Polonaise in G Minor: Left Hand

Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman, and in this lesson we're going to learn to play the left hand part for "Polonaise in G Minor." Let's get started by checking out the score. Here's the score for "Polonaise in G Minor." Today we're checking out the left hand part, so let's look down in the bass staff. What is the letter name of the first note? If you said G, great job. We'll have finger 1 on G. We start off pretty easy: 1-e-&-a 2-e-&-a 3-e-&-a, 1-e-&-a, and now here we get an F-sharp, and then an E natural. Do you remember our old friend the natural symbol? Remember, a natural symbol cancels any sharp or flat that's come earlier in the measure or can cancel it from a key signature. Normally E's would be flat, but here we have an E natural. Why is that? Well, one form of G minor that we haven't learned yet is called melodic minor, and in melodic minor you raise the sixth note and the seventh note. Remember, natural minor has a B-flat and an E-flat. If we're looking at all the keys together, remember we have a B-flat and an E-flat. In harmonic minor we raise that seventh note so it looks like this, but in melodic minor we raise the sixth and the seventh note so it looks like this. That's called melodic minor. Now, don't worry about memorizing that, just know that we're using melodic minor here for that F-sharp and E natural, and then what note do we play here? If you said F-sharp, great job. Remember that a sharp placed in the measure lasts all the way up to the bar line, so if we have an F-sharp here, that F-sharp continues along that line to this F as well. So we have F-sharp, E natural, F-sharp, D. Let's try to play it. So go ahead and place your left hand finger 1 on G. And now pause the video and see if you can figure out measures one and two on your own. Remember, don't rush these quarter notes. TA TA TA I'll let you figure out the rest. Pause to work on measures one and two, then press play to go on. All right, you should have had 1-e-&-a 2-e-&-a 3-e-&-a, 1-e-&-a 2-e-&-a 3-e-&-a. If that matched what you played, great job let's go on to measures three and four. Now looking at measures three and four, can you see any notes that we'll need to flat? Look for any B's or E's. Can you find any? If you found this B in measure four, great job. So don't forget we'll need to make that B a B-flat. Can you pause and try and learn measures three and four on your own? Then press play to go on. All right, we have this G down an octave to G, then finger 3 plays C D G G B-flat D. All together TA TA TA TA TI-TI TI-TI If that matched what you played, great job. Now let's put it together all the way back to measure 1. TA TA TA TA TI-TI TI-TI TA TA TA TA TI-TI TI-TI, then repeat piano. TA TA TA TA TI-TI TI-TI TA TA TA and then it goes on. Now pause and work on measures one through four on your own, then press play to go on. Now hands together it will sound like this: And repeat. Now, if you'd like to try some hands together right now, you can. Or you can save that for later in the week. Totally up to you. Sometimes it's helpful to do a lot of hands alone practice first. So you make the choice. If you're ready to keep going, let's look at measure five left hand part. We have TIM- finger 3 has to cross over TIM-KI TA TA TA TA, then we switch to a finger 2. TI-TI TA TA TA TA TA, switch to finger, so we have to switch to a finger 1 on that F to get us in position for what's coming next. TI-TI TI-TI TI-TI TA, and I'm going to stop here on the first note of measure eleven. Now, I just walked through that once for you. Now I'd like you to pause and on your own work on measures five to the first note of measure eleven. Watch notes, watch fingerings, circle the B's and the E's if that's helpful to you so you remember which notes to flat, and then press play to go on. Now hands together this section will sound like this: TIM-KI TA TA Now pause if you'd like a little bit of time to work on any part of that hands together. Maybe you'll just do one measure hands together today, but slowly this week you can keep adding more and more hands together. But let's go ahead and if you're ready to go on, look at measures eleven to the end just left hand alone. I'd like you to pause and once again, now you're getting more and more independent where instead of me showing you everything you're figuring this out on your own. Look for the B's and E's to flat. You might circle those first in your music. Watching notes, watching fingerings. Try and learn measure eleven to the end left hand alone, then press play to go on. So, this part should sound like this: TA TA TA TA TA TA piano TA TA TA TWO-OO, finger 1 comes under TA TA TA TA TWO-OO, and then hands together we get this: Now, this week as you're practicing, again I encourage you to do a lot of hands alone work to make sure you're confident with the notes and rhythms, and then, when you're ready you can add in metronome to make sure you're keeping a steady beat. So that's the quarter note. TIM-KI TA TA TI TI-KI TI-TI TI-TI TI TI-KI Then repeat. Great work learning the left-hand part for "Polonaise in G Minor" from the Ana Magdalena Bach Notebooks. Thanks for watching, and happy practicing! Hey ...