My first piece this week was Aaron Copland’s “The Young Pioneers.” I picked this song because of its interesting time signature and sound. Although the melody seems simple, its timing and flow are, in fact, complex. I found that I could make time signature changes easier by thinking of each measure as ¾ and 4/8, rather than a straight 7/8. I tended to not hold the last note of each measure for its proper duration. By playing this rhythmically challenging piece, I gained insight on simplifying complex musical notation.
I decided to read a choral score—“Oh, dear! What can the matter be?” arranged by Gail Kubik. This song’s simple chord progression made my sight-reading easier. I was able to think of each series of measures as solid chords, rather than individual notes. I made sure not to slack off and ignore dynamic markings, however. I paid close attention to crescendos and decrescendos, improving the general motion of the piece.
I chose “Canzonetta” for my third and final piece this week. It appeared to be an accompaniment of some sort. As I read, I made sure to pay attention to the soloist’s melody, allowing me to imagine the interplay of accompaniment and melody. I also made sure not to play anything too loud—bad accompanist etiquette! I recognized the arpeggios of seventh chords on page 31, which aided me in reading. This song proved to be an efficient exercise for my accompanying skills.
Having transposed in the past, thinking of each progression in a different key did not bother me; it was more the voicing that gave me troubles. Once I had the progression in “C” down solid, I was able to slowly run through every other key. I simply need to keep practicing these different keys for maximum fluidity. This applies to the Circle of Dominant Sevenths as well. Like always, everything I discovered about my abilities this week comes down to the age-old saying: “practice makes perfect.” This week I have become inspired to improve my practicing efficiency by slowly but effectively running through my pieces.
From Jessica Schallock, October 15, 2007
I spend some time each day practicing chord progressions in both major and minor keys: I-vi-ii-I-V7-I and I-iii-IV-V7-I. First I learned the left hand bass part, noticing that the first progression is a minor-minor seventh “ii-chord”, followed by the V-I chords. The second progression is simpler; the right hand ends in root position, and the bass stays within the range of a perfect fifth.
Gigue, from Bach’s Partita I
Though the time signature of this gigue is 4/4, it has a 6/8 feel, consisting of quarter notes in the left hand that jump above and below a gradually evolving chord progression of broken eighth notes in the right hand. The left hand brings out the melody with the quarter notes, and the right hand shimmers beneath in a spinning, soaring accompaniment. The piece should really move quickly, but I sight-read it at a moderate tempo. I was able to look about half a measure ahead, noting only when the right hand changed, and thinking of chords rather than notes. At the beginning of the Gigue, the left hand and right hand seem widely spaced, giving the texture a more open feel. Towards the end, the push to the cadence is felt in the increasing intensity, closer spacing of the hands, and more frequent diminished chords, which demand resolution.
Jazz Exercise No. 2, by Oscar Peterson
The first time I sight-read this short jazzy piece, my biggest problem was not looking far enough ahead. The bass notes tended to catch me by surprise, and I didn’t always anticipate the rhythms. This piece, in G major and common time, has a bouncy swung rhythm of triplets, groups of four eighth notes, and a dotted-eighth/sixteenth pattern. I tended to play the dotted rhythm the same as the swung eighths; counting the subdivision of the beat (sixteenth notes) helped.
The piece has an AB form; the second page features ascending triplet scales in the right hand, separated by dotted-eighths and sixteenths, with a very simple bass line for the left hand. The rhythmic patterns repeat, but with every change, my thought process (the way I mentally divided the beats) changed from swung triplets to sixteenths and back again. Towards the end of the B part, the rhythm from the fist page returns. This piece is relatively chromatic and makes frequent use of accidentals, but the melody is predictable.
Larghetto, from Handel’s “Concerto Grosso in B Minor, Op. 6, No. 12”
This simplified score-reading exercise provided practice reading alto clef. It consists of three staves, the top line in treble clef for the first and second violins, the middle line for the violas, and the bottom line for the ‘tutti bassi’, which probably would have been played by cellos, basses, bassoons, and possibly keyboard. The excerpt is in E major, in ¾ time. The bass part consists of quarter notes or eighth notes with very little rhythmic variation. The violin and viola parts share the melody, and the overall texture is rather homogenous. Towards the middle of the excerpt, the viola and violins have similar rhythms, in thirds. There is little doubling, but no omissions are necessary, as the voices are not too far apart and they play only single melodic lines. The emphasis of this exercise was accuracy rather than decision-making.
From Hallie Houge, October 15, 2007
This week my main focus was the chord progressions we worked on in class.I went over each progression, working through the fingerings and changing notes as I continued through all of the key signatures.Some were a lot harder than others, because the chords were unfamiliar to my fingers.However, as I went over them, the chords became more familiar and I gradually began to memorize the progressions.I have yet to perfect them, and remember all the different ones, but it is getting easier for me, the more I run through them.So I’ve added chord progressions to my warm-ups, right alongside my scales and arpeggios.
As for the pieces I sight read, I redid the Partita in B-flat major, going over the problem spots I found in class.The most difficult part for me, surprisingly, was the fingerings.Some of the mordents and trills through me off, and I had to go over each one slowly so as to teach my fingers how to play the ornaments.This piece became easier for me each time I went through it, and I was eventually able to play the piece relatively up to speed with fewer mistakes.
Also, I decided to replay the Gigue, because I found this section to be slightly bizarre and difficult to immediately grasp, what with the left hand jumping and dancing around the right hand.I skimmed the music first, recognizing broken chords and progressions developing before my eyes.I circled the spots where my left hand forgot what to do, and then proceeded to muddle my way through the music.After my hands got used to the leaps and shared notes, I was able to concentrate on bringing out the melody of the quarter notes, and turned my mess of fingers into a beautiful song.This was not easy, but after some concentration, I was satisfied with my efforts.
Lastly, I challenged myself with the No. 22 “Country Gardens” piece.After an initial glance, I realized this dance was very long and full of leaping chords and octaves.Since my tendonitis has been flaring up again, I went over this song very slowly, relaxing my muscles as I slowly played out the octaves, accentuating my accents and sharpening my staccatos.As the tune became familiar, I allowed myself to play a little faster, enjoying the rhythms and melodies of the lively tune.Other than some jumps and chords, this song was not as difficult as I first anticipated, and I ended up liking this song a lot.
From Kelvin Ying, October 15, 2007
The hardest piece I sight-read this week was the Postludium by Erno von Dohnanyi. Continuous triplet arpeggios in the left hand go against scattered eighth notes in the right, and the left hand pattern changes to sixteenth notes several times, but one only need be the slightest bit aware of these rhythms. The tricky part to this piece is reading the changes in the left hand arpeggios quickly enough while maintaining a steady tempo. For instance, I only noticed after I passed that the arpeggio in the second half of ms. 4 reaches to a B and not a C like all the previous ones. The arpeggios get especially difficult around ms. 28 where Dohnanyi throws notes such as E-sharp and other accidentals into the left hand and lengthen the arpeggio. However, besides the accidentals and arpeggios, the piece presents no other issues.
I also read the Praeludium from Bach’s Partita No. 1. The notes are rather simple, the modulations are predictable, and the ornaments might seem daunting at first (mordents over sixteenth notes), but when played at a reasonable tempo, they’re not that frightening. Much of the difficulty in this piece stems from figuring out when which hand plays what. Right in the beginning, it can be tempting to play the entire top stave with the right hand, but then the right hand would have to play a tenth in the second measure, and that’s not desirable. However, the lower voice in the treble clef fits perfectly in the left hand even with the held B-flat, so I had to split the top stave and read the two voices with separate hands. The decision gets trickier in places like ms. 8-9, where the right hand plays two voices until the downbeat of ms. 9, where the left hand takes over. Actually, in that measure, the hands switch off—for example, the right hand should play the G and B-flat 0n the third beat, but then the left hand should take over the middle voice again. The last three measures present a similar problem as in the beginning, where the lower notes in the top stave are much easier when played in the left hand, but look like they should be played with the right. This piece definitely tested my ability to make quick decisions as to fingering in terms of which hand plays what.
From Bob Logan, October 15, 2007
1. Mary Hynes (Samuel Barber)
This is a four-part score for a "chorus of mixed voices". None of the eighth notes are beamed together, which makes the score look a little more cluttered and requires slightly more focus when sight reading. For me, the hardest part about reading this score was playing the tenor line an octave lower than written. I found that it helped to think about the voices individually, paying attention to their contours, rather than just looking at them as a series of chords on the piano.
2. Sonata in F Major, K. 547a, 1st movement (Mozart)
The ornamentation in this piece was the hardest part to sight read for me. Even though there isn't a lot of ornamentation, most of the ornaments are not in easy places that give you plenty of time to prepare. I think that when sight reading a piece with a lot of ornamentation, or with complicated ornamentation, it's better to omit some of the ornaments than to stumble over them and break the flow of the piece. Other than the ornaments, this piece wasn’t very difficult to sight read. There are a few sections where the right hand has broken octaves, which makes it possible to focus completely on the left hand. Sonatas can be some of the easiest pieces to sight read because most of the time, the theme presented in the beginning will come back unaltered (or nearly unaltered). Mozart's music makes a lot of sense and is easy and fun to play through. I really liked the development section of this piece. It cycles through several minor keys, and is an interesting contrast to the li
ghthearted first section.
3. Waltz in B Minor, Op. 69, No. 2 (Chopin)
I'm very familiar with how this piece sounds (in fact, I could probably have played it half-convincingly before seeing the music), which made sight reading it a lot easier. Having a good idea of what the melody notes, bass notes, and chords are doesn't leave much work left to do in a waltz like this. This piece has a lot of repetition and uses simple chords. I generally focused more on the right hand than the left; after all, the right hand carries the melody and gives the piece variety, while the left hand's (mostly) bass-chord-chord pattern is just a standard waltz accompaniment.
