The Wild Horseman: A Section: Left Hand

Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman, and in this lesson we're going to be learning how to play the left hand part for the A section of the "Wild Horseman" by Robert Schumann. Let's come to the piano to get started. Since the left hand is playing a lot of chords in the "Wild Horseman" and we're in the key of A minor, let's review all of the diatonic chords of A natural minor. This will help us learn the "Wild Horseman" faster. Go ahead and let's take both hands, and let's start with the A minor i chord, and let's play and name all of our diatonic chords in A minor. We have A minor i chord, B diminished ii chord. Play these along with me, and let's name them. C major III chord. D minor iv chord, E minor v chord, F major VI chord. G major VII chord. A minor i chord. Those are all the possible diatonic chords of A natural minor. But there's another kind of minor right? A harmonic minor. We take the seventh note and we raise it a half step for that really cool exotic sound. Right, so let's do the diatonic chords of A harmonic minor. The i chord is the same, the ii chord is the same, here's where things change, the III chord is a C augmented chord. A really kind of wild sounding chord. The iv chord is the same as before, but what happens on the V chord? Now the V chord becomes major. E major V chord. The VI chord is the same as before, and the vii chord is also different. now we get G-sharp diminished vii chord, and then A minor i chord. Now, why did I take the time to do this? We're going to find these chords in the left hand part for "The Wild Horseman." In the A section, Schumann uses the three most common chords that you find in all of music. Those chords are the i chord, the iv chord, and the major V chord which comes from the harmonic minor. Okay, play those with me. A minor i chord, D minor iv chord. E major V chord. Now I'd like you to pause the video and spell each of these chords. Take a piece of paper and write out the names of the three notes of each of those three chords. The i chord, the iv chord, and the V chord. Write out the three notes that spell each of those chords, then press play and we'll look at the correct answer. Okay, the i chord is spelled A C E, those are the three notes we're looking for for the i chord. The iv chord is D F and A, and the five chord is E G-sharp B That's how we'll recognize those chords in the music that we're learning today. So now in your own sheet music, I'd like you to write out the spelling for the i chord, and remember we'll use a lowercase roman numeral i, and that has an A, a C, and an E in it. And our iv chord is spelled D F A. You can do this in your music too, and then the V chord is what? We have an E G-sharp B. Now, I'd like you to pause the video and you're going to mark all the chords of the left hand. Figure out is it a i chord, is it a iv chord, or is it a V chord, and uh if you'd like, I'll do a couple with you, or if you don't want any help you can pause the video, but basically you're going to go through this first chord because it has an A and a C, I can tell that's a i chord even though it doesn't have the E. Remember chords sometimes will get creative and might choose to leave out a note. But there's no other chord that it could be. No other chord has an A and a C in it from this i, iv, and V. uh, option. And then we're going to go on, and this chord also is a i chord. I can see that's A C E. Another i chord, and then right here what do we have? We've got an A on the bottom, and I can see that those two notes both stepped up. So what chord is that? Well, we can see that this A if placed up here that gives us our D minor triad which is our iv chord, but to make it more playable, we put that A on the bottom. Right, we've been playing iv chords like that for a long time. So we know that's the iv chord. And now I'd like to ask you to pause the video now and figure out these rest the rest. Let's just go up to maybe the end of measure four on your own. Figure out these chords, and write it in your music. The i, the iv, the V, and then press play we'll get it together. Okay, here are the answers. We have the i chord, the iv chord, it goes back to a i chord. Then rest, rest, then here we get the V chord: E G-sharp B, and then why is this a i chord? Well see this E we can put up here, and then we just see it's our A C E i chord, but in second inversion. It goes back to the V chord. Remember the G is still sharp. Sharps live the whole measure until the bar line, then this we can call the i chord even though it's missing that E. We've got an A and a C for i chord and C it's a i chord to the V chord. Now I find it's so useful to analyze these chords because then as I'm playing it. I'm not just thinking of random notes, I actually know what I'm playing and how those chords work together. So let's try to play it now. Okay, let's look at where we place our left hand. Notice that we play A and C, and it's middle C. It's important to know where you are on the piano. It's not just any A and C, you have to find this A and C because I can see that that one is a middle C with the A a skip below that, and as we're learning the left-hand part, let's be very careful of the rhythms. There are lots of these ...