Lesson 285

Sonatina in G: Second Movement: Right Hand

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Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman. And in this lesson, we'll be starting the second movement of "Sonatina in G" by someone who may or may not, probably not, be Beethoven. Let's check out the score to get started. Here's the score for the second movement of "Sonatina in G." Let's check out the essential things to always check before we learn a new piece. our tempo indication says romanze. Romanze is a German word that means it's going to have a romantic, lilting, delightful, feel. Our clefs tell us treble and bass. That's what we would expect. Let's check out our key signature. It's very common in the second movement to not use the original key. We were in the key of G before. G major in the first movement. So the second movement may or may not be in G major. In fact, very often it is not, but looking at the key signature, what does this tell us? One sharp could be the key of G major or E minor. So how would we tell? Well, sometimes the first note is a clue. Well, it's a B. Stepping up. It's not quite definitive, so often an even better clue is to look at the first and last chord that we play. So let's look at this chord here, and let's look at the last chord here. Can you analyze this chord for me? What notes do you see? We've got a G, a B, and a D. What triad does that make? That's a G major triad. Let's also check the last chord. What do you see? We've got a ground G up a fifth, and then in the right hand we've got a B, and another G. Well, we can take that B and place it down here. If we put all those chords, notes together, also a G major triad. Well ending and beginning in G major tells us we are once again in the key of G major. Now let's check out the time signature 6/8 means what? 6/8 simply means there will be six eighth note beats per measure. Now, here in the first measure do we have a complete measure? If you said no, great job. One, two, three eighth notes is not a complete measure, which we call a pickup measure or pick up notes. These notes right here come before the first downbeat. After every bar line, is always beat 1. So we know this is 1, so counting backwards we know this is beat 6, this is beat 5. So this song happens to start, or this piece I should say or movement, starts on beat 4. 4 5 6 1, and quarter notes will get 2 beats so this is 1 2 3 4 5 6 Don't forget grace notes don't take up any official amount of time in the measure. It's played so quickly, it's as if it doesn't take up any part of a beat. 1 2 3 4 5 6 So don't forget as we're learning this, every time you have a quarter note because we're in 6/8. You'll feel 2 beats on each quarter note. Let's try tapping the rhythm of this first phrase. Remember, these long curved lines can be called phrase marks, and we'll tap the rhythm while we count these beats. I'll count 1 2 3, and then we'll start on 4 5 6. Here we go. 1 2 3 4 5 6, 1 2 3 4 5 6, 1 2 3. Now, when you first learn a piece in 6/8, it's helpful to think of every eighth note as its own beat, but remember, that in 6/8 we think of the eighth notes in groups of three. So as you get to play this faster, eventually you'll only feel a beat here, and here. 2 beats per measure. 1-&-a 2-&-a And that's the more fast subdivided way of counting. You actually start to feel 6/8 as 2 beats per measure. Here's 1 beat. A group of three eighth notes and here's another group of three eighth notes as a beat. 1-&-a 2-&-a But again, when we're first learning it counting all 6 beats works just great. All right, let's check out this first phrase. We get: 4 5 6, 1 2 3 4 5 6, 1 2 3 Especially watch out for that grace note. Let's practice that right there. Place your right hand in the G major pentascale, and let's start right there on the grace note. Now you try. Try it one more time, go. Now let's put that together with the notes that come before it. Pause the video and practice that first phrase until you feel confident, then press play to go on. Now let's look at the next phrase starting here on beat 4. Notice it starts off the same. So these we could call parallel phrases, right? Then we switch to a finger 3 here, another grace note, and then finger 1 has to come under to prepare us for the next part. Now pause the video and work on that phrase. Be careful especially with the fingering and the grace note, then press play to go on. Let's put those two parallel phrases together. Now, I'd like you to try to figure out the next phrase on your own starting here in measure four, and I'm going to stop there. See if you can learn it all the way up to this first ending here. The first note of the first ending in measure eight. Pause the video and try using what you know about reading notes. Watch the fingerings, watch the rhythms, watch the notes. Try and learn this section on your own, then press play and we'll check it out together. Okay, here's what it should have sounded like: Now if that matches what you played, great job. If you heard something that sounded a little different from what you played, then pause the video and work that out, and then you can continue when you're ready. Now, you'll notice we have a first ending, which we're allowed to go into the first time, and then what happens? We repeat back, and we p ...