hello mr. t here in this session the piece I would like to talk about is that
James Bond theme by Monty Norman from the book easy winners I've chosen this piece
as it is set for Grade three list B if you choose to play this piece for your
grade here are some ideas on how you could improve your marks firstly let me
play the melody I will stop at the end of bar 30
yes I agree with you not very interesting not very musical and nothing
like the character that we know of as James Bond so how can I make it more
interesting and more musical and more like James Bond the points I will cover
are tempo dynamics articulation and musicianship firstly tempo two things
to notice about tempo firstly the speed at the beginning and then look through
the piece to see if this speed changes at the beginning it says moderato which
I'm sure you will have already guessed means at a moderate speed I'll play from
bar five so you get an idea of the tempo that you might need to play it up
something along those sorts of lines secondly now let's look through the
piece to see the tempo changes and as you look through you will find that it
doesn't so you'll need to get that moderate moderate to lightly tempo all
the way through now let's add some dynamics to the tempo at the beginning
its marked MF Metzo Forte medium loud then notice that there are crescendos
and diminuendos getting louders getting softers these markings are
over the first four bars and then it's the same over bars 13 to 16 bar 17 is
Forte loud bar 28 that's a crescendo to FF fortissimo very loud in to bar 29 so
really bring out those dynamic markings now for articulation the tonguing and
slurring have a look through the piece and you
will see there are various markings which you will need to play long curved
lines are the slurs you can see these at the beginning and here you will need to
tongue the first one and then play the others without tonguing making them as
smooth as possible also notice the markings in bars 29 and
30 the little dot underneath the notes is a staccato marking which means play
short and sharp the little line is called tenuto and this means given its
full length the little arrowheads are called accents
and here you will need to give the notes a little extra force when you tongue
them I'll play from bar 27 to 30 so you can hear what is meant
hopefully you can hear the difference there in the articulation
lastly now that we have tempo dynamics and articulation the technical bits is
time to think about musicianship and what this means is thinking about what
story the music is wanting you to tell through
your playing the clues are in the title and the word moderato I'm sure
you know this piece already you will have heard of it as part of the James
Bond films and so to make the music exciting at the beginning I think it's a
good idea to really make a feature of those crescendos and diminuendo
over those first four bars then having done that make the quavers they'll
follow quite short as this will help to make the music sound really quite
exciting when you get to past 17 I think the quavers here can be just a
little longer more like singing more cantabile but then for the last two bars
really make your feature of the staccato and tenuto imagine you're James Bond and
think exciting all the time now the four points tempo dynamics articulation of
musicianship hopping covered I will end by playing further piece thinking about
all these ideas and you will be able to compare it with the first playthrough
and see the difference however notice just at the beginning I will stop at the
end of bar 13 but you must remember to do the DC al coda so go back to the
beginning and then look for the countersign at the end of bar 16 and
then played the two final bars right at the bottom of the page