My first piece, “Liebestraum” by Franz Liszt, was a nice, subdued start to my session. Most of the piece consisted of arpeggiated chords. I made sure not to make this the focus of the piece, since it only served as accompaniment to the left hand’s melody. The rolled chords added a nice, harp-like touch. The cadenza was tricky. I slowed this section to a crawl to be as accurate as possible. I tried to play the piece as romantically as possible (since its subtitle is “A Dream of Love”).
Chopin’s “Marche funebre” was another subdued piece. However, it had a much more solemn feel (“funeral”). Being in the key of C minor, this piece was very simple. I made sure to energize the movement of the piece by paying close attention to the crescendos and decrescendos. I made sure to create a sensible left hand accompaniment, since the last line of each page was cut off because of some sort of copying problem. I played this piece with a dreamlike motion.
My third piece was “Trapeze Artists,” by Joaquin Turina, a Spanish composer. I really enjoyed this piece, and I will probably work on it next semester. This piece consisted mainly of a sort of flowing vertical motion transferred from hand to hand. Although intimidating, most of the motion consisted of the same pattern repeated, only ascending by octave. I will need to find reasonable, suitable fingerings for these runs, since I was incredibly shaky on them upon my first reading.
I decided to revisit one of my greatest fears (score reading) with Beethoven’s Egmont Overture. My main difficulty consisted of maintaining a constant, flowing beat while including the main ideas of the piece. I tried my best to ignore the piano reduction at the bottom of the page. The viola, in the tenor clef, had one of the less complicated parts. As a result of this class, score reading comes much more naturally to me, although I still need to work on integrating dynamics into my scores.
I chose “Toccatta Op. 7” as my FINAL SIGHT-READING PIECE OF ALL TIME FOR THIS CLASS. I tried to play this rhythmically driving piece with intensity and fury. The ascending sections based upon chromatic scales had to be played dramatically slower. I also needed to let the melody sing. Many of the rhythms simply repeated themselves and were not difficult to play; I just needed to get the intervals accurate. The piece ended interestingly: instead of a dramatic forte dynamic, it closes with a pianissimo marking—an intriguing end to an intriguing piece.
Through these sight-reading sessions, I have improved my music-reading abilities and identification skills. I have learned the importance of preparation and dedication to music. Plus, I had a great time expanding my piano repertoire!
THE END (of everything)
From Jessica, December 10, 2007
Red Blues
The music of Carl Vine is new to me, and I was immediately enthralled when I heard his First Sonata for solo piano. From the little I’ve heard and sight-read, he seems to draw from jazz, with complex rhythmic layers, bold and unusual harmonies, moving from unrelenting energetic forward motion to soft, gentle, almost improvisatory sections. These contrasts are demonstrated in his suite of four small pieces for children, “Red Blues”.
The title piece of this suite, “Red Blues”, has three distinct sections. The A section consist of a walking bass of eighth notes and quarter notes, off-set from the meter we expect to hear (this is emphasized by accents on the first eighth note, later in the section) and also from the right hand, which has syncopated dyads, primarily fourths and fifths. A “bridge” section leads into the B section, in which the left hand has broken chords that now “fit” in the 12/8 time signature, while the right hand has the same rhythm from the A section. There is no meter change between these two sections, though the tempo does increase from dotted-quarter=112 to 120. The B section is followed by a “coda”, with tempo primo; the rhythmic pattern of the bass returns, though the bass has abandoned the upper note of its chromatic “walking” figure, retaining only the lower chromatic notes.
After a couple of times reading through this piece, the rhythms and “feel” of this piece were starting to make sense. As with all of these pieces, I was careful to check the tempo with a metronome. Carl Vine gives very specific metronome markings, and his music is such that changing the tempo (especially slowing it down too much) drastically changes the mood and emotion of the piece.
Semplice
“Central”, the second piece in this four-piece suite, is stylistically similar to “Red Blues”, if a little more laid back in the slow sections and a little more intense in the faster section. So, I’ll go right on to “Semplice”, my favorite of these four pieces.
My tendency was to play it too slowly; I’m still getting used to the correct tempo of quarter=96. The meter changes almost every measure from 7/8 to 8/8. I had to count every eighth note carefully at first, and occasionally found myself cheating the 8/8 measures of their last eighth note. Careful counting, and getting the “tune” in my head, helped. As with the metronome markings, I found it important to play rhythmically steady, so as not to destroy the effect created by the 7/8 to 8/8 meter changes. The harmonically simple melody is repeated over and over, moving through some chromaticism, then returning back to the simple, perfect melody.
Spartacus
“Spartacus”, the final piece in the suite, is yet another contrast. It is intense, rhythmic, with drive and motion imparted by the unrelenting sixteenth notes and their syncopated accents. The accents and chords shift continually; I had to sight-read relatively slowly to keep track of which hand played what. As with “Red Blues”, however, I soon got a sense of the “feel” of the piece, and was able to anticipate recurring melodic and rhythmic patterns. The syncopated rhythms repeat, modulating into a brief 12/16 section, where the left hand has broken chords in groups of three sixteenth notes, and the right hand has a strange, syncopated melody that soon gives way to the driving, accented chords.
Five Bagatelles, III
Most of Carl Vine’s “Five Bagatelles” were too difficult for me to sight-read with any success at all, though I did take a look at the first bagatelle. The third and fifth were slow enough for me to read while not losing the spirit of the music. The third bagatelle has three sections: the 64th note arpeggios played rapidly descending the span of a minor seventh, and the corresponding ascending arpeggio a half step higher in the left hand. I liked this bizarre harmony, and the closeness of the left and right hand. These arpeggios modulate harmonically and rhythmically, through 3/4, 2/4, in groups of sextuplets and quintuplets. The arpeggio section was followed by a gorgeous, jazzy melodic section in e minor that was relatively easy to sight-read. The piece concludes with a return of the arpeggios and finally pianissimo block chords of the same structure, with the left and right hand stacked closely on top of each other.
Five Bagatelles, V: Threnody
The fifth bagatelle appears simple on the page, but provided some interesting difficulties. Its simple beauty was heart-wrenching; I’m looking forward to actually studying and learning these Bagatelles. This piece is written on three staves to accommodate the huge leaps in the left hand; the right hand has a very simple melody of four quarter notes and whole notes, while the left hand plays the middle and lowest voices, offset from each other by an eighth rest at the beginning of the phrases. I practiced two voices together at a time—the right hand and lowest voice, the middle voice and lowest voice, and so on, before I was able to play all three voices together without stopping to find where my left hand was supposed to be. As always, I played more slowly than appropriate, but with practice the leaps will become more automatic. Though my attention was almost exclusively on my left hand, the right hand melody requires a delicate and attentive touch, which I was not able to achieve in sight-reading. I look forward to spending more time with Carl Vine’s music, especially the Bagatelles.
From Kelvin, December 10, 2007
For the last week of sight-reading journals, I decided to take a look at Carl Vine suite of four small pieces: “Red Blues,” “Central,” “Semplice,” and “Spartacus.” By far, my favorite was “Red Blues” for its repeating chromatic patterns and relatively regular pulse. The left hand opens with a simple swung rhythm with a mostly chromatic rising bass line. What makes this pattern sound unusual is the fact that the moving notes are placed on weak beats (3, 6, 9, and 12 in a 12/8 meter), so this offsets the pulse slightly. However, the E-flats on the strong beats counteract this accented weak beat line and restore a sense of pulse to the left hand. To accentuate the moving bass line, the right hand joins in on beats 3 and 6. This hand plays many diminished and augmented intervals throughout the entire piece, making note reading slightly difficult. For instance, on the sixth beat of ms. 1, the right hand plays E and A-flat, forming an augmented fifth. The A-flat immediately moves up to A to complete a perfect fifth. Besides interval reading, the most difficult part of reading this piece is matching up the syncopations correctly. In measures such as the first, the right hand plays on beats 3, 6, 9, or 12, but the left hand doesn’t always play at that time either. Therefore, the syncopation is split between the two hands, and they have to work together to maintain the sense of the blues rhythm.
The next piece, “Central,” is much more straightforward. In common time, it lacks any difficult syncopation, so the remaining difficulty lies in note accuracy. Like “Red Blues,” there are many diminished and augmented intervals that create a rift between sight-reading and actual playing. The left hands follows pretty much the same pattern from the opening measure throughout the entire piece: 1 x (rest) x 3 x (rest) (rest). The right hand then jumps in and fills the gaps. So similar to “Red Blues,” the two hands work together to create a complete rhythmic figure. In ms. 3, the music becomes slightly more difficult since there are notes that tie over, and there are also slurs to indicate separate voice movements, and when those movements are chromatic, is can be difficult to distinguish ties from slurs. However, the tempo is slow enough to allow enough time to read these.
“Semplice,” the third piece, was the most difficult for me to sight-read, mostly because of the unusual meter. There is no consistent meter, and the number of beats per measure switches freely between 8 and 7. Normally, shifting meters isn’t a problem, but that normally occurs between related numbers (i.e. Bloch’s Concerto Grosso, mvmt. 1, where the meter switches between 4/4 and 2/4). In switching between 8/8 and 7/8, the pulse constantly changes, and it is easy to lose track of where you are in a measure. Otherwise, the notes, like “Central,” are straightforward, and it seems like Vine thought the meter was difficult enough, since he didn’t throw any curveball rhythms; everything follows an eighth note beat. The piece is actually the most fluid of all four, with standard arpeggios below to outline harmony while the right hand plays with the main melody. This was my second favorite piece in the suite, second to “Red Blues.”
The final piece, “Spartacus,” certainly looked the most daunting. With sixteenth notes abounding everywhere, it can appear scary right after the eighth notes of “Semplice.” Similar to “Red Blues” and “Central,” each hand fills in the rhythmic gaps in the other to complete the rhythmic figure together, but with the unusual intervals and accents, this is more difficult in this piece than any other. Then, in ms. 4, Vine ups the ante slightly by putting a sixteenth rest at the downbeat instead of a note. This repeats itself several times throughout the piece, and more than once did I miss this slight change in the pattern. Otherwise, there isn’t much unusual about this piece’s difficulty. Note accuracy and rhythm are the two largest aspects, and once those are nailed, the rest comes easily.
From Logan, December 10, 2007
Bagatelle 3 (Carl Vine)
Although the rhythms in this piece look difficult to the untrained eye, they're not actually all that hard to figure out. In the beginning, I subdivided the beat into eighth notes. Each group of 64th notes fits into a single eighth note. I had no trouble with the slow quintuplets and triplets just before the first key change, maybe because of my background in percussion. In the lyrical middle section, I think I focused a little more on the left hand since it's less straightforward than the right.
Bagatelle 5 – Threnody (Carl Vine)
The main difficulty in sight reading this, obviously, is making sense of the three staves. The right hand takes the top staff and the left hand takes the other two. I came up with a strategy I had never used before. It works really well on this piece because it's slow and because the top staff is mostly arranged into small groups of quarter notes, separated by whole notes. Before each group of quarter notes in the top staff, I would quickly look through the notes and memorize them (this was doable because there were usually just five notes). That way, I could direct all my attention to the pesky left hand part, which requires a lot of looking down at the keyboard. Despite its simple texture, this is a surprisingly complicated piece.
Ragtime Waltz
The primo part looked a lot more interesting than the secondo, so I picked the primo. The problem with that is that throughout most of the piece, the primo is divided into groups of dotted quarter notes (as in 6/8) while the secondo provides the 3/4 feel. I couldn't shake the feeling of 6/8, so I turned on a metronome and played against that. The sixteenth note triplets in the middle of the song caught me by surprise, so I messed them up the first time.
Old Hundredth (Louis Bourgeois) – score reading
This score was extremely difficult to read. There are many transposed parts – in fact, there are four different key signatures among the six voices. I started by playing through each part on its own, and then tried to slowly go through all of them together. Reading by interval was essential since there were so many different key signatures.
Harmonization
Finally, I randomly picked seven melodies from the packet and harmonized them by sight. I think I did pretty well. I was able to move away from repetitive accompaniment patterns and use a variety of chords. Looking and thinking ahead is really important. Usually I found myself thinking one chord ahead – sometimes two, because some chords go together really well.
From Hallie, December 10, 2007
As I was sight reading music this past week, I realized that it is my last week of keyboard skills. I began this week by warming up with some Cramer Etudes. The ones in the middle work your hands on coordination and agility with excessive arpeggios and runs in both hands. It felt nice to begin the week with these Etudes, which are not terribly difficult to sight read, but still a challenge when it comes to fingerings.
Afterwards, I pulled out my old Bach Inventions book, and sight read a few of those. I didn’t concentrate on any ones in particular, because I had played most of them years ago. Rather, I concentrated on accuracy and making my first run through as musical as possible. It was extremely interesting to realize that many of the pieces followed rules of counter point that we have been learning in music theory this past year. I found myself analyzing chords and progressions and phrases before I even knew what I was doing! Then I laughed at how much it actually helped me to play, knowing the structure of the music according to rules of music theory.
Next, I pulled out my volumes of Beethoven’s Sonatas. I realized that my ambition may have gotten the better of me at this point, but all the same I plowed onwards. After opening to random sonatas and playing through difficult passages, trying out different fingerings, I came to the Pathetique. I decided then to sight read at least through the first movement. I actually did quite well, considering the difficulty of the piece and my lack of physical endurance that I normally have, considering that I’m still battling my tendonitis. I found the left hand to be the most difficult because of the repetitive octaves.
Then I turned to the Moonlight Sonata and sight read it for fun as well. It became my goal to play the piece as beautifully as possible, because even though I never actually played it before, I’m so familiar with the piece that I knew how it’s supposed to sound. I love this piece, and I was able to obtain the sounds I desired from the piano. I experimented with different fingers and with different textures of sound, playing the notes differently on the piano, trying to find the sounds I liked best.
Finally, after my adventures with Beethoven, Bach and Cramer, I treated myself with some more Christmas music sight reading. I played through the Christmas books I brought with me from home, concentrating on performing all my favorites musically and to the best of my abilities. Then I tampered with the chords and even the key signatures, transposing and improvising familiar Christmas melodies and creating my own accompaniments. I had a ton of fun, and was able to express my own emotions through the pieces rather than following what had been written before me by the composer. I enjoy improvising, and I thought I deserved a little bit of freedom after attempting Beethoven and Bach in the same day.
So ends my official sight reading journey. However, I know that the journey does not end here, but shall continue onwards as I keep on moving through my musical career in life.
