Piano Guidance
Piano Guidance
Photo: Nugroho Wahyu
As with the cantata, in the mid-Baroque there was a tendency to divide trio sonatas into two categories: sontata da camera and sonata da chiesa. Although those names indicate music for court vs. music for church, the reality is that both types were often used as concert pieces.
Moving a piano on its back or on its side does not harm a piano. A piano can be moved, tilted, or rotated without doing it damage. Damage to a...
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Chords are always named for their root. The C major chord, for example, will have a C as its root and lowest note. The third is going to be the...
Read More »The Baroque period saw a flowering of instrumental music. While the church continued to be an important patron of the arts, many Baroque composers found employment in the service of a nobleman or noblewoman who wished his or her court to be a center of culture and music. Such courtly settings demanded much more instrumental music for entertainment and concerts. These performances generally did not take place in enormous concert halls, but in more modest-sized rooms or chambers in the palace. Music for these smaller settings is accordingly called “chamber music.” The sonata is one of the primary genres of chamber music in the Baroque. The name sonata comes from the Latin and Italian verb sonare, which can be literally translated as “to sound,” and refers to the fact that the music is sounded or played on instruments rather than sung by voices. The Latin and Italian word meaning “to sing” is cantare, which is where the name for one of the vocal genres you’ve already studied comes from, namely cantata. Although the sonata is an important genre, it is important to note that this was a period of great innovation and experimentation in instrumental music. The term sonata is applied to a wide variety of instrumental combinations and forms. The majority of Baroque sonatas featured three or four instruments, but many sonatas were for a solo instrument, most often with continuo though sometimes without. The most popular type of sonata in the Baroque was the trio sonata, so called because it was written with three lines: two melodic instruments (usually two violins) and a continuo. As the continuo line was performed by two instruments (usually cello and harpsichord), a trio sonata was generally performed by four instruments, though it is important to remember that in the Baroque it was very common to substitute one instrument for another or even leave out an instrumental part if it wasn’t available. That flexibility in instrumentation is far less common in later historical periods. As with the cantata, in the mid-Baroque there was a tendency to divide trio sonatas into two categories: sontata da camera and sonata da chiesa. Although those names indicate music for court vs. music for church, the reality is that both types were often used as concert pieces. We won’t concern ourselves with this distinction as it had largely disappeared by the late Baroque. However, it is important to note, as you’ll see those terms in the list of sample pieces presented below.
ABRSM grade 5 Fur Elise by Beethoven is about ABRSM grade 5 standard, or RCM Level 7. However, the opening of the piece, which is the most well-...
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He began writing pop songs in his teens and by 2010 had taken on the moniker Lukas Graham — Graham was his father's middle name — and enlisted his...
Read More »Level: Late-Intermediate to Advanced. It's not fast but there are some difficult chord changes and awkward parts (Grade 9). Here's a free sheet music edition of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata for Guitar arranged by Francisco Tárrega's (1852–1909).
Classical Music Researchers have long claimed that listening to classical music can help people perform tasks more efficiently. This theory, which...
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suspended chord A suspended chord (or sus chord) is a musical chord in which the (major or minor) third is omitted and replaced with a perfect...
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4/4 time There are a number of time signatures one can choose to use, but the majority of music (not just rock, pop, and electro) is in 4/4 time....
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Pianoforall is one of the most popular online piano courses online and has helped over 450,000 students around the world achieve their dream of playing beautiful piano for over a decade.
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In the major key, the blue notes are usually the b3, b5, and the b7 tones, which for all intents and purposes are chromatic. In the key of C: …the...
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