A broken chord study worked up to a discrete performance. You can do this too!
From The Pyramids Variations www.musicarta.com/free-piano-l... at www.musicarta.com/index.html - your creative keyboard companion.
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VIDEO NOTES
The TPV Diary 27-11-12 entry -- like the 14-11-12 entry -- demonstrate the joys of 'messing around' with the Musicarta 'Pyramids' chords. The Musicarta Pyramids Variation is now available as a digital download from www.musicarta.com. This entry is a full-strength version of the much easier Further Variations FV7 on page 141 of the Pyramids variations workbook.
The Musicarta Pyramids Variations keyboard creativity programme takes as its starting point, knowing a chord sequence so well that it's practically second nature, leaving you free to play on it and with it. After that, it's a question of deciding on a keyboard texture and applying it to the chords in the chord sequence, from start to finish. The regularly structure of the Pyramids chord sequence makes this relatively easy.
A few structural points:
1. The overall structure is AABAA -- five strains instead of the usual 32-bar AABAA form.
2. The devil is in the detail...! None of the A strains are in fact the same, though the fourth is closely related to the second. The difference is in the way the 'melody' (such as it is) moves between the top of one chord and the top note of the next. (The ear automatically appoints the top note the melody.) The musical ear hears these differences and judges the sequence of variations successful or not. Expect to make notes if you are going to attempt something similar -- it's very hard to keep it all in your head.
3. Note the extended ending. It's common practice to extend a piece by repeating (as here) the third- and second-last chords twice (making three times in all) before finally cadencing to the last chord. This version goes on to duplicate the effect with a following three-times-alternating i-iv pair as well.
The 14-11-12 Diary video has a 'schematic' MidiPiano version of the actual hands performance which shows the target chords 'beneath' the musical texture of the actual notes. (Go back and check your understanding.) You should, in your mind's eye, be performing the same process on this variation as you watch it -- the variation is fussy, sound-wise, but note that the right hand particularly, moves very little.
4
If you know the Pyramids chords, try playing along with just a half or a quarter the notes. If you catch on to a half-way-house pattern, break off and see if you can work up a version of your own.
1 июн 2023
