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From Patrick, November 19, 2007

Well, folks, it’s Thanksgiving week, and you know what that means—it’s almost the beginning of the Christmas season!  Thus, I chose Vince Guaraldi’s famous jazz arrangement of “O Tannenbaum.”  This piece had some interesting bluesy chords that were fun to play.  This arrangement had a lot of the improvised solo work (off the recording) written into the score.  This made it odd to play--- I had to rely mostly upon my familiarity with the recording to play with feeling.  It was a fun way to begin THE SIGHT READING EXPERIENCE. I chose Chopin’s “Nocturne in E-flat Major” for my second piece.  I had worked shortly on this piece a while ago, but it still seemed new to me.  I decided that effective fingering for the left hand was the most important aspect—there were many jumps.  Realizing their chord structures helped with finger placement.  The longer runs in the right hand were made easy by noticing their chromatic pattern.  My third piece was “Allegretto” from Beethoven’s seventh symphony.  This was an exciting piece to play.  I liked how the arranger designated the original instruments in the score.  This gave me ideas concerning phrasing and general sound.  I would play the pizzicato violin sections as I imagined in my head.  I made sure to keep the general volume quiet.  I let the piece gather tension as I progressed, and then let my ending be forte.  I also sight read a score entitled “II.”  (I’m sure it has a name and composer.)  From experience in orchestral playing, I knew not to fret when I saw all the different lines—brass and other do not play as often with the strings; they are often used to add essential color at times.  A lot of the piece consisted of the strings alone. My final piece was a relief: the chorale “O wir armen Sünder.”  This song went well.  I made sure to play the accidental naturals in the left hand.  I had to play some of the “tenor” lines with my right hand because of the ridiculous distance my left hand would have had to stretch.  This song’s simple chord progression and melodic lines made it a nice conclusion to my sight-reading session. Happy Thanksgiving, and good night.

From Jessica, November 19, 2007

Nocturnal Tangier, by Leopold Godowsky This Andante espressivo piece has several interesting aspects that I enjoyed exploring in my sight-reading. Though the meter is ¾, the tempo is slow, even, and un-waltz-like. There is a delicious rhythmic tension of three against two. The melody is a mournful tune in the right hand, and the left hand has a steady, plodding, almost resigned accompaniment of octaves and full, sonorous chords. The right hand moves between the two dotted quarter notes, repeated eighth notes, and surges of sixteenth notes. The key is e minor, and there are some intense modulations in the middle of the piece. I enjoyed the push and pull of the rhythms and the sixteenth notes against the steady left hand. It was a fairly easy piece to sight read, as the left hand is quite repetitive and the right hand repeats the same rhythms.   Valse romantique, by Claude Debussy Unlike the previous piece, this Valse by Debussy really is a waltz. The piece begins with a simple left hand accompaniment and a mournful melody in the right hand. The right hand melody begins on the upbeat between beats one and two, giving an uplifting feeling that contrasts with the heavy minor atmosphere. Much of this piece is about contrasts between hope and sadness, major and minor, steady eighths and light triplets. Measure 12 features the first of several brief interludes of C major, apparently unrelated to the melody, which returns only four measures later. Rhythmically this piece was not difficult to read, and I tried to recognize the triplets as inversions of the same chord. There are a few accidentals on the second page, where the appearance of c-flat takes us to G-flat major and e-flat minor. The balance between the hands and the same basic themes recur with little variation until the last page, where the right and left hands switch roles briefly, the left hand taking the melody against triplets in the right hand. The right hand takes the melody again, doubled at the octave with a full, intense, fortissimo conclusion, marked Maestoso.   Notturno, by Ottorino Respighi I loved this shimmering, slowly changing piece by Respighi. The rhythm is simple, layered, with a sustained melody above repeated sixteenth notes that alternate between the hands. There is no clear differentiation between the right and left hand; both interweave, with the right hand brining out the melody. The piece is in G-flat major/e-flat minor, with few accidentals until the third page. Here, the rhythm and meter change with punctuations of strong repeated chords in 4/4 time, followed by a cadenza-like passage (this I found very difficult to sight read, both rhythmically and harmonically). It returns to the original theme, and the piece finishes calmly in G-flat major.   An einsame Quelle, (By the Lonely Spring), by Richard Strauss I found this piece very similar to the Respighi, in terms of texture, balance between the voices, and mood. It essentially has four voices: an upper voice in the right hand that has the melody, the middle voice, also in the right hand, which consists of repeated incomplete triplets (missing the first of the three). The left hand has two voices as well: the upper voice combines with the right hand to form the melody interwoven with the triplets, and a bass voice that usually but not always integrates with the melody. There are a few accidentals on the third page, but both rhythmically and harmonically this piece is fairly homogenous. At first I sight-read too slowly; a faster tempo brought out the interaction between the voices and helped me to phrase the slow melody.   Valse, by Bela Bartok This piece is in 3/8 time, with a tempo of presto. There is a sharp accent on the first beat of every measure, giving it more of a scherzo feeling than a waltz feeling, though the piece is titled “Valse”. I had to go slowly and pay close attention, as this piece is constantly moving through different rhythmic patterns with lots of accidentals. The left hand frequently has a three note pattern of eighth notes, with a melody in the right hand, though there is much interaction between the two hands. On the second page, the two hands combine to form the eighth note pattern, moving back to the texture of the first page, then together in chromatic eighth note dyads on the fourth page. This is followed by a triplet and sixteenth note pattern that cascades from one hand to the other, followed by trills in the right hand and a very scherzo-like pattern that brings the piece to a triple-forte, marcatissimo conclusion. Characteristic of Bartok, the articulations are highly contrasting and must be exaggerated, and there is a huge dynamic contrast, moving from pianissimo to triple-forte in the space of five short measures (two of which are tacit). Of all the music I sight-read, this piece was one of the most difficult.

From Hallie, November 19, 2007

This week I began my sight reading journal with something different for a change.  I sight read some Christmas music from an old music book I found while lurking in my basement over the weekend.  The tunes are familiar to me, so immediately everything was a lot easier.  Since most of the pieces, including “What Child is This”, “Silent Night”, “Carol of the Bells” to name a few, were in simple keys, I was able to play through the entire book much to my enjoyment.  Afterwards, I felt more in the Christmas spirit and more excited to sight read more music. Since my tendonitis has flared up again, I’m supposed to take it easy with the songs that I’m playing.  So I decided to avoid the songs that involved octaves and complicated fingerings so as not to agitate my tendons any further.  So I decided to flip through my Debussy book and proceeded to sight read “Jardins sous la pluie”, a rolling piece with lots of repetition.  I enjoyed the broken chords and the melody found in the left hand.  It was easy to invoke emotion from the flowing piece because of the repetition. Next, I opened up my Mozart Sonata book and proceeded to run through the second and third movements of Sonata K332 in F major, the piece that I am currently working on for my juries.  I’ve listened to several recordings of the entire sonata and therefore found my sight reading to be easier since I already heard the piece before.  Some places were challenging to decipher because of the alternative score written above the original, and not to mention the complicated runs in the right hand.  I took both movements slowly so as to play each note correctly and listen for phrases that I will need to shape and work on in the future Afterwards, I pulled out my packet of music and played Debussy’s “Valse romantique” again, because basically I love Debussy.  And the water-like quality of Debussy’s phrases and melodies are the exact types of movements I need to incorporate into my piano playing so as to loosen my arms and relieve tension in my body.  Since this was the third time I played through it, it was easier for me to concentrate on the voicing and overall sound of the piece rather than stumbling through the notes.  Finally, I reran through the entire Strauss piece “An einsamer Quelle” since we didn’t finish going through the whole thing in class.  I still had troubles with the triplets beginning on the off beats and then adding the melody to the accompaniment of triplets and bass line.  So I decided to go through the piece and play the melodies separately so that they would be easier for me to enhance and concentrate on instead of fumbling through the triplets while struggling to hear the melody.  This method proved useful and I was able to play through the piece without too much trouble.

From Bob, November 19, 2007

Notturno (Respighi) This is a great song and an interesting piece to sight read. It's written in G-flat, and during the sections that stray from the home key, I found an easy way to remember which notes were flatted: all of them except F. I also figured out a simple way to read chords with double flats. In the past, I tried to read these chords the same way I read simpler chords: by looking at their shape and important notes (top and bottom). This didn't work very well. The strategy I found was to ignore the double flats at first, and then "add them in" after figuring out what kind of chord I would be playing without them. This worked pretty well. Symphony no. 7 (II) (Beethoven) – full score Since I'm familiar with this piece, I decided to try reading the score. I'm kind of bad at reading alto clef, so I went more by the intervals in the viola part than by their absolute locations on the staff. Once the viola started to double the cello, I just looked at the cello part instead. On the third page, most of the remaining instruments join in and there are 12 staves to read. Since this is an unmanageably high number to pay attention to at once, I focused mainly on what seemed like the most prominent parts: flute, violins, cello, and bass. First Arabesque (Debussy) In the outer sections of this piece, the left hand has a lot of broken chords. I followed the strategy of looking at them as a whole (like I would with regular chords) instead of note-by-note. The hardest part for me was the few measures on the first page (starting with the stringendo) that have various broken seventh chords (sometimes inverted) in the left hand. The middle section reminds me a lot of Grieg. Two German Dances (Beethoven) Octaves that jump around can be difficult to sight read at a reasonable tempo because you sometimes need to look down at the keys more (or risk landing on the wrong notes). I found that it helped to keep my hands close to the keys. By doing so, I didn't have to look at the keys as often, since I had more of a "feel" for where I was. Song Without Words, Op. 102, no. 4 (Mendelssohn) Most of this piece consists of arpeggiated chords underneath a melody. The accompaniment passes into the right hand frequently, so the challenge is to make the melody sing above the accompaniment even when the right hand is playing both. I focused more on the melody than the accompaniment as I played through this piece, trying to listen to its contour and the organization of the phrases.