Group 2

Hi Eder Giaretta  - It stands for "Two-Week Intensive"

Hi Jennifer Mehta ! We're working to get that link fixed for everyone. Meanwhile here it is:Schubert MM 6 

Yes harmony can be intimidating, especially when it gets chromatic and you're wondering why there are so many accidentals all over the page... but I'm here to help and don't be afraid to ask questions no matter how basic. Once you get the hang of it, you'll realize it's all very logical - and understanding it better can be very enlightening to the whole musical experience!

Ben Laude Thank you so very much!!!!!!

Mari Adams Thank you for sharing! And always happy to work on mechanical things - and also supply references to other tonebase videos where issues are addressed more directly.

Sounds like you might be losing control in the RH during the repeated notes/intervals happening around m165? I wonder if this happens when you're playing the right hand alone, in which case you might be over-straining on the repetitions due to the left hand's mounting activity. Even hands alone, though, that kind of repeated note passage in Schubert can be difficult to keep from sounding too "pecky", and ultimately the solution has to do with being able to sit your weight in your finger, staying close to the key, and play more from the upper arm and not at all from the wrist/finger. Then it should just feel like you're very quickly picking up and dropping your weight through the finger, staying balanced. Then it helps to feel a bit of a "down / up" on every pair of repeated notes.

But I'm speculating! And we're just getting started. But let me know if that makes any sense or helps.

Ben Laude Thank you, Ben. That does indeed make sense and is precisely what my ‘mentors’ are demonstrating. It is those pesky two eights slurred followed by a repeat of the last 8th in the LH that need some ironing. By the way, when I joined two weeks ago, I headed straight for a video lesson on the 960 but to no avail. Would it be possible to augment your collection with this piece?

Mari Adams Regarding creating a D. 960 lesson, I'll refer you to Dominic Cheli  . I'm not sure it's viable for us to produce a full premium lesson on it in the near future, but at the very least I'll offer more specific thoughts on it these next couple weeks (I've chosen it as my Schubert piece for this intensive) and there could potentially be a livestream on it in the near future as well.

I think I understand what you mean here:

It is those pesky two eights slurred followed by a repeat of the last 8th in the LH that need some ironing

So you're actually talking about the left hand, not the right?

Actually the things I wrote about the right hand still apply here, but obviously I'd have to see you try it before I can give more specific advice/ practice tips. If the issue is starting the next 2-note slur, which repeats the note that came before it, the goal is for it not even to feel like you're repeating a note. The second note under each slur requires a slight lifting movement, while still "standing" on the key so you don't drop the note (just, with less weight), then – in standard 2-note slur form – you bring the weight back down on to the "repeated" A-flat, which is the first note of the next 2-note slur. This should technically feel the same as if you were playing a new note (say, G), rather than repeating the A-flat.

Try this for now (and then I'll back off... don't want to get too lost in the weeds this early, but this might help):

Play left hand alone and hold the first note of each two note slur for a quarter-note duration. While you're holding it, really feel like you're "standing on the key" with your finger... your weight grounded in the tip/pad. Now, keeping that weight in place, slightly move your forearm forward and to the left and "touch" the second not of the 2-note slur, but then release. After playing each 2-note group like this, lift the whole hand and drop onto the next 2-note slur and repeat the exercise.

The point here is to make it feel like there is no repeated note, but rather: a series of down motions, planting on the first of each 2-note group, which will create a scale (Bb - Ab - G - F, etc), with an incidental second note grabbed next to each along the way down. It just so happens that you'll end up "repeating" that note, but physically it shouldn't feel that a note was repeated.

Ben Laude What a brilliant way to describe the weight transfer of slurred notes.

And yes, please do a live stream on D960! 

Hi John Denton - thanks for sharing and so glad you're enjoying the platform so far. If you haven't found it yet, we do have a lesson on D. 664 by Andrew Tyson (link here). One of the earliest courses I filmed, so there's no overhead angle, but I can't recommend Andrew more highly in terms of his sound and ideas throughout the lesson.

Ben Laude Hi Ben - I've been a little busier this past week than I had anticipated but I did find the time to watch Andrew's video series based on your recommendation. Thank you for the suggestion! I must say that I had my reservations initially as I believed I knew my way around D.664. I was very pleased out of the gate as Andrew touched on so many things that I had worked out - it was good to know that I was on the right track. But then he went in depth and touched on so many ideas that hadn't even occurred to me. I found his insights to be thorough yet organic and really related specifically to this Sonata. I've been so impressed with all of the tonebase content so far. Thank you 

I am hoping to have a bit more time in the week ahead. I am actually thinking of spending some of my Schubert time on Winterreise. I love Schubert's piano music dearly but I have started to discover his lieder during the pandemic - I will see what I come up with! Looking forward to getting the hang of the TWI a little more

John Denton I'm glad you found the Andrew Tyson lesson! I love how the piano sounds (and how he makes it sound) in that lesson. One of the most underrated videos on tonebase!

I encourage you to do some work on Wintereisse. Yes, please! Feel free to share your thoughts/analysis about any given piece from it.

Jennifer Mehta I think it's a good analogy. I would add vocabulary too (meaning a kind of "harmonic vocabulary", not the terms we happen to give to chords). And - while people might mock studying grammar ("because what matters is how well you speak a language!"), the truth is, any great writer or prose stylist has a deep/conscious understanding of grammar and of course an always-expanding vocabulary. Suddenly the possibilities of writing open up and it feels like you can express anything you want, even brand new ideas. Not a perfect parallel here, since we're not composing music (maybe it's more akin to how your ease with reading and interpreting great literature can develop through the study of grammar/vocab), but nevertheless, developing our analytic skills so that we can glance at a Schubert piece and know within a minute the detailed structure of all the compositional decisions he made is enormously helpful to the practicing musician. But you have to put that knowledge to work, and not let it remain abstract from the process of music making. It should (1) allow you to memorize music 10x faster, and 10x more securely (this alone should persuade the music theory-detractors out there among pianists I know); but even more (2) when you're informed and listening to all the elements of harmony and phrase structure, suddenly opens up a world of possibilities in terms of voicing and interpretation.

Ben Laude I can also see some other usefulness of this.  When I play for worship services, I am sometimes asked to modulate between songs.  Right now I painstakingly figure out something that makes sense between the two pieces.  This will really help me understand how modulations happen, and the "grammar" of them and it should become much easier.  I can also see that it will make transposing something much easier as I learn to think of the Roman numerals for the chord structure of pieces.  That would be much easier than trying to mentally transform it from the written key to any other key.  The Roman numeral chords would translate much easier.  This will really take my understanding, thoughts, and interpretation of music to a whole other level!  Wow!

Jennifer Mehta Absolutely. In the old days, pianists would sometimes play a chord progression in between pieces to modulate from the even of the previous tonality to the new one. Schubert shows us how, even between the most remote tonalities, it only takes a couple chords to get there smoothly!

priscillayam First, I hope you're okay and recovering quickly!

Let me offer a little bit of advice here, and then I'll see if I have time to make a video about this. I actually played this piece on a doctoral recital at Juilliard (after hearing Horowitz's performance of it in his famous Moscow recital).

In the third variation, practice the left hand alone as follows: slowly play the moving line in the thumb and second finger legato while playing the lower voices staccato. Go as slowly as you need to. This will help you develop finger independence so eventually you'll feel the hand come down on the keys with different levels of pressure, and suddenly you should feel in more control. Stay close to the keys and just focus on tipping your weight a little towards that moving voice while the repeated voices feel a little squishier (but still balanced). Later on, other voices will move, not just the thumb-side, and you'll need to accommodate in that direction.

Let me know what your issues are in #4. I always found this one pretty comfortable, especially because G-flat feels nice under the hands. The trouble might be that the left hand carries the tune, and there's some wide-ish spans. Don't ever try to cover the wide intervals (10ths, 11ths) all at once – instead, move the wrist laterally to stay behind the smaller intervals that make up the larger ones.

The 5th variation is challenging with all those moving 16th triplets, but I wouldn't focus on the right hand as much as the left. You need to make sure you preserve the dance in the left, so get really good at playing hands alone there and then add the right hand, which should just feel like it's falling into place. The B section, where the hands switch roles, is tricky. Focus on mastering smaller groups of notes in the LH runs, and also aim at certain notes (like, when it's zigzagging down in the g minor, you have the pillar notes of the Gm triad to use as anchors).

Ben Laude Hello Ben, 

You mad me feel a lot better already knowing this is worthy of part of your doctorate!

I  tried you suggestions at the piano just now, and your suggestions will really help me. Thank you so much for taking the time to respond. This will help me more than you can imagine.  Priscilla.

Hi Gloria - I recommend limiting your analysis to a shorter passage in the Schubert, maybe one that you're particularly curious about. I'm less interested in seeing a full page of labels, than your effort in a single passage where you try to make sense out of an unusual series of harmonies.

In any case, you're on the right track if you're listening and noticing the particular colors of each chord. As I say in my video below: it's possible to just have ears, and develop them to be very sensitive, without ever knowing any music theory terms. I still think it's useful to give these chords names, however, and I hope I can at least help you draw your attention to what note(s) in a given chord are the ones giving it a special color. Once you're hearing chord color and noticing the notes that make them colorful, the next step is to look at the chords around them and ask "okay, where is this music going, what is it doing?" In other words, the bigger goal is to develop an awareness of how chords function in larger phrases. Let me know if there's a particular phrase where I can help you achieve this.