Hello!
I hope you all had a good March Break!
Berke:
For this week, please have Berke warm up with Mozart’s minuet in F so that he can continue to practice playing hands together. Remind him that there is an octave jump in the left hand in measure 3. Please ask Berke to play the full 8 bars as smoothly and as accurately as possible without stopping. Challenge him to resist going back in the music to correct any mistakes; play each bar once and move on to the next bar – even if its not perfect. Play the piece this way 3-5 times then put it away. Today we started learning Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata! This piece is in C# minor and has 4 sharps F#, C#, G#, and D#. When practicing, Berke must remember that these notes are always to be played sharp, unless otherwise indicated in the sheet music. There is also a B# in this piece. We talked about it today in class, but if Berke forgets, please help remind him that B# and C are the same note. We also learned that in musical notation, should an accidental (a sharp, a flat, or a natural) appear with a specific note in a bar, this accidental is implied every time that same note appears within the same bar, regardless of whether the accidental is rewritten or not. There is an example of this in measure 4 of the sonata. Berke is to practice the chords in the right hand as well as the octave figures in the left hand for the first 8 bars of the piece. When he feels confident playing the notes of the chords accurately, he can play the 8 bars hands together. The sheet music for “Moonlight Sonata” can be found here.
Happy Practicing!