Hello everyone, thank you for being so prepared this week!
Emet
We can move on from the D minor scales this week and focus only on the triads and inversions. Keep these HS but do try both solid and broken in each hand.
Scarborough Fair – When playing this piece, shift your focus to LH and the triads it plays; you really only have 4 shapes to worry about. Try adding pedal this week! All pedal markings are notated on the music.
Raisins and Almonds – This is our newest piece since we’ve moved on from Intermezzo; it’s based off of D harmonic minor. LH’s triad patterns are very similar to Scarborough Fair, however there are some new chords: G minor and A7. Note that there is always a common note between D minor and each of these two new chords that you can use as an anchor. In the RH melody, count out loud (with ands!) for bars with eighth notes. I’m particularly referring to bar 2 and 6. As the week goes on and you feel more comfortable, you can try putting the hands together.
Please still practice Hound Dog – we will start with it next week since this week we didn’t get to it.
Nathalia
For our warmup this week let’s continue with C and F major triads, hands separately, both solid and broken. When we play triads we play up the octave but also back down, so try incorporating that this week. When playing broken triads, connect between inversions as well as within the triads.
Bye Bye, Love – For this new song let’s start playing the first page hands separately. LH’s rhythms are super important, so label the counting underneath the phrases as needed and count out loud as you play. Remember that our saying for line notes is Good Birds Don’t Fly Away, and for space notes it’s All Cows Eat Grass. For RH’s melody, please look out for and play with all the labelled fingers since there are quite a few switches. For all those low ledger lines, think of middle C and then use skips to figure them out. This piece is in F major, so it has a Bb in the key signature (unless the note is preceded by a natural sign, like in bar 11).
Kollel
Let’s change up our warmup scale this week – we will do the D major (which has F# and C#) scale and triads. The fingering is exactly the same as for G major, so finger 3s line up on F# and B, and also thumbs line up on the middle D. For triads, since there is the F# just slide your hands closer into the keys so it’s easier to reach.
Für Elise – For the most part this piece is very solid, there are just some details I’d like to point out: in our A sections, please pay attention to LH when you are crossing over an octave – your cross should look like our scales, with thumb tucked and wrist relatively parallel to the keys. Your elbow definitely shouldn’t be lifting, and remember since you’re playing with pedal you can let go of your bottom note once you’ve played it. In the B section, bar 28, just don’t play the grace note for now until the 32nd note rhythm is solidified – since the time signature is 3/8, 8th notes get one count, 16th notes get 1/2 a count, and 32nd notes get a 1/4 of a count. The C section you are playing very fast; slow it down to the same tempo as your A sections – there is no tempo change marked here so the pulse should stay the same. In bar 82 when the chromatic section starts, it will be easier if you use classic chromatic scale fingers: 1 on white keys, 3 on black keys, and finger 2 popping in whenever there’s 2 white keys in a row.
I know we did not get to In Church this week – please still practice it as we will start with it next class.