like feel. There were some interesting interacting rhythms, such as the beginning dotted quarter notes against the regular quarter notes. Reading horizontally made this easier—it helped to look ahead and see where these notes fit into the piece as a whole.
From there, I proceeded to a far more difficult piece: Charles T. Griffes’ “The White Peacock.” This was quite simply one of the strangest pieces I have sight-read this year. The time signature changes were odd but manageable. The various accidentals were mostly chromatic, although confusing. The left hand notes grouped in “7” were hard to fit together with the right hand. With more intense work, this piece has potential to be an odd, yet fantastic song.
I found “Valse romantique,” by the wonderful Claude Debussy, to be a simple, exciting piece to play. Parts that looked intimidating upon first glance (arpeggios especially) actually proved to be easier when I realized their simple structure (in the form of C or D-flat major chords). I loved the melody of this song—always help when sight-reading!
“Romance” by Jean Sibelius was another, well, “romantic” sounding piece. I found the blocked chords to be extremely easy. With proper pedaling technique, my choppy progression became a lush, musical landscape. This piece goes back and forth between forte and piano—I made it more interesting by using more crescendos and decrescendos in more than the marked spots. This created a sense of motion. I had a lot of fun with the cadenza, which consisted of the same note pattern, descending.
My final piece, “Tom Thumb’s March,” was an excellent conclusion to my session. The time signature changes did not faze me…they were quite simple. I made sure to place extra emphasis on the szforzandos, as well. Much like the other songs this week, the block chords were simple to read if I made use of my knowledge of chords. The left hand patterns were enjoyable: the lower note remained the same as the upper part went down in thirds. I found it to be a fun piece to end the entry.
From Jessica, Novemeber 26, 2007
Moments Musicals, by Franz Schubert
No. 1, in C major
This piece, in C major and 3/4 time, features much interaction between the hands; there is little sense of a melody/accompaniment texture, except for a brief passage in the second page. The piece begins with the theme played by both hands doubled at the octave, followed by a series of chords. The rhythm is primarily eighth notes and eighth note triplets, and the two hands often play together with the same or similar rhythm. The second page features the same basic rhythmic patterns and theme repeated several times, beginning with triplets in both hands, followed by stately chords, also in both hands. In the following section we hear a “melody in the right hand, left hand accompaniment” texture; the left hand triplets accompany a melody of triads with the bass doubled. The triplets and chords section returns again on the third page; this repetition made sight-reading much easier. The left hand has broken octaves on a G pedal tone, with the melody in first and second inversion triads; this section isn’t repeated, unlike all the previous sections. After a fermata, the theme and texture from the first page returns. This piece was relatively easy to sight read, as there were few accidentals, the texture was never dense, and there was much repetition.
No. 5, in F minor
The rhythm was quite straightforward in this allegro vivace movement, in F minor. I sight-read at more of a march tempo, trying for accuracy and clarity in reading the chords. The left hand was simple to read, keeping the same pedal tone for four measures at a time, sometimes with an upper voice that I took care to bring out. The right hand chords also had repeated tones and a moving melody line. This piece has a wide dynamic range from fortissimo to pianissimo, with several sforzandos, and I tried to be faithful to the articulation and pedaling. The second section is a little lighter in texture, with a legato right hand and staccato quarter notes and quarter note dyads in the left hand, then returning to the material and texture of the first section. Because the rhythm was very simple, I could focus on accuracy of note-reading and dynamics.
No. 6, in A-flat major
This allegretto movement in A-flat major has several key changes and several voices, which made sight-reading a bit of a challenge. It consists of two repeated sections followed by a trio. The upper voice of the right hand almost always has the melody; the two hands have similar rhythms, though the left hand is slightly less active than the right hand. As always, I tried to bring out the melody and get the left hand chords where I could. Though the piece is allegro, it has a very legato feel, with long slurs and lots of ties. The dynamics are mostly piano to pianissimo, until a series of strong chords shortly before the trio, which feature a complete change in texture, straight quarter notes on the beat. The trio is also in two sections, with no key changes, and the voices are less independent than previously, with more octave doublings and simpler rhythms.
Passepied, from Suite bergamasque, by Claude Debussy
I would like very much to really learn this piece someday. After reading it several times, I bought it on iTunes and have been listening to it over and over again. I sight-read through it again and again, enjoying the light, fresh, beautiful world to which I was transported. It reminds me of Peter Pan, of Never-Never Land.
The left hand has a light staccato broken chord pattern, with a playful tune in the right hand. The left hand accompaniment is unrelieved throughout much of the piece. The right hand melody becomes dyads, then a slightly more melancholy tune that features triplet quarter notes against the eighth notes of the bass. The first break in the texture of the left hand occurs on the third page, where the eighth notes are handed back and forth between both hands, and the left hand then has patterns of three eighth notes slurred together. The piece shifts between f-sharp minor, A major, and A-flat major (briefly). On the fifth page, one of my favorite passages is the staccato chords; such fresh, beautiful harmonies. Then there is a cascade of eighth notes from one hand to the next, over a sustained whole note bass. The left hand gets the melody for a while, and the right hand eighth notes are legato now. The piece keeps its new-found legato phrasing until the end of the piece.
Prelude, by Maurice Ravel
This prelude is almost waltz-like, with a moving eighth note figure that gets handed back and forth, and quarter notes tied across the bar line for a lilting, slow dance feeling. There were a few accidentals to be aware of on the second page, but mostly it was easy to sight-read and to play. The left hand is written in treble clef in the middle of the piece, which caused some overlap of the hands, which required coordination. The clef changed several times on the second page, which fooled me more than once. I enjoyed the fresh, unusual harmonies, and focused on phrasing and accuracy.
From Hallie, Novemeber 26, 2007
This week in keyboard skills, I decided to go through the five Schubert “Moments Musicals” in the packet we received last week. I started with the first one, No. 1 in C Major. The most alarming part of this piece was the sometimes complicated rhythms and crazy accidentals found in the rapid chord progressions. I worked my way slowly through the piece, minding the dynamics and enjoying the movement of the piece. I liked the way the piece switched between eighth notes and triplets. This was a lovely song, and so I progressed onwards to the next piece.
The next Schubert “Musical Moment” is No. 2 in A-flat Major. There are lots of octaves and accidentals, and a repetitive rhythm. I went very slowly through the nine-eight measures, relaxing my wrists and teaching my fingers the correct notes, minding the sforzandos and extreme dynamics. As soon as the triplets kicked in during the left hand, I had to slow down dramatically, because I was not able to play the right notes musically without pacing myself. This was a difficult piece for me with all the octaves, which stretched my hand uncomfortably.
Afterwards, I moved onto the shorter No. 3 in F major, with broken chords in the left hand and mildly difficult fingerings in the right hand. I did not take this piece up to speed immediately so that I could play with more precise accuracy rather than rushing through without regarding correct notes and ornamentations. I enjoyed this little piece, and after playing through once, it became easier the second time I attempted to play through all of it.
I moved on to No. 4 in C-sharp minor and was baffled by all the sixteenth note arpeggios. And this piece was quite lengthy, so I played it in pieces. After a muddled run through, I played hands separately and concentrated on finding the melodies and main themes and accentuating them while playing. Then I went through with both hands again, concentrating on dynamic markings and accidentals that kept eluding me. This was hard to play, but I’m glad I did because I like the sound it creates.
I was extremely excited to see the solid chords that opened No. 5 in F minor as opposed to the crazy arpeggios found in the previous piece. I ran through the beginning with little trouble, only pausing slightly at the eighth notes with the leaping bass line. I enjoyed this piece because the style was completely different from the previous pieces. As I ran through the piece, I realized I counted wrong and found that Schubert wrote a No. 6 in A-flat Major, which was also full of chords, so I added it to this paragraph entry. Neither piece gave me much trouble. I liked the atmosphere each piece created. I was also pleased overall with these Schubert “Musical Moments” because they were all very different and intriguing.
From Kelvin, Novemeber 26, 2007
I don’t write about scores often, but this week I really enjoyed reading the score for the second movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. What struck me right away were the unusual transpositions, most of which I wasn’t used to transposing. Since I’ve read scores that have mostly included B-flat trumpets and F horns, I’m not accustomed to clarinets in A, trumpets in E, and trombones in D. Luckily, these instruments don’t enter until much later in ms. 75, so I had 74 measures reading the strings and cementing the melody in my head. Upon reading, I found that the melody is quite simple in that the harmonies aren’t outrageously experimental, and the voices generally move together with the same rhythm and in the same direction. I had no difficulty playing at the piano dynamic marked in ms. 3 and the pianissimo in ms. 19. In ms. 27, the second violins enter, but the reading actually becomes easier since the viola and the cello play in unison. At ms. 51, the spacing makes it difficult to play every voice, but with the bass pattern, the left hand can play the bass line and the viola and cello. Throughout this entire section, the harmony remains very simple and straightforward. When the winds finally enter in ms. 75 (although the oboe and bassoon enter way earlier), they actually double each other much of the time. The only difficulty is transposing quickly enough to figure out which instruments are playing the same notes. In ms. 101, the texture changes dramatically, and for that section, I chose to play only the clarinet, the bassoon, and the bass. This eliminated the inner accompanying voices and brought out the melody along with its bass counterpart.
On a lighter note, I received the accompanist’s part for “Nobody Needs to Know,” a song from the 2001 musical The Last Five Years. The part is unsurprisingly easy, with the same four chords repeated for much of the piece: A-flat with no third, A-flat major 7, A-flat minor 7, and A-flat with an added F. Right at the beginning of the third page, the accidentals change completely from flats to sharps, but the chords don’t change at all. The bass pattern changes slightly from pedal A-flat, but it isn’t that tricky. The difficulty is maintaining a soft and musical touch with the chords, since it can be tempting to just bang the chords like there’s no tomorrow. But the dynamics in the vocal part hang around the piano/mezzo-piano range, so the piano part must reflect this. A final note of interest in this piece concerns the very end. In the last seven measures, the key signature switches from A-flat to G for no apparent reason. This creates an unusual situation because the vocalist ends on a held G, but since the key change occurs very late, the G could actually still be felt like a leading tone to A-flat. It’s a colorful key change that adds a final bit of interest to the song and makes it a pleasant piece to read.
From Bob, Novemeber 26, 2007
Moment Musical no. 1 (Schubert)
This is a really cool and interesting little piece. I played through it at a moderately slow tempo without stumbling a lot. The hardest parts were the measures with consecutive eighth note chords. They require quick thinking and frequent changes in hand position. I tried to take note of which chords were doubled, or between two adjacent chords that were very similar, which notes were different. One part that was kind of confusing to play was the section in the middle where the left hand is nothing but triplets. The accompaniment in the left hand is extremely clever (in some measures, it's palindromic), but it was difficult to sight read because the patterns felt somewhat unfamiliar. I had to pay way more attention to it than to the right hand.
Moment Musical no. 2 (Schubert)
This piece has a much more chordal texture than the previous one. My strategy for chords is to quickly scan them and first try to figure out what they are from the shape and from the key of the piece, and then to look at individual notes (usually from bottom to top) only if necessary. The reading got difficult at the bottom of the second page, where there are a lot of flats and double-flats. I found it easier to think about the chords' more common enharmonic equivalents (e.g. B major instead of C-flat major). In the part with the broken chords in the left hand, I tried to look as far ahead as possible (usually 2-3 beats) because the patterns are kind of complicated.
"Raindrop" Prelude (Chopin)
I've heard this piece so many times but never actually tried playing it before. Because it's relatively simple, I tried to play it as if I were performing it – sticking to a reasonable tempo, hitting all the notes, not stumbling, and playing with expression. I think I did pretty well. There are a few decorative figures in this song that seem hard at first glance but are simple if you divide them up correctly. For example, the last beat of measure 4 has 7 notes in the right hand against 2 in the left hand. I knew that the second left-hand note would fall between the 4th and 5th right-hand notes, which helped me play it correctly.
Next, I picked a score from one of the handouts. Unfortunately, it doesn't say what it's called or who wrote it. At the top of the page it says "H" and the piece is labeled "79" to the left of the first line. It's score for two instruments in treble clef, one in alto clef, and one in bass clef. I started by carefully looking over the part in alto clef, taking note of accidentals and figuring out when it followed another voice in parallel 6ths or 10ths. Then I slowly read through it, trying to hear the voices independently instead of as simple chords.
Sonata no. 10 in C Major (I) (Mozart)
For my last piece, I opened up a Mozart Sonata book and picked one I had never heard or tried before. The hardest thing for me was keeping the 16th notes even; some of the patterns don't lie under the hand very well. In the sections with simple accompaniment patterns in the left hand, I focused more on the right hand, trying to play with good phrasing.
