ActiveMusician Riff of the Day

Friday, February 10, 2012

My first lesson was a pescetti sonata which focused on building up stamina in the left and right hand. This follows similar lines but has an incredibly fast tempo of 104 (slightly faster than when you listen to it below) and combines frantic picking and extremely difficult fingerwork. Start this piece off very slowly and focus on it one bar at a time. When you've memorised each bar and can play it back without help of the tab and then again with your eyes closed, move onto the next bar. In this way you'll develop the motor memory in your muscles which will eventually enable you to play this without much conscious effort. Don't just listen to the version published here (although exact to the original keyboard version) download a midi of it too as the quavers here are swung and the tone and shape is automatically played in an uneven fashion. As a starting point, shape each bar as a phrase, rising to the middle of the bar and falling until the end. Quavers should be played detached and semiquavers in a legato fashion. This gives the added advantage of adding break points to the furious playing where quavers are introduced, making any difficult jumps at these points much easier. Just a quick note on the tabbing of this piece. Firstly it is just the right hand of the piano part (obviously). As I've mentioned I will publish the left hand as a seperate lesson so that they can be played in conjunction by two basses. Secondly, I would greatly appreciate it if I received feedback, especially on the efficiency of notation and whether I have made a gross error which could be eradicated by a change of position on the fretboard. As a final note, please tell me if you've found this lesson useful and/or enjoyable and tell me if you think that I should publish more of the same kind. I'd also love to know if you've been able to master it. I really hope that the couple of pointers I've given you help. Adam