Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman.
Today we're going to be learning another piece by a composer we've heard of before. Cornelius Gurlitt.
Do you remember what piece we learned by him in a past lesson?
If you said Vivace then you're right.
Today we're learning another fun piece by Gurlitt called "Dance". Let's have a listen to it.
Let's check out the score for "Dance".
When I'm learning a new piece, there are a few things I always like to check out first.
The clefs, the time signature, and this: the tempo indication.
This may be kind of new for us because we haven't seen a lot of these, but we're going to start to see them more often.
A composer, to give you an idea of the tempo or speed of the piece and the mood, will usually put a word or two right here at the start of the song.
Often it's an Italian word like this, allegretto. That means medium fast or lively.
So that's how we're going to play dance.
Now let's check out the clefs.
What do you notice? Oh my goodness, two treble clefs. That's interesting.
Usually we'd see a bass clef here, but this simply means that both hands will be playing on the upper half of the piano in the treble clef range.
What do you see for the time signature?
That's right, it's 3/4.
This top number 3 tells us there will be 3 beats in every measure.
Well, let's check out the rhythm now.
We're going to speak the rhythm of the first line together. We'll say TI-TI for all of these eighth notes, TA for the quarter note,
and let's say THREE-EE-EE for the dotted half note.
Can you try and speak the rhythm words with me? Ready, go: TI-TI TI-TI TA
TI-TI TI-TI TA TA TA TA THREE-EE-EE
Nice job.
Now, let's try to sing the solfège for "Dance".
We're going to start on DO,
and let's see what is the letter name for this first note?
If you said C, you're correct. It's a treble C.
We've got middle C down here, it's the next C above that.
Now, if this is DO, can you tell me the solfège for this first measure? It starts on DO.
Try it by yourself once. Say the solfège.
They're all stepping up, so the correct answer would be DO RE MI FA SO.
Can you try to sing that with me? Ready, go: DO RE MI FA SO. Now let's keep going. What do we have here?
That's right, it's the same thing again. Let's try it. DO RE MI FA SO
Now what do you see here for solfège?
Remember where C is. It's a step higher. So what would that be in solfège?
That's right, it's RE. Then what do you see here?
That's correct. RE SO SO SO
Let's sing it again. DO RE MI FA SO, DO RE MI FA SO, RE SO SO SO
Super, let's try it on the piano now.
All right, first measure of "Dance" for the right hand starts on treble C.
If this is middle C, can you point to the note on your screen that would be treble C?
If you're pointing right here, you're correct. So that will be where we place finger 1. We'll be in the C major pentascale.
Now, I'm going to let you try and play this without my help this time, so take a look at line one of "Dance",
and try playing the first line. Remember, don't just look at the notes, but also try and remember the rhythm.
TI-TI TI-TI TA, TI-TI TI-TI TA etc.
So press pause and try playing line one on your own,
then press play when you're ready to hear me play what it's supposed to sound like, and hopefully it will match what you just played.
Time to press pause and try line one.
Here's line one on the piano:
You've probably noticed these curved lines in the music.
These are called slurs, and when they go over a group of notes like this it means to play those notes legato or smoothly.
So let's remember that as we play.
When you play those legato notes stepping up with the eighth notes,
I'd like you to not just hold your hand stiffly in one place. You'll get a better tone
and it will feel more comfortable if you let your wrist shift to the side as you play those notes.
Let's look at that from another angle.
Feel like you're gliding through those notes,
and your wrist and hand and arm are all shifting as you play.
Then when you play those repeated G's,
let your wrist float up as you play each one so it doesn't sound like a karate chop.
You want it to float up almost feel like you're pulling or inviting the sound up out of the key.
You'll get a more beautiful tone that way.
Now let's check out line two.
On line two, can you tell me if it's the same or different? Look at the right hand.
If you said it's the same you're correct, except for what can you find any notes that are different?
You have to look carefully.
So where before we repeated on SO, what do we have this time? We have RE SO SO, then what?
if you said DO you're correct.
Now let's try line two on the piano.
All right for line two our right hand will be once again in the C major pentascale right here,
and once again this time I'll have you press pause to try playing it on your own first without my help.
Then once you've figured it out, press play and I'll show you the correct answer.
Here's what line two sounds like:
Notice I played it piano because of the dynamic marking.
Now if that's not quite what it sounded like when you played it, press pause and try and fix it, but if that match what you played,
then you're ready to practice line one and two together.
You'll notice that at the end of line two there's a repeat sign.
So when we play this from start to finish, you'll play line one, then line two, then because of the repeat you'll go back and do lines one and two again.
So now I'd like you to press pause and practice line one and two four times.
Once you feel like you've got it, press play to go on and we'll learn the rest of the piece.
Let's check out the B section of "Dance". Lines three and four.
Can you speak the rhythm for me
of line three? I'll do it with you. Ready, go:
TI-TI TI-TI TA, TI-TI TI-TI TA,
TI-TI TI-TI TA, TI-TI TI-TI TA
Oh, we've got a pattern going on there.
Now let's look for the step, skip, repeat, pattern. Let's say start for this first note, and then tell me what's happening in this measure.
Can you say it with me? Start, step up, step down, step up, step down.
Aha, that's an interesting pattern. Now what do you notice about this measure?
We have start, step up, step down, step up, step down. Is that the same pattern?
Yes and no. It's the same pattern of steps, but it starts on a different note.
So let's figure out what note each pattern starts on. Can you tell me the letter name for this note?
If you said D you're correct.
Let's write a D there to remind us of that. So we have D step up, step down, step up, step down, then what letter do you see here?
That's right. This time it's a C.
So we have C, step up, step down, step up, step down. It's just going back and forth.
Now what do you notice about this measure?
That's right it's the same pattern again, but starting on what letter this time?
Remember the top line of the treble clef I call flag F.
So we have an F here.
Going back and forth.
Just back and forth between F and G, and then it steps down to what?
Same pattern again but this time starting on E.
Now let's go through and try to sing this line using letter names instead of solfège this time.
Just for practice.
So we start on a D, and it's going to step up to E and go back and forth.
Can you try it with me?
I will start on D, ready sing the letters with me, go:
D E D E D
C D C D C
F G F G F
E F E F E
Nice job. Now let's try it on the piano.
Now let's try line three of "Dance".
Once again, I think I'm going to have you try it first. I'm enjoying challenging you today.
So go ahead and press pause and see if you can figure out on your own how to play line three of "Dance".
Then press play when you're ready to hear me play it for you.
Here's line three of "Dance":
Did that sound like what you played?
If so that's great.
If not, that's okay too. Just press pause and try it a few more times on your own until you get it.
Now let's check out line four together.
Let's figure out the steps, skips, repeats for this first measure of line four.
Ready, say start.
Start, step up, step up, step down, step down.
Good, now what do you notice about this measure?
Once again, it's the same pattern, but this time starting on C.
This pattern happened to start on what letter?
That's right, it started on D.
Let's try to sing those two measures with solfège.
Remember in the C pentascale, D will be RE.
So we'll have RE MI FA MI RE
DO RE MI RE DO
Can you try that with me? Ready, go:
RE MI FA MI RE
DO RE MI RE DO
Good, then what can you tell me about these notes?
Have we seen them before anywhere in the piece?
That's right, at the end of line two we have these same notes. Let's sing it in solfège.
RE SO SO DO
Now we're ready to try line four on the piano.
For line four of "Dance" do you also think you can try it on your own first?
Good, let's see if you can do it. It's going to start on a D,
and then you go from there. Press pause, try line four on your own, and then press play when you're ready to hear me do it
Here's what line four sounds like:
Is that what yours sounded like?
If so, great.
Once again, at the end of line four you'll see a repeat sign,
but this repeat sign sends you back to the repeat sign at the start of line 3.
So when you get here it's going to go back
and repeat lines three and four once again, and then the song is finally done.
Now I'd like you to press pause and try playing lines three and four just right hand.
Do it four times, and then press play when you're ready to go on.
Nice work learning the right hand of "Dance" today.
Now on your own I'd like you to practice putting all four lines together.
Practice every day until you feel confident with the right hand, and then you'll be ready to learn the left hand in our next lesson.
I also encourage you to practice this one with a metronome.
So you can be in the habit of keeping a very steady beat.
I would start with the metronome at about 88 beats per minute,
and then once you play it with no missed notes at that speed gradually increase to a maximum of about 126 beats per minute.
I hope you enjoy playing "Dance". Thanks for watching, and see you next time.
Once upon a time there were two eighth notes who were best friends.
They were in fact, well, inseparable.
I'm Fred. And I'm Rick.
Together we're Frederick.
We stick together.
Through thick and thin.
Legatos and staccatos.
That's right.
One Friday night they were feeling bored, so they decided to go to a dance.
Come on Rick, I'm bored. Let's go to that dance!
All right.
We can share a beat together.
We always share a beat together.
I know.
At the dance they saw that all the notes were just standing around! No one was dancing, so Fred said,
Come on Rick, let's get something started here.
All right.
So they took to the dance floor, but with just the two of them all they could manage was:
TI-TI TI-TI TI-TI
You know Fred, I think this may work better if we invited some more notes to dance with us!
Good idea Rick!
See those two eighth notes over there?
They seem nice why don't we invite them?
All right, you do it Rick!
Excuse me, would you two lovely eighth notes like to join us for a dance?
Sure!
And so once again they took to the dance floor and,
TI-TI TI-TI TI-TI TI-TI TI-TI
Well, this is truly fun to dance with you eighth notes.
I'm Kate.
I'm Lynne.
Right, Caitlin. Do you see that quarter note over there? He's looking rather lonely,
and I think we could use one more note in our dance. Why don't we invite him to join us?
So they all went over to the quarter note.
Would you care to join us?
Um, okay.
And together the four eighth notes and the quarter note assembled on the dance floor, and,
TI-TI TI-TI TA, TI-TI TI-IT TA
and the notes all had a lovely time and became wonderful friends making great music together.
One night they were even discovered by a famous composer Cornelius Gurlitt
who offered a contract to these notes to be the main stars in his new piano composition called "Dance".
And they all lived happily and musically ever after. The end.