Lesson 250

Sonatina by Clementi, 2nd Movement: B Section: Left Hand

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Hello and welcome back! I'm Joseph Hoffman, and in this lesson, we're going to wrap up learning the second movement of Clementi's "Sonatina" opus 36 number one. Let's get started by checking out the score. Okay, let's do a little bit of analysis for the left hand. I'll draw some more boxes, and here figure out this interval. Okay, pause the video and try and analyze, figure out the names of these chords and this interval, then press play and we'll look at it together. Okay, what did you get here? F A C That's our F major chord. That should come as no surprise, right? The right hand is doing an F major chord would sound a little strange for the left hand to be doing something other than an F major chord. And here we have a whole two measures straight of F major broken chords in the left hand. Actually, and then one more measure down here. So lots of F major broken chords for the left hand, and what interval here? We have a low C, up to a B-flat. What interval? That's a seventh. Kind of a rare interval, right? Up a seventh one step away from being an octave. And what you get down here? We had an A, a C, and an F. You'll see that fourth plus a third. That's a clue that we have an inversion. I can look at the top note of the fourth. That tells me that's my root, which I could bring down here. So we know that's an F major chord. Over here we have a B-flat D G. What do you think about that? So once again here's a fourth so we put the G on the bottom. That's a G minor chord, which also shouldn't be a surprise because what's the right hand doing? The right hand is playing at G minor chord. Both hands have a broken G minor chord going on there. and then you know there are two more chords that I think we ought to analyze too that I didn't draw a box on so let's look at these together. As I forgot that the left hand keeps changing every beat in this measure. We have a G minor chord, there and then right here we have a C F A Can you figure this one out? What's the root of this chord? Look for the fourth. The top note it tells you the root. So F is the root, we put that C on top. We're in F major chord. And then what chord do we have here? C E G. That's C major. and then we finish with what? You see that that is an F major chord with an extra F on top? It's just an F major arpeggio. Okay, now just like we did with the right hand sometimes it's helpful to go through and circle all of the B's so you can remember to flat them, and remember that in a key signature it's any B on the staff not just the B that's on this line. For example, here's a C, this is a B. And it's this higher B, not on the line where you see the flat here, but we still flat it. Any B on the staff of a key signature with that flat should get flat. So we need to flat that B, we need to flat this B. If you like, you can pause the video and go through find all the B's and circle them so you'll be sure to flat them when we play it, and that can help out. That's up to you, otherwise let's keep going and try learning this from the top of the page. Today I'd like you mostly to figure this out on your own, but I want to give you a few clues first. Look here in measure fourteen. One thing that's tricky about this is when you mix flats and sharps. Remember here we have a C, and then this B-flat, and then an F-sharp. So we have that B-flat and F-sharp. So they're actually going to be closer together than you might think. It looks like a fourth on the page, but once you flat this one and sharp this one it's really not that far apart on the piano. So watch out for that C, B-flat, F-sharp, G. Watch out for that and then in measure sixteen finger 2 starts on the B-flat, then your finger 1 has to sneak under your finger 2 for that A, and then finger 2 is going to reach over down a third to F, and that will put you in position for this octave jump from C to C in measure seventeen. Okay, so watch that again. Measure sixteen, 2 B-flat thumb comes under, finger 2 on F. 1-&-a 2 and play those C's gently. We don't want to hammer that out. 1-&-a 2. A gentle thumb. Really gentle on that, and then in eighteen your 2 comes from over your thumb. See that 1 2 1, but then your fingers come right back to this F major pentascale to bring you back to measure nineteen for the recapitulation. Now the rest I want to see if you can figure out on your own. So pause the video and I want you to tackle this entire page two from measure fourteen all the way to the end with your left hand alone. Be sure to watch the fingerings, be sure to watch out for the B-flats. Everything that you've learned so far, try and apply it. Think about the chords that you're playing, use the analysis we just did and try and learn these notes, and then press play and we'll look at it together. Okay let's look at the left-hand part from measure fourteen to the end. If you'd like to try playing along with me, you can or if you'd like to listen that's fine too. I'll count 3 beats, and then my left hand we'll start here in measure fourteen. 1-&-a 2-&-a 3-&-a 1-&-a 2-&-a 3-&-a, 1-&-a 2-&-a 3-&-a B-flat 2-&-a 3-&-a, 1-&-a 2-&-a 3-&-a 1-&-a 2-&-a 3-&-a And we've got all these F major broken c ...