Tuesday Foundations: Cycle of Fifths Chord Progressions

Now that I have graduated from the four courses on seventh chords, I'm in the "Play Piano Lead Sheets with 7th Chords" course. The first lesson is on the Cycle of Fifths chord progression. I'm very familiar with the Cycle of Fifths, so I guess I'm a little ahead there. And thanks to the seventh-chord courses, I'm pretty good at moving from one chord to another, even when using different inversions. So I'm thankful for that.

As I work my way through these lessons, I'm going to spend a lot of time transposing to other keys, using only the roman numerals as a guide. I also want to practice using the many skills I'm learning in the blues course: slides, turns, harmony notes, rolls, etc.

Another goal: Avoid falling into my stale old habit of arpeggiating the left-hand chords. Use block chords, or stride/ballad-style chords, or bass lines, or ... well, anything but those broken chords! Broken chords are pretty and nice and I don't have anything against them, other than that's my default style, and I desperately want to break free of it. I don't want to throw it away entirely; I just want to stop being dependent on it.

In this video, I talk (and play) through some of the things I'm learning. I'm not ready to perform anything yet, but it might be interesting later to see how far I've come from this humble beginning.

(Note: This is a back-post; I wrote the post and made the video on Thursday, but I've set it up to post the previous Tuesday since Tuesday is my day to focus on Foundations.)

Comments

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...

Thursday, July 13

I worked in a short practice today. Had piano this afternoon. The short practice involved the usual scales and arps, and a run-through of my pieces. It wasn't so much a practice as a review. Piano was good. She said that the Bach sounded very musical. I asked what I should do next, practice-wise--continue drilling and memorizing HS, or start HT? She said that I "shouldn't hold off any longer" on playing HT, and to keep drilling HS if I want but to begin working HT on whatever I find to be the most difficult passage of the fugue. That's easy. I don't have the music in front of me, but in the Alfred edition, it's the bottom of page two. I played the Liszt pretty well, if a bit timidly. I'm playing it with emotion and paying attention to all of the dynamics and all of that, but I'm still also trying to make sure I get the notes right in several sections. She had all kinds of nice things to say about the Liszt. The 9-against-4 is sounding much better (...

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 ...

Picking Up the Pieces

Search This Blog