Skip to main content

Ode to Joy Day 5: Chords, Leaps, and Reality Checks

As part of Day 5 of Rebecca Bogart’s Learn New Repertoire Faster challenge, the focus is supposed to be speed.

I’m not there yet. Nowhere close.

I do use her tempo-building techniques in other work—I leaned on them quite a bit in Pineapple Rag, and I’ll be using them tonight on After You’ve Gone as I prep for the graduation video. But for OTJ, speed is going to have to wait.

Day 5

Today we leave Batch 1 behind and begin Batch 2.

Batch 1 included the eight-measure intro and the sixteen-measure A/A′ section. (There are also two more A sections later—A″ and A‴—so I guess I got a head start on those as well.)

Batch 2 consists of:

  • Passage 1: B section (8 measures)
  • Passage 2: solo A section, part 1 (4 measures)
  • Passage 3: solo A section, part 2 (4 measures)

The solo A section is firmly red (difficult), so I’m breaking it into smaller chunks. It has eight additional measures I'll address in Batch 3 next week.

This Morning’s Practice: Passage 1

I originally marked Passage 1 as green (easy).

What was I thinking? This passage is clearly yellow.

There are some easier elements, which initially led me to think "green":

  • A recurring pattern that sits well under the hands
  • A few measures of mostly single-line melody/fills
  • A simpler texture (simpler than in A/A') that makes the melody easy to hear
  • Familiar progressions such as ii–V7–I and a recurring turnaround

But once I got into it, the challenges showed up:

  • Some dense chords with accidentals
  • An awkward left-hand reach followed by a large leap in the same hand
  • Frequent rhythm changes in the right hand
  • A downward right-hand leap near the end

Meeting the Challenges

Here’s how I approached those trouble spots:

  • Chords: I focused on both shape and function—what the chord looks like and why those accidentals are there. Once the logic is clear, both playing and memorization get easier.
  • Awkward reach/leap: To address this problem, I adjusted the original fingering, reassigning one of the upper notes to the right hand. This reduced the leap by a tritone and made the motion much more manageable.
  • Rhythm: As I typically do for rhythm challenges, I used humming and clapping. I’ll also revisit the recording to reinforce the feel.
  • Downward leap: I practiced with eyes closed and also used mental practice to visualize the movement and hand shape. It’s not a large leap, but the register makes it feel unfamiliar.

I also used 3b3 throughout, which is quickly becoming standard operating procedure.

Where I Am Now

I didn’t even get to the solo A section this morning—that will have to wait until tonight. And that probably tells you everything you need to know about how “speed day” is going. 😂

Here is my daily video on this. You don’t really need to watch it unless you want to hear what the B section currently sounds like (warning: it doesn’t quite sound like music… yet). Otherwise, the video just walks through everything you’ve read here.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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

The Amazing Practice Tracker 2.0: Leveling Up My Piano Game

(Apologies for the cheesy clip art. I needed to come up with something, or the Blogger template would show a fuzzy, overly-enlarged snippet of the first chart below.) When I showed my husband my piano practice tracker, he said I should market and sell it. Ha. It’s not for sale, but I’m excited to share how this tool has transformed my practice—and why it might inspire all three of my readers. Since my last post about the Amazing Practice Tracker, I’ve made it even better. Here’s a peek at how it works, using my June data. All The Pretty Colors, All the Pretty Winners My tracker now sparkles with color: darker shades for active pieces, lighter ones for maintenance, technique, and sight-reading. Each day, the piece I practice most gets a bright yellow highlight—a little “gold medal,” if you will. (Click image for a slightly larger view.) A leaderboard automatically shows the day’s top piece and time. And if that isn't enough, I keep track of the month's leaders--specifically, ho...
1 comment
Read more

Eureka! Secondary Dominant!

I am such a nerd, and I love being a nerd! Today I was working on Section 5 of You Are My Sunshine, specifically on getting this section up to performance level. In other words, I was practicing being a performer , not an arranger . But then, of course, I came up with another idea. I had just played the delicate sixths and descending rag rolls of "when skies are gray" (I chord) and then moved to the parallel octaves of "you never know, dear" (leading to  IV). The shift sounded abrupt to me. Harsh. It needed something. It needed musical WD-40. Something to ease the hinge between textures. And then I stumbled upon it! Right before moving to IV, I can slip in a V7/IV — a secondary dominant! So I tried it, and it sounded so good that I actually yelled "Secondary dominant!" out loud in my house like I was Archimedes discovering water displacement in the bathtub. It's such a small thing. One little chord. But it smooths that transition, leaning the harmony ...
Post a Comment
Read more