Lesson 236

Musette in D: A Section

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Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman, and in this lesson we're going to play "Musette" in D,
which is a piece which we learned in a simplified version in an earlier lesson.
Today we get to learn the original more advanced version.
You may recall that "Musette" in D comes from a famous collection of pieces called the Anna Magdalena Bach Notebook,
which was a collection of pieces handwritten by the composer Johann Sebastian Bach in the early 1700s.
He wrote these down for his wife Anna Magdalena as she was learning to play the piano.
Or really, I should say as she was learning to play the clavichord or the harpsichord,
which were the two most common keyboard instruments way back in J.S. Bach's time. A time period which in music we call the Baroque period.
Back in the Baroque period, pianos had just barely been invented and did not become common until decades later.
Let's have a listen to the original version of "Musette" in D.
Here's the score for "Musette" in D.
Now, we've been working together long enough that by now you know that I have a checklist that I use for every new piece I'm going to learn.
It's a list of things you should always check before you try playing a piece for your first time.
Today I'm going to ask you to figure out these four things on your own, and then we'll go over them together.
So on your own I'd like you to check the score for tempo indication,
see what clefs were using for the right hand and left hand parts, check our key signature and see if you can figure out what key this piece is in,
and then finally check our time signature.
So, pause the video and if you need to print out your own score please do that now. You can download it from our website.
Figure out those four things from our checklist, and then press play to go on.
What did you figure out for our tempo indication?
It's marked allegro. Now if you forget ever what some of these musical words, which are usually in Italian.
If you forget what they mean, just look it up online in a music dictionary.
Allegro you probably remember means fast.
So we know right off the bat this piece is going to be played fast.
Our clefs, treble and bass, no problem.
What did you figure out for the key of this piece?
We have two sharps, which could mean D major or B minor.
If you forget that you can just use your ladder of fifths, which we went over in a previous lesson,
to know what key we could be in.
And then when you look at the key signature combined with the first two notes the left hand is playing and continues to play
followed by these five notes of the D major pentascale, that tells us that this song will be in D major.
By the way, you can also check the last note of the piece as well and see that we end on a D.
So, we've figured out that we're in D major, and then last on the checklist was to see that we're in 2/4 time signature,
which tells us that there will be two quarter note beats in every measure.
That is the checklist I want you to do every time you see a new piece.
Tempo indication, clefs, key signature, time signature.
Now let's take a look at the rhythm of the right hand part which we're going to learn first today.
You see we've got a quarter note, four sixteenth notes, which we can if in rhythm words we say TI-KI-TI-KI for those.
Now scanning ahead it's been a while since we've seen this rhythm.
Here we have two sixteenth notes beamed with a single eighth note.
And remember for that in rhythm words we can say TI-KI-TI.
So this rhythm would be TI-KI-TI TI-TI TI-TI TI-TI
Try saying that with me, go: TI-KI-TI TI-TI TI-TI TI-TI
Now let's say the rhythm of the right hand part measures one through four.
Just speak it, and if you'd like to tap along with me you can. Go:
TA TI-KI-TI-KI TA TI-KI-TI-KI, TI-KI-TI TI-TI TI-TI TI-TI
Good, now can you say the rhythm words for line two on your own?
Say the rhythm words by yourself and tap it. Go: TA
Good, and then the repeat sign takes us back to where?
Point to where this would take us.
Well we don't see any forward-facing repeat signs, so that takes us all the way back to the beginning and we do it again.
TA TI-KI-TI-KI TA TI-KI-TI-KI, TI-KI-TI TI-TI TI-TI TI-TI Try this line with me go:
TA TI-KI-TI-KI TA TI-KI-TI-KI,
messed that one up. We've got to try it again for Mr. Hoffman.
Here, let's go back to measurefive and try that one again.
Wow, okay ready go: TA TI-KI-TI-KI TA TI-KI-TI-KI, TI-KI-TI TI-TI TI-TI TA
Mr. Hoffman makes mistakes too, right people?
Okay, very good. Now,
let's come to the piano and we'll learn to play it.
Check out the first note the right hand plays and can you tell me it's name?
If you said A you're correct. It's this high A a skip above our flag F. Here's my middle C.
On your own piano, place your finger 5 on your A.
Remember that we have an F- ...