The opening theme is written in G, but it is effectively in D major since all the C's are sharpened. I wonder why Clementi did that. It's a little disorienting to look at the key signature now and then and know that it prescribes a formal context that's totally different from the one you're in when you're playing it. (Well, maybe not totally different. After all, G and D majors do share that F#.) But still, the section starts and ends on D, with all the appropriate accidentals to support the context. Even the scales and arpeggios are in D! Weird.
I've had the piece memorized for a while now... perhaps about a week and a half. Now I'm working on muscle memory, and in that regard, I really have the piece only half-memorized. I find the problem sections to include a tiny leap my left hand has to perform just before it plays the first scale. The distance isn't so much the problem, as it isn't great at all. What happens is that my fingers snag on one of the black keys (C# I guess) after the second finger plays B and then my hand has to quickly expand to hold A and F#. It doesn't sound complicated, and it isn't. I'm just clumsy with it and require extra practice (compared to the other sections) to get it right. It's coming along though.
Ah, the scales sections... I've learned them properly now and have begun trying to play the first of them at tempo. That's actually working out, but it is pretty taxing on my left hand. I actually feel it in my forearm muscles, and it's amazing how much more relaxed my right hand is while doing it. I've actually been working on my left hand's dexterity actively for a while... and in a C Major descending scale, it's fast enough to train my right hand for those thumb-under portions that it (the LH) doesn't have to do. But in D Major, it's back to its old clumsy self. It is getting better though. (I'm always surprised when I can actually detect improvement in my abilities. I usually expect the change to be so incredibly graduated that I won't be able to detect it at all. But I do, if only in my hand's increased relaxation while it plays.)
I'm still slow with the arpeggios, though. Gotta take it one day (thing?) at a time. I think part of the difficulty I have with arpeggios is the variability of the fingering. These require 1-2-3-5, as can be seen below. But sometimes it's 1-2-4-5, and my fingers just get confused. The first arpeggio in the right hand (not pictured) is actually backwards: 5-3-2-1 and requires a mental shift, since it immediately follows an ascending arpeggio in the left hand. So, I haven't actually exited the awkward-hands stage with those yet. It'll happen though. I've overcome much more awkward situations. And it certainly helps that one of the songs I learned recently (Bach's Prelude in C) is chok-full of arpeggios—though (again) the fingering was different.
[Incidentally, the next song in my John Thompson book, Grieg's Watchman's Song, has me playing arpeggios 7 notes to a beat! It's actually not as bad as it sounds... or perhaps "not as bad as it looks" might be a better phrase to use here. In music, things are always as bad as they sound. Unless atonal. But I digress...]
Perhaps I will update this post once I've improved my playing of this Clementi sonatina. I do like it very much, so I will work on it.
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