Lesson 202

Andante: B Section for Right Hand

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Hello and welcome back! I'm Joseph
Hoffman
and in this lesson we're going to learn
how to play the right-hand part of the B
section of "Andante" by Johann Christian
Bach. Let's start today by analyzing the
score. Today let's analyze some more
chords. So once again let's kind of
ignore what the left hand is doing.
I'd like you to really focus on these
triads that the right hand is playing,
and we're going to analyze each triad.
Let's try this first one together. So can
you tell me the letter name for this
first note in measure nine that the right
hand plays?
If you said B, you're correct.
So we've got this treble B, which goes to
a D-sharp, which goes to an F-sharp, it
comes back down to D, and remember a
sharp lasts a full measure up until the
bar line, so if you see a D-sharp there,
this D is also sharp, and then back to B.
So once again we're just doing a broken
chord up and down, but we'll think of
this all as one chord. Do you recognize
that chord?
If you said B major
you're correct. So in your music at home,
I'd like you to write a capital B over
measure nine. That will remind us that we're
playing a B major chord right there. Okay,
let's do one more together. What pitch
are we starting on in this measure for
the right hand?
If you said an E you're
correct. So we have an E, skips up to G,
skips up to B, and then back down. What
chord do you see there?
If you said E minor you're correct.
So let's go ahead and write capital E
lowercase m. Now, I'd like you to go
through and analyze all the rest of
these chords in the entire B section, and
to do that let's quickly review how to
tell if it's a major chord or minor or
diminished. So thinking about C major,
notice how between these first two notes
if we will go up by half steps, it's one,
two, three, four, half steps to get from
the root to the third, then if we go up
one two three more, we get to the fifth.
Or another way to think about that, is
you have three half steps in between, or
two half steps in between. Now for a
minor chord, that flips. Like let's take
this C minor chord. Here you can see you
have two half steps in between, or three
half steps in between on top.
Now for diminished, it's two and two in between.
Another way is to simply hear the
difference. Major has a certain sound
different from minor, which has a
different sound from diminished.
So now
let's try this out. If I showed you this
chord,
what kind of chord is this?
E minor is correct because we have two on the
bottom in between and three up here in
between, okay, it's the distance of one,
two, three, half steps here, and then one,
two, three, four, half steps there. so E
minor, okay, try this one. Can you tell me
the name of this chord?
If you said D-sharp
diminished you're correct, or E-flat
diminished. The way you can tell it's diminished is we have two half steps in
between, and two half steps in between
there. That will always make a diminished
chord. Okay, what about this one. What kind
of chord do you see here?
If you said F-sharp major or G-flat major you're
correct. We've got three half steps in
between there, and then two half steps in
between there. Three on the bottom, two on
top makes for a major chord. Now, pause
the video and I recommend you do this in
pencil just in case you get something
wrong, which is always okay, that's how we
learn. Press pause, figure out all these
chords, and then press play and I'll show
you the correct answer.
Okay, here are the answers. Why don't you
check yours in your music. We've got an A
major, D minor, G major, C major, F major, B
diminished, E major, A minor, B diminished,
A minor, G-sharp diminished, and then A
minor. Now I know you're anxious to go
play this on the piano, but we need to
find one little pattern that's going to
really help us learn this. If you just
glanced at this, it almost looks like the
chords are changing pretty randomly. B E
A D G C F B, it's almost like there's no
pattern. But let's look really closely
because there is a pattern to this. Why
don't we look at every other chord. What
do you notice we just look at B A G F E?
Are you seeing a pattern here?
Each of these chords is stepping down if
we look at every other one. B steps down
to A, steps down to G, steps down to F,
steps down to E, then the pattern changes,
but let's just focus on this part. Now
what about here? E D C B What do you
notice about that?
Same thing right? Every
chord is going dow ...