Gergely Szabo

Sara

Listening – Harry Somers “Feller from Fortune”

Technical Exercises – Continuing with B Major – 2 octaves HT for everything

• Parallel motion scales – being sure to keep our wrist/arm neutral, our bridge/knuckles supported, and our fingers curved around our bubble especially when we are mostly on black keys (no flat fingers!)
• Triads (solid/broken), working on letting our elbows lead a “down and out” circular motion like we tried together – letting one circle carry us to the next position. Our hands should be mirroring/moving in the opposite direction of each other.
• Arpeggios – using arm motion to help carry us horizontally across the keyboard (no finger crossing legatos between hand positions)

Schubert – continue with slow hands separate practice

Bartok – #29-31 – Making sure we can follow each hand separately so that we can comfortably play through without getting overwhelmed.

• Starting HS, try singing along with one hand while you play (HS and HT), play one hand staccato and one hand legato, one hand forte/one hand piano, etc.

Beethoven – Noticing in places like measure 3, 7, 21, and 25 how our hands link up on the main beats. 

• Practice just playing the main eighth notes in the LH (without the upper note that we return to each time), then linking that up with the RH. Then adding in and “ghosting” all of our LH syncopated sixteenth notes so we still are following when our hands link together.
• Thinking about our “conversation” between characters – showing large dynamic changes clearly. Our brighter and louder “older sibling” at measure 1 versus the tip-toeing softer “younger sibling” at measure 3.
• Remember that your RH is the melody in most of this piece, keeping our RH as the most important to our ear with dynamics throughout the entire piece (unless both hands share our main idea like in measure 35)

Clara

Technical Exercises – 5 finger scale positions starting on C, G, D, A, E, and B 

• Following our pattern of half steps and whole steps for each position, saying all note names out loud.
• Stepping up and down in our hand position, then outlining our triad shape.

Lesson Book – Pages 50-53 Scans for Clara – Oct 23

• Welcome to the Parade – Try changing our dynamic levels and “recomposing” this piece how you want it!
• Hey Hey/Allegro – Watching for skips on the staff (line note to line note, skipping a finger/key on the keyboard)

Hakim

Bartok – Working through exercises #1-6 – double check/write in your starting notes for both hands

• Practice playing through hands separately and together, saying note names out loud.

Celebration – Working through entirely to the end hands together. 

• Make sure you are confident of hand positions in places like measure 4 and 14, check how similar they are to your starting positions.
• Watching for our pattern as we change hand positions in measures 8-12