Black Snake: Hands Together

Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman.
Today we're going to learn how to play "Black Snake" hands together.
Before you do this lesson, make sure that you can play the right hand alone and the left hand alone confidently and with no missed notes.
If you can do that, then you're ready for this lesson. Let's come to the piano to get started.
Alright, let's place both hands in the D major pentascale.
When I'm working on a piece hands together, I like to take it a little bit at a time. And let the hands take turns once to review before I try it hands together.
So let's just take measure one and try the right hand all by itself.
♫Black snake, black snake♫ Now your turn.
Next let's review the left hand in measure one. ♫Black snake, black snake♫ Now your turn. Good, now let's try putting that hands together. My turn first. Let's go really slow the first time.
♫Black snake, black snake♫
Now press pause and try that three or four times by yourself.
Remember your staccatos, and once you can do it confidently press play to go on.
Now let's go on to measure two.
First let's review the right hand.
We have ♫where are you hiding♫ Now you try.
Good, the left hand plays our ii7 chord D E G for 2 beats, and then goes SO FA MI. Now you try.
Good. As we're putting it hands together,
Let's just take it 2 beats at a time. Let's start with where are you like this for hands together: ♫where are you♫ Now you try.
Good, let's do that one more time.
♫where are you♫ Now your turn.
Good now make sure the right hand makes it back into the D major pentascale with finger 3 on F-sharp for the next part.
The next three notes the right hand starts on F-sharp, the left hand starts on A, and they both step down like this:
TI-TI TA
Right hand playing MI RE DO, the left hand playing SO FA MI.
Now you try.
Good, one more time.
Now your turn.
Good, now putting it together will sound like this: ♫where are you hiding?♫
Press pause and try that let's say five times.
Then press play when you feel confident and you're ready to go on.
Great, now let's try going on to measure three.
Very similar to measure one as you know, but this time the right hand starts on finger 3.
♫Black snake, black snake♫
Now you try.
My turn again.
♫Black snake, black snake♫
Now your turn.
Good, now let's look at measure four and review the right hand once.
This time remember we start on finger two which is playing E,
we skip up to B.
♫where are you hiding?♫ Now your turn.
Good, now the left hand plays a V7 chord for 2 beats, 1 2, and then TI-TI TA, your turn.
Now once again let's split this measure into two parts starting with: ♫where are you♫ Now your turn.
Once again my turn: ♫where are you♫ Now your turn.
Good, then 'hiding' is same as before: ♫hiding?♫ Your turn.
Good, now putting it together we get: ♫where are you hiding?♫ Now press pause and try that five times until or until you're confident, then press play when you're ready to go on.
Now going on to line two, you'll recall that these first two measures are the same as the first two measures of line one.
We have ♫Black snake, black snake where are you hiding?♫
So let's go right on to the final two measures of the piece: 'Don't you bite me!'
The right hand has ♫Don't you bite me!♫
While the left hand goes:
Let's break this up and just start with the first two beats on the word 'don't'.
The right hand's on E, the left hand plays V7 chords, and together it sounds like this: ♫Don't♫ Now your turn.
Let's try that one more time. ♫Don't♫ Now your turn.
Then on 'you bite me!', the hands play together: ♫you bite me!♫
Both hands play the exact same melody one octave apart.
♫you bite me!♫ Now your turn.
Good, now let's put that together. ♫Don't you bite me!♫ And then what happens is the left hand shifts down an octave and goes SO DO with two staccatos.
All together we get: ♫Don't you bite me!♫
Now press pause and practice the last two measures five times or even ten times.
Basically until you feel confident, then press play when you're ready to go on.
Now that we've gone through each part of "Black Snake" measure by measure, you're ready to start practicing the whole thing hands together. But a few things I'd like to mention, and that is number one:
make sure you're watching out for those notes that change in measures three and four.
Like when the right hand goes MI DO DO DO,
and then it goes up to RE, RE LA SO MI RE DO.
Because that's a little different from the pattern in measures one and two, it's easy to get mixed up there.
Make sure you're being careful.
Number two: please be paying attention to the staccatos and the dynamics
to make this a really exciting interesting performance.

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