Arabesque

Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman, and in this lesson we're going to be learning a piece called "Arabesque"
by the German composer and pianist Johann Friedrich Franz Burgmüller.
You know, we really got to get this guy a nickname.
Guys, any ideas?
Uh, Johnny?
Franzy?
Bergy?
Let's just go with Burgmüller.
Sounds good.
Aww, I liked Bergy.
The title of the piece we'll start learning today is "Arabesque".
The word arabesque originally was used as a term for a fancy kind of Islamic art
dating all the way back to the 9th century. It has lots of delicate intertwining patterns.
In music, a piece called "Arabesque" will tend to sound both delicate and fancy
like the "Arabesque" we're listening to now, which is by composer Robert Schumann, who lived around the same time as Berg Mueller.
and now let's listen to Burgmüller's "Arabesque".
Here's the sheet music for "Arabesque".
Let's go down our checklist of things we always check before learning a new piece.
Let's check out our tempo indication,
which says allegro scherzando. Let's say that together, ready, go: Allegro scherzando.
You probably remember that Allegro means fast.
Scherzando is a new term that means playful. It comes from an Italian word that means to joke.
So it's kind of a playful allegro playful and fast.
We have our treble clef and bass clef,
and then next up we want to check for our key signature.
Do you see any sharps and flats here?
No.
So from our ladder of fifths or fourths, when we have zero sharps or flats, what two keys could we be in?
We could either be in C major or A minor.
How can we tell? Well, we have to look at the first and the last note. Let's check out this first chord.
Can you figure out what chord that is?
Try to play it on your piano. Pause the video if you need to and figure out what chord that is.
If you said A minor, you're correct. Because we start on an A minor chord,
we also finish on an A minor chord if you check the last chord.
You can know that we are in the key of A minor.
Then let's check our time signature.
Time signature is 2/4.
You'll recall that 2/4 is just another way of saying two quarter note beats per measure. That 4 on the bottom stands for quarter notes.
We're going to have two of those in every measure, and you can see that right away 1 2 1 2.
We have a bar line after every two quarter note beats.
Now scanning ahead, you'll notice this repeat sign facing forward. When it faces forward we just go right past it,
and then let's review what we do with the first and second ending.
We see this little box up here, or a little bracket with a one inside? That's called a first ending. You're only allowed to go inside there the first time.
You hit the repeat that's a teleport station back to this repeat sign,
and then the second time you're not allowed to go back in the first ending. You have to teleport straight to the second ending.
Okay so watch that path one more time, you go forward,
forward into the first ending teleport back to the repeat,
forward, forward, skip the first ending to the second ending.
Now today we're going to be learning the right hand part.
In these two measures, you can see these whole rests, which means do nothing for the whole measure.
The right hand part begins here in measure three.
Now you'll see these sixteenth notes, this flagged eighth note with an eighth rest.
These rhythms may look a little complicated, so let's come to the heartbeat mat to practice them.
Now in this piece we have a 2/4 time signature, which tells us we have two quarter note beats per every measure.
So if our rhythm, or just quarter note, quarter note, then we need a bar line, then quarter note, quarter note, another bar line.
However, in this piece the right hand is going to be playing sixteenth notes.
Remember if we go twice as fast as a quarter note, we get eighth notes, but then twice as fast as eighth notes is sixteenth notes.
Sixteenth notes goes so fast you can fit four of them in 1 beat.
If our beat goes this fast TA TA TA TA sixteenth notes go TI-KI-TI-KI TI-KI-TI-KI.
You get four sounds inside 1 beat. TI-KI-TI-KI TA TA TA.
In measures three and four of the right hand, you'll see this rhythm.
Remember, four sixteenth notes fit inside beat 1. TI-KI-TI-KI TI rest.
So, an eighth note takes up half of the beat, and this eighth rest can take up the other half of the beat.
So it's like 1-& 2-& 1-& 2-&.
Can you try saying that with me? Let's add counts to the beat. Remember, each half of the beat can be 1-& 2-& 1-& 2-&.
We're giving a name for each half of the beat.
With sixteenth notes you can fit two sounds into 1/2 of the beat.
So it'd be 1-&, 1-&, 1-& 2-&, 1-& 2-&.
Now you count with me an ...