21. The Skaters

I like this song very much. It seems strangely reminiscent (or is it merely redolent?) of "piano lessons," and I think it's because the basic waltz rhythm just feels like a learning piece. Getting the dynamics quite right is tricky, though.
It relies on alternating the staccato and legato in each hand, so that once you practise rapidly lifting the right hand (for instance) while keeping the left down, you immediately have to switch to doing the opposite (bottom left). I like that though, because even though it requires a lot of concentration and repetition, it's helping me do what I set out to do in the first place: discipline my fingers.

    

The melody conspicuously rides the top of the staves, almost surfing the waves of harmony beneath it. You look at the score and the melody immediately jumps out at you. (Pic below.)

Nevertheless, I remember having a tiny bit of trouble coaxing it out at the beginning. I couldn't quite  get something to work right, but listening to a recording of that first bit put me right back on track—didn't even have to listen to the whole thing. I don't really remember what the problem was. A combination of everything probably: reading, rhythm... melody. I guess translating sight to sound is not automatic.

The main melody (refrain) repeats twice, and then come those lilting, alternating eighths that are definitively waltz-like. I like the way J.T. phrases his directions on the dynamics: the two-note slurs, he says we should "toss off ... rather sharply." I actually found it difficult to slur all the way from E up to the C-E dyad, and only after a long time was I able to "toss" anything off with any degree of ease. My fingers and mind also protested a tiny bit to the fact that the order of the trill couplets (treble clef: E-A, F#-A, E-A) switch every other bar. So while the right hand plays E-A on the first beat and F#-A on the second, it reverses for the second bar, starting on F#-A and then switching to E-A. The idea is simply that the right hand just keeps the alternation going without regard for bar lines, but for the sake of rhythm and the need to emphasize (or remain cognizant of) the first beat of the bar, my mind does make a distinction between the bars. It therefore wants to do the same thing at the beginning of each, and it (to its chagrin) finds that impossible for this part of the song. But it learns; it has no choice. Several variations on this theme follow hard upon this. Even a reversed version shows up near the end of the song! Therefore, it takes some effort to get the fingers to do it the right way when that "right" way is different every time. So I'm still working on this. (Sigh... Ain't it always the way? I think I make some version that statement in every post.)

Here's an interesting variation of the above. It's  the culmination of the pattern that begins in the previous picture, and I really like it. It's a true trill, so it is the harmonies that really make the difference, as the right hand just plays the same two adjacent notes (G# and A) for a few bars. These harmonies consist of a diminished F# chord and broken C# minor and E7 chords, and it sounds amazing! I play it over and over sometimes under the guise of practising it (which I really need to do anyway), but it's really just to hear it. The fingering is a little odd because notice how it requires that you switch from 3-4 to 2-3 once the trill really starts. I think J. T. might have suggested that fingering because 2 and 3 perform the trill easier than if we bring that lazy 4th finger into it. But I find that using 2-3 on the trill makes it harder for me to get back to the original position when the regular alternating (E-A /  F#-A) patterns starts up again. So I just keep the 3-4 going and it all works out.

Yeah, the text switches from A to D major around halfway through. Can't say I miss the G#. Check out how both staves are in the treble clef. I wonder what happens when the bass clef comes in and there was no indication of naturalizing all the G#s down there. Mayhem!
 

This song has a lot of different sections. This pic (left) is a barred group of semiquavers shared between the hands and the staves. It introduces a section with lots of staccatos and even acciaccaturas that make it seem very whimsical. (See picture right.) It provides me with some new disciplinary material, too. John Thompson's books boast the existence of "something new in every lesson," and for this song it seems to be octave-width grace notes. It takes work to get the hands not to simply play the notes together rather than in fast succession. The first (grace) note is to be crushed into the time of the main note, but I think it should still sound somewhat distinct, so I've been working on that. After this, the song goes on to another alternating / trill section that sort of reverses the direction of the notes in the original trill section. Whereas before they went from low to high (G#-A, etc.), this time they go A-G#. (Of course, the difference is all in the emphasis: ...A-G#-A-G#-A-G#-A... depends pretty heavily on the left hand to emphasise the down beat, otherwise... tomayto, tomahto.)

Finally, the song returns to the beginning refrain and ends with a bunch of five-finger scales in A. Pretty fun. It's a long song, and I was surprised to have learned it as quickly as I did. But now, of course, comes the work teaching it to my fingers and then relaxing enough to play it with the prescribed dynamics.

 Alan Chan's rendition