Welcome to Hoffman Academy. Today I'm going to teach you how to play some of the very dramatic "Toccata" in D minor.
This is a prep-level tutorial, perfect for beginners.
If you are more experienced and would like to learn the whole piece, check out our level three tutorial.
Check below this video to download the free sheet music, and when you're ready come join me at the piano.
Let's look at the sheet music first and see what we can learn about the piece.
First, the title says it's in D minor, so that might mean we'll be in D minor position, but it's always a good idea to double check first.
In the right hand the first note is treble A right here,
and a finger number there says finger 5 so if I put finger 5 on A then that is D minor position, good.
In the left hand, our first note is middle C, but it has a sharp symbol which means we'll be on C-sharp right here.
Now that is not part of D minor position, but that's okay because if you look ahead
you'll see there's not much else for the left hand to worry about except that C-sharp.
So we'll just keep the left hand there and ready to go.
Now if you're wondering about these two dotted lines here and here in the music,
I'm going to come back to those later for now we'll just ignore them.
Let's play this first line. It's going to sound like this:
SO FA SO FA ME RE DO TI DO
That was pretty simple, let's play it one more time. Ready, starting on the 5th finger here.
SO FA SO FA ME RE DO TI DO
Notice all these long notes. We have a dotted half note in the first measure, which is 3 beats.
A half note here which is 2 beats,
and finally a whole note which is 4 beats.
Now I'm going to play it while saying the rhythm sounds.
For half notes and dotted half notes, some people like to say TA-A for 2 beats or TA-A-A for 3 beats.
And sometimes I still say those, but I've recently grown fond of saying in rhythm: HALF-NOTE. or HALF-NOTE-DOT,
and for whole notes, I'll just count to four.
Here we go. In position, 1 2 3 4
TI-TI HALF-NOTE-DOT TI-TI TI-TI HALF-NOTE 1 2 3 4
Great, let's do that again. Ready, go:
TI-TI HALF-NOTE-DOT TI-TI TI-TI HALF-NOTE 1 2 3 4
Good, now it's your turn to practice the first line on your own.
Practice a few times while singing the solfège syllables and a few more times while saying the rhythm syllables.
Pause the video now, and then press play when you're ready to go on.
Great, now let's look at the second line.
This next measure is exactly the same as the first measure,
and this measure over here is exactly the same as the third measure.
So we just need to learn this middle measure, but I'll go ahead and play the entire line. Here we go in position, D minor and the C-sharp.
SO FA SO REST RE ME TI DO
Wow that was even easier than the first line. Let's hear that again ready, go:
SO FA SO REST RE ME TI DO
Just remember that rest in the beginning of the second measure there.
In fact, let's practice it together while saying the rhythm syllables.
Ready, go: TI-TI HALF-NOTE-DOT REST TA TA TA 1 2 3 4
Great now go ahead and pause the video again so you can practice the second line.
Again, while singing solfège syllables and counting the rhythm, and press play when you're ready to go on.
Great, now notice that the third line is exactly the same as the first line. So now you almost know the whole thing, but now I want to talk about those dotted lines we saw earlier. In music, 8va with a dotted line written above the music means to play that music one octave than written.
Usually that only means one hand, but this one says both hands go up.
So even though we've been practicing that first line here in the middle of the piano,
we're going to go up and play it up here on this D minor position, and our left hand way up here so let's hear that. Ooo, let's do that again. So go ahead and get in position with me in D minor and the C-sharp, ready, go: SO FA SO FA ME RE DO TI DO
Cool, now there is no 8va or dotted lines for the second part, so that means we need to come back to the middle here.
And the third part has a dotted line underneath that says 8vb, which means you play the one that one octave lower.
So we'll have to come down here to this D position like this. Do you want to try it?
Here we go.
SO FA SO FA ME RE DO TI DO
Great so now it's about time to practice those three lines together
while changing octaves for each line.
The nice thing about it is that each line ends with a long whole note, so you have a whole 4 beats
to look over to see where your next position is before you have to move.
You probably don't want to finish your 4 beats at the end of a line and then go, oh no, where's my next position? And one more thing to remember, and this is important.
You might be tempted to scoot yourself across the bench each time you change positions,
Well guess what, you don't ...