Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman.
Today we are going to learn to play the melody of a beautiful folk song, which is also a kind of lullaby.
"All the Pretty Horses" Let's have a listen.
♫Hush-a-bye, don't you cry, go to sleep my little baby♫
♫When you wake you shall have all the pretty little horses♫
♫Blacks and bays, dapples and grays, coach and six a little horses.♫
♫Hush-a-bye, don't you cry go to sleep my little baby♫
With this song, we're actually going to do something special.
We're going to learn how to play it as a duet. You may recall from before that a duet is when two people play music together.
Today we'll just learn the melody, and then in our next lesson I'll also teach you how to play the accompaniment.
Friend or family member and invite him or her to also learn either the melody or the accompaniment,
and then the two of you could play this as a duet.
One on the melody, the other on the accompaniment.
Now, let's get started learning the melody.
Here's the sheet music for "All the Pretty Horses". What do you notice?
You probably notice from now on you're going to be seeing this kind of tempo indication at the start of each of our pieces or songs.
Andante, do you remember what that means?
Andante is our tempo indication for a medium slow relaxed tempo.
You might have noticed these chord symbols which we'll be working on in another lesson, but today we'll be learning the melody.
Treble and bass clef as usual. What is our time signature?
It's 4/4.
Now let's check out our rhythms.
We start off with pretty straightforward quarter note, quarter note, half note, quarter note, quarter note, half note,
and then here's a dotted quarter note.
Remember that a dotted quarter note equals 1 1/2 beats.
Sometimes my students say, wait I thought that got 3 beats!
No, no, no. That's the dotted half note.
That equals 3 beats, but a dotted quarter note equals 1 1/2.
Remember that a dot adds half of your original value. So with a half note, your original value is 2, so a dot adds 1.
With a quarter note, your original value is 1, so the dot adds a 1/2 of a beat.
So for counting this, because this is equal to 1 1/2 beats, it gets 1-& then it gets the first half of beat 2,
and this flagged eighth note gets the other half of beat 2,
and then from there we could add beat 3-&, and then what kind of note is this?
A flagged eighth note gets the same amount of time as a beamed eighth note has the same rhythmic
value. It's just a flag because the other half of the beat is a rest, and that is an eighth rest which also takes half of the beat.
So this rhythm would be: 1-& 2-& 3-& 4-&
and you notice on this & the melody goes down to the left hand. So even though the right hand is resting,
the melody carries on by dropping down into the left hand.
Now I'd like you to pause the video and write in the subdivided beat like this. You're going to take every beat. So this quarter rest
gets the 1 and the &. Remember that & just represents the other half of the beat.
So 1-&, and sometimes it's the left hand that's playing, and that's why you see that rest there in the right hand part.
2-& Try and make your beats and the &s line up with the correct note.
So since this note starts on beat 3, I want to make sure my 3 lines up with it.
Pause the video and write in the counts for this entire first line, then press play and we'll try it together.
Okay, here's what you should have written into your music. Let's try tapping this rhythm while we count the beat out loud.
Now if you want you can use your left hand to tap any notes down here in the bass staff,
and you can use your right hand for any notes up in the treble staff.
I'm going to be pointing with my left hand. So I'm going to do both hands with my right hand.
So it's up to you how you want to do that. I'll count 4 beats, and then we'll start here on beat 1.
Count and tap with me. 1-& 2-& 3-& 4-&
1-& 2-& 3-& 4-&
Let's try to play it.
Alright let's figure out our position for this song. Where will we place our hands?
Start by looking at the first note in the left hand which is A,
and you'll see the number 2, which tells us finger number 2 of the left hand will cover up A right below middle C.
Right hand what is the first note?
We have an E played with finger 3. Now that's how you figure out your position.
Because we don't see any sharps or flats in the sheet music, we know we're going to be on all white keys,
and our finger 1s will actually be right next door to each other.
Now, what I'd like you to do is without my help see if you can figure out how to play the first two measures of "All the Pretty Horses".
Press pause and try it a few times on your own and then press play when you're ready to hear me play it.
Okay, here's what you should have played:
A E E D C D
If that's what it sounded like when you played, then we're good to go on.
Otherwise just rewind, try it a few more times, or press pause to figure it out
Now, let's go on to measure three and four.
What note do we start on here in measure three?
If you said a G you're correct. So finger 5 of the right hand is on G. So we'll have G, and then stepping down to A.
A, one more time we have: 1 2-& 3-& 4-& 1 2 3 4
When you practice this, make sure you hold that dotted quarter note long enough.
That dot is what gives that note it's extra special something. 1 2-& 3-& 4-&
If you just go, it's not exciting. That dot is what gives that note its energy. 1 2-& 3-& 4-& 1 2 3 4
Now press pause and work on measures three and four a few times until you feel comfortable, then press play to go on.
Great! Now, here's all of line one put together.
This time let's also pay attention to the dynamics. What do you see at the start?
That's right, it's a piano mark, which means to play softly.
What about in measure three? What do you see there?
Yes, a mezzo piano followed by a decrescendo on the last four eighth notes meaning we're going to be bringing the volume back down.
So starting quiet in measure three, a little bump in volume, and then falling back down as the notes go down.
Here it is once. I'll play starting piano.
Now, press pause and work on that line two or three times on your own until you're comfortable, and then we'll go back to the sheet music.
Now let's check out line two. Starting here in measure five.
By the way, if you've been wondering what these boxes with the numbers mean, that tells you what measure you're in.
Here we have measure one, two, three, four, so line two starts with measure five.
I'd like you to take a few seconds, check every single note of line two and see if it's the same or different from line one.
What do you notice?
Is there anything that's different?
Sometimes it looks exactly the same, but there might be one note that changes,
but if you check every note you can see the notes all match, the dynamic markings match. Piano, mezzo piano, decrescendo.
The only thing that's different are the words.
So, good news you already know how to play line two. Let's check out line three.
What do you notice on line three? Are these notes the same or different compared to line two?
Well, there's some that are different.
These notes here look different. What do you notice about these notes?
If we check note for note every single note here is the same. So just two new measures to learn.
So let's dig in. Can you tell me the letter name of the note that we start on here?
If you said E you're correct.
And now what interval from here to here?
That's up a third, or up a skip. So E to G,
and then what letter would we have here?
If we're on G here, it has to be A A, and then up to middle C, and once again the melody is passing between the hands. We start in the left hand,
pass up to the right hand.
Now to be sure we get the rhythm correct, I'd like you to pause the video again and write in the subdivided counts.
Remember, it's going to look kind of like this: 1-& 2-& etc. just for these two measures.
Pause to write in the counts, then press play and we'll look at it together.
Okay, here's how the counts should be written.
Check and make sure that yours match, and then let's try tapping and counting the subdivided beat.
I'll give us 4 beats, again you can use your left hand to tap the bass clef notes,
right hand to tap the right or use the same hand for everything like I'm doing.
Here's 4 beats, and then we'll start. 1-& 2-& 3-& 4-&
1-& 2-& 3-& 4-&
And then if we wanted to keep going 1-& 2-& 3-& 4-&
1-& 2-& 3-& 4-&
Let's try to play it.
All right, our hands are still in the same position as before for line three.
We said that the left hand was going to be starting on an E, so can you tell me which finger number is on E for the left hand?
If you said 5 you're correct.
So we have finger 5 and then it skips up to G. 3 3 I was singing the finger numbers there. Now you try.
Good, this time let's sing the letter names. Can you try it with me?
Starting finger 5 on E, go:
E G G
Good, now let's look at the next measure.
We have two A's played by the left hand,
and they're eighth notes so 1-&, and then the right hand goes C C. Together it'll be 1-& 2 3 4. Now your turn.
Good, now let's put those two measures together. My turn once.
1 2 3 4 1-& 2 3 4 Now your turn.
Great, now let's try the whole line and put it all together. Will you try playing it along with me?
let's try it at the same time.
Ready, go: 1 2 3 4 1-& 2 3 4 now up to G.
1 2-& 3-& 4-& 1 2 3 4
If that was a little bumpy, that's fine just pause practice it a few times on your own, then rewind and try it again with me.
If you're ready to go on, then just keep watching.
Okay, we're ready for line four.
Take a look at these notes and tell me if this looks the same or different from something we've seen before.
If you said it looks the same as lines one and two you're correct.
So what would the form be for the entire song?
Line one and line two were the same we saw.
Then on line three we had a different melody. So we could call that B,
and then line four is the same again. So this song is in A A B A form.
The only difference this time is in the dynamics. Notice we start piano,
we decrescendo down to a pianissimo.
Remember this is a lullaby, so you might be helping someone to fall asleep as you play. So we want to end very softly.
All right, it's time to try the whole piece from the beginning.
I'm going to play it, and if you'd like to play along with me you can, or if you'd rather just listen that's fine too.
Let's pay a special attention both to the rhythms, like those dotted quarter notes, but also to the dynamics.
You'll notice when we get to line three the dynamics are going to bump up to mezzo piano,
but then once again like all the other lines there'll be a decrescendo near the end.
Let's try from the beginning. I'll count 4 beats, and then we start.
1 2 3 4
Nice work learning the melody of "All the Pretty Horses".
Remember to work on finding a friend to learn either the melody or accompaniment.
So the two of you can play a duet together.
In our next lesson we'll learn the accompaniment.
Happy practicing, and see you next time!
Wa, wa
There, there.
♫Hush-a-bye don't you cry, go to sleep my little baby♫
♫when you wake you shall have♫
♫all the pretty little--♫
Horsey!
No, Baby come down it's nap time!
Ride horsey!
Baby, come back!