Not-So-Scary Coda II: Bare Necessities

I had just a few minutes this morning after practicing Mozart, so I decided to play through the Bare Necessities coda/finale/outro. As I explained in my previous post, I've skipped ahead to this section, opting to tackle the easier-looking crossed-hand section and kiddie section after I have the outro down.

I've been scared of this section. If you listen to Jonny May play it (link takes you to the beginning of the outro), you can see that it doesn't sound like a walk in the park. And it's not. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that it's not the big, scary challenge that I thought it would be.

The hardest part is the syncopation. I wrote in the beats, circling the melody beats, and clapped out the rhythm a few times.

It took a few times before I "got it," but once I figured that out, it was just a matter of learning the notes ... which aren't that hard. It's basically chromatic octaves with inner notes that don't change that much, while the left hand only changes chords every eight beats.

Even the glissando section at the end isn't bad. The only negative with that is that I can't hear the high notes, thanks to my hearing loss. But that's OK. I can hear them in my heart.

I'm not going to ramble anymore here because I ramble in this video, and I also play some of the finale, slowly.

As with the Mozart, I'm feeling very confident and excited about learning what I thought was going to be a difficult final section!

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Picking Up the Pieces

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