Sara

Pieces to Listen: 

  • Bela Bartok – Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celeste

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QElT9KD4uX8&ab_channel=invertedninthchord 

  • Franz Schubert – “Gute Nacht” from Winterreise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8I5Gn3bVN0&ab_channel=WarnerClassics

Technical Exercises – Review LH fingerings for E Major scale 

  • New Key – B Major (5 sharps!): Scales (parallel, HS and HT)
    • Triads (solid HT, broken HS) – watching out for fingers 1 and 5 on black keys, moving further into the keys so that you are comfortable.
    • Arpeggios (HS) – thinking of moving horizontally with your arm instead of crossing fingers over/under to stay relaxed and in control. Remember to try and keep finger 3 lined up with your elbow so we don’t get any “chicken wings” in the elbows!

Bartok – #20-21 (22 if time), starting HS and watching for when our patterns breaks! Bartok Mikrokosmos Book 1 20-36

  • Trying to follow the shape of the line and being sure to look ahead as you read.
  • Making sure we are practicing with a nice healthy forte! Think of playing deep into the keys instead of skating over the top of them, especially in Bartok and Technical Exercises.

 

Pierrot & Pierrette – focusing on dynamics:

– balance between hands (RH melody, LH supporting/accompaniment), watching for any marked dynamics.

Schubert: Moments Musicaux no.3 – Working entirely HS.

  • RH: working through small sections RH alone, ignoring ornaments for now as we get comfortable with the structure of the piece.
    • Have your pencil handy as you work to mark down any fingerings.
    • Working through RH layers so that we are able to play and hear them separately.
    • Circle any difficult/awkward feeling sections and isolate the most challenging part – focusing in and practicing these small sections/jumps until you are able to move through them without hesitating.
  • LH: the “motor” of this piece, practicing repeated chords moving back and forth to get comfortable with the large jumps. Adding extra challenges to get it comfortable quickly (for example: repeating chords multiple times, adding an extra octave in between the jumps like we’ve tried together, playing only top or bottom notes of chords when you jump, etc.)

Clara

Lesson Book: Pages 36-41 – Reading on the staff, focusing on home notes (Bass F, Middle C, and Treble G). Faber scans for Clara – 36-41

  • Watching for which finger is in charge of each home note, and if there are more than one note being played at a time vertically (either in one hand, like “Driving in the G Clef”, or in both hands at once, like “Best Friends”)

Exercises: Working through 5 finger scales starting in a C, G, and D hand position. 

  • Practicing hands separately, trying hands together if comfortable.
  • Saying note names out loud while practicing.

Hakim

Exercises: Working through 5 finger scale hand positions around the keyboard, starting in C, G, D, A, and E 5 finger positions. 

  • Watching out for our pattern of half steps and whole steps in each position to find any sharps 
    • 5 finger scale pattern – Whole step, Whole step, Half Step, Whole Step
  • Practicing hands separately and together slowly at first: be prepared to try legato, staccato, or detached. (Remember, when we play through things quickly before they’re comfortable it will take much longer to get comfortable!)

Distant Chimes – Working through all the way to the end hands together, keeping an eye on changing hand position and watching for repeating patterns (like measures 5 and 7, or 6 and 8)

  • Watching out for hands crossing over all the way through, especially in measures 13 to the end.