Sonatina in G: First Movement: Left Hand

Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman, and in this lesson we'll be learning to play the left hand part for the first movement of “Sonatina in G.” Are you ready? Let's check out the score to get started. All right, we're back in the score for “Sonatina in G” first movement. now we're checking out the left hand part. Can you tell me the interval you see here on this first two note chord left hand? If you said a third you're correct. And what interval do you see here next? If you said a fifth you're correct, and then that goes back to a third. Now let's try to play this on your piano. Can you play that third? It's G and B, and then is this correct? No, what am I doing wrong? I need to remember that because of our key signature all F's are sharp, and so this is actually the correct fifth. If it were this, we'd call that a perfect fifth. When we sharp that F, it pushes those notes just a half step closer together, which is called a diminished fifth. Now that diminished fifth has a very unique sound which to most ears we would call dissonant. Remember, dissonance is when two notes don't feel totally happy. Some notes that are dissonant, like this is a very strong dissonance, also those notes aren't totally happy together. And this diminished fifth also has some dissonance to it, and it wants to get back here. When the notes sound beautiful or peaceful together, we call that consonance. So we have consonance, dissonance, consonance. Beethoven uses dissonance all the time to create tension and excitement and interest in his music it's always going from a peaceful sound to a more dissonant sound, and then always coming back home to that peaceful place. As you play, I want you to listen for those moments of tension and then let that resolve. Now more intervals to look at. Can you name these three intervals starting here? Go. If you said fifth, fourth, third, great job. It's helpful to notice that bottom note stays anchored and it's just the top note that's moving down. A, down to G, down to F-sharp. And then down here this is a special pattern that we've seen in the past. Do you remember what this is called? If you remembered alberti bass, great job. When you have this kind of pattern with a broken chord where the pattern goes bottom, top, middle, top, that's called alberti bass. It's a special pattern that's often used in classical style music. It's just a G major triad that's played in a special fancy way. So we've got some alberti bass here, and then let's wrap things up with a little more interval analysis. Tell me the interval from here to here. If you said an eighth or an octave, great job. What about from here to here? If you said a fourth, you are correct, and then goes back down a fourth, and then it finishes by dropping a fifth, and that's such a common pattern right, that we've seen so much. I hope you have this pattern memorized. Remember, a fifth plus a fourth builds a nice octave span. Is often used in classical music. Now pause the video and on your own I'd like you to go through and learn measures one through eight left hand part, then press play and we'll check it out together. All right, here's the left hand part starting in measure one. If you like, you can try playing along or you can just listen and count with me. Here's 4 beats: 1-& 2-& 3-& 4-& 1-& 2-& 3-& 4-&, 1-& 2-& 3-& 4-&, 1-& 2-& 3-& 4-&, 1-& 2-& 3-& 4-& 4-& 1-& 2-& 3-& 4-&, 1-& 2-& 3-& 4-&, 1-& 2-& 3-& 4-& Now if that matched what you played, great job. If you need more work with that to fix any mistakes that you noticed in your own playing, feel free to pause and spend some more time on it. Otherwise, let's now look here in measure five. Here's our alberti bass pattern. And sometimes when you do alberti bass, it's helpful to think of this kind of rotation or rocking motion. I want you to grab a pretend knob on the door, like you know one of those door knobs, and just try turning that doorknob, and feel that rotation motion of your wrist. And as you play alberti bass, there's a little bit of that rotation feeling as you play. It's not a very big motion, but there's a subtle rotation in your wrist and arm as you do alberti bass. Okay. So just think about that as you're practicing that alberti bass section this week. But for now let's take a look at trying to put it hands together. One thing i want to remind you of is respect the rest. Notice here in the left hand starting on beat 2 there are rests so you've got to float your left hand up as your right hand plays those little two note slurs, and then we play together again. Then the left hand has to float up again. And that float up is a good time to get ready for that alberti base as your right hand is doing this your left hand is preparing. And then both hands float up. Now it may take you a few days to figure this out hands together, and you're going to have to go very slowly at first. But for today I want you to choose at least two measures, and try and learn it hands together just to get started, and then you can do the rest later on this week. Pause to work on a little section of your ch ...