Thank you all for your patient, conscientious effort! Doing detailed work on tricky passages can be tedious, especially for those not playing, and I appreciate your willingness to try things over when it’s your turn to play, and listen attentively when it’s not. We made some important improvements and refinements, and I hope you found the result worthwhile!
As Boober Fraggle says, ‘Tedium and drudgery are good for the soul!‘
(For more Fraggle wisdom, I humbly suggest chapter 4 in Jim Henson and Philosophy, ‘Go and Find Your Songs‘.)
LISTENING LINKS & GOAL TEMPOS
I’ve changed the listening link for Somewhere/Maria, and added goal tempos for all our repertoire to the list of listening links: https://ottawanewhorizons.com/note/rondos-winter-2020-listening-links/
NOTES ON TONIGHT’S REPERTOIRE
Perfection
This tune is coming along nicely! We did some concentrated work on rhythmic figures by clapping quarter notes and sing-speaking rhythms.
I’d suggest taking a similar approach when you practice (any piece, not just this one): clap and/or use your voice to internalize the rhythms, then take up your instrument. You might want to try playing the rhythm on a single note first, then adding the written melody. And you might find it helpful to practice the note sequence out of rhythm – for example, play the notes in the order in which they appear, but all in half notes or all quarter notes, to get your fingers and ear used to how they sound – and then apply the rhythm later.
Stay Cool
What a great play-through of this to end the night! Kudos to all of you for keeping on going, keeping the musical energy high, and finishing the piece strong! There’s lots to work on in this one, so …
WHAT TO PRACTICE FOR NEXT WEEK
- Concert A-flat major scale – We will use this scale in our warm-up again. If you’re feeling ambitious, try playing this scale in thirds, i.e., ascending Ab-C-Bb-D-C-Eb-D-F-Eb-G-F-Ab-G-Bb-Ab (and in reverse order descending).
- Stay Cool – We will focus on mm 9-44
- Lincolnshire Posy – Read-through.
- Soul Bossa Nova – Read-through.
- Somewhere/Maria – Read-through, and work on Maria, mm 30-end
