Skip to main content

Bare Necessities: 3 Problem Areas

Bare Necessities is coming along nicely. I can play the whole thing at 120, and most of it at 140 or 150. It's supposed to be at 200-something, so it's still not up to speed ... but I am definitely making progress. There are a few small "problem areas" where I still struggle. All three of them are in the ragtime section, and they are the focus for today's blog post. Just a warning that the accompanying videos are very boring because they show me drilling these sections. My hope is that they'll be helpful for someone down the road who is trying to learn this same piece.

Problem Area #1: Measure 55

This is the end of the verse that goes "just the bare necessities of life." I would put a photo of the measure here, but I don't want to break any copyright rules. So I'll describe it: The right hand is playing octave quarter notes, going down an A minor chord (E to C to A), finishing on G. The left hand is doing single-note jumps: It jumps from a low D to an F# in the next octave, and then it reaches down a major 7th to the G, and then up a minor 7th to F natural. So, not a ton of jumping, but, for some reason, I've had difficulty with this section.

Here is my drilling video for this measure:

Problem Area #2: Measures 60-61

These are my favorite measures of the whole piece! They're repeated again in measures 140-141. I love them so much. If you know the lyrics, it's the second part of the "Wherever I wander, wherever I roam" line. The left hand is playing a stride C chord while the right hand repeats the same little motif three times in a row, each time jumping down an octave. The left hand jumps down the octaves as well. It's delightful to listen to, but it's tricky to play! I really, really want to get this part right because I love it so much, so I'm putting the extra work into it.

Here's the drilling video:

Problem Area #3: Measures 74-77/154-157

These two measures are where Baloo sings "and maybe try a few." The arrangement has me doing a C chord in octaves, and then an A arpeggio, and then a jump back down to E ... and it's tricky. Here is a boring video of me working through it (and then rambling at the end):

I've done these same drills multiple times, and progress has been slow ... but I'm progressing. I made this video several days ago, and I'm now consistently making the jump and not missing the notes.

Finishing Up ...

I'm also continuing to work on the outro, which is coming along. It's no longer a "problem area," though. I've got it down pretty solidly, and now I'm just working on speed--which is a little tricky because of the octaves, inner notes, and syncopation (basically everything).

I'll conclude this little blog post with a video of me playing the stride sections of Bare Necessities. I hit a snag at measure 55 and apparently stop the video there. Sorry! I'll get it one of these days!

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

March Goals Recap/Looking Ahead to April

It's April 1, and time to revisit the goals I set for last month. I practiced a total of 50.45 hours in March, averaging 1.62 hours (or just over an hour and a half) per day. Realistically, I practice about 45 minutes to an hour a day on weekdays, and I usually get at least one longer practice (or multiple shorter practices) in on one or both days of the weekend to bring the average up. CLASSICAL GOALS Chopin, F Minor Nocturne March Goal: Have entire piece by memory and performance-ready. I have about 90% of the piece by memory, but I still have some work to do before it's performance-ready. The only two sections that I don't quite have are "The Agitation" and the "stretto" section with the seventh chords. I'll work on both this week and will have them both memorized before the weekend. April Goal: Finish memorizing, and polish, polish, polish! My focus now is really on phrasing and dynamics. I have the notes down, even in the difficult passages. Fro...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Rusty Lock and Key

I'm in a room. There's a door in front of me. On the other side of that door is a whole world of adventure and imagination and joy and delight, but for the moment, I'm locked in this gray little room. The door itself has a lock that is all rusted. I've tried to open it in the past, but I've never gotten very far. Sometimes I try to scrape the rust off the lock. I also have a rusty old key that I occasionally try to polish. Each time, after I've made a little progress, I'll put it into the keyhole in hopes of opening the door. It turns a half a millimeter or so, but the brief excitement at my progress dies quickly when I realize, once again, the lock isn't opening. I set the old key aside, and from there I can forget about the door, the lock, and the world outside, for months—years, even. But then something happens—I hear birdsong, or I catch a glimpse of color—and I pick up the key and start picking away at the stubborn rust. That dark little room is my ...
Post a Comment
Read more

I Need an Intermediate Piece

Deborah wants me to pick out an intermediate piece to start learning next week. I went to the ARCT Syllabus guide that Robert so graciously sent me and looked up all of the pieces that I considered "intermediate." They were mostly Grade 6 and Grade 7. Not intermediate enough. I looked up my Beethoven Sonatina in G, my most recent intermediate piece. It's a Grade 3--a very early intermediate. So I'm looking for something in the Grade 4-5 category. And I'd kind of like to work on one of those pieces that everyone loves to hear--Fur Elise, Chopin's Em prelude, the Brahms waltz in Ab--all pieces I learned in junior high, but pieces that I'd like to re-learn, and learn to play well , and not like my junior-high self, whose heart wasn't in the music. And they are pieces I love, and that others love hearing as well. Hmm. Fur Elise is Grade 7. The Chopin Prelude is Grade 8. The Brahms Waltz is Grade 8. Too advanced for an intermediate piece? I'll talk it ...
3 comments
Read more