Week 1: Mapping Assignment and Targeted Practice Plan
WEEK 1: MAPPING ASSIGNMENT
1) Map out the first movement with score annotation of foreground details. Listen to a recording and annotate key terms, harmonic areas, and sections. Use the terms below:
Key Terms: Sonata Form (typical first movement)
- Introduction (if there is material presented before first theme)
- Exposition
- Theme 1
- Transition
- Theme 2
- Closing (if material presented after EEC: essential expositional closure)
- Development
- Thematic Ideas / New Devices (counterpoint, episode, fragmentation, transformation, combination, sequence, false recapitulation, misdirection)
- Re-transition (connects development and recapitulation; tonally unstable)
- Dominant Lock (home key prepared by an extended pedal point on dominant)
- Recapitulation
- Theme 1
- Transition
- Theme 2
- Closing
- Coda (if material presented after ERC: essential recapitulation closure)
Key Terms: Rondo Form (typical last movement)
- Five-Part Rondo: ABACA + Coda (optional)
- Seven-Part Rondo: ABACABA (symmetrical)
- Refrain (A): main theme, returning in home key
- Episodes (B, C): different melodies shifting to closely related keys
- Coda: repeating/tonic-confirming passage leading to final cadence
Note: some sonatas don't follow the sonata form/rondo form outline exactly. If you choose such a sonata, research its form and note any alterations where necessary.
WEEK 1: TARGETED PRACTICE PLAN
After you've mapped out the sonata's form, use the attached document to target the places and concepts you'll need to practice most. Do this for each movement of your sonata.
(Please print out, and write in the appropriate information!).
- Identify the places that need the most work, and spend more time on those right from the beginning of the TWI. Time yourself: explore several technical methods for the toughest passages within a strict window (e.g., "I struggle with this arpeggiated pattern, but by the end of 3–4 minutes, I will have it choreographed so I can do it slowly.")
- Log your practice time on the most difficult passages.
- Treat technical challenges as phrases with a musical goal. We often hear Classical-period figurations as outdated, but composers meant them to be interesting.
- Use the categories to find your targets for practice this week.
81 replies
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Thank you, Jarred, for this exciting course! We have some hard work ahead of us with a classical sonata over the next two weeks. I've chosen Haydn's Sonata in G minor, Hob. XVI/44, and I hope to learn at least the first movement.
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Hi, I'm currently using Tonebase Practice Tracks to study Mozart's Rondo alla Turca, & quite liked the idea of looking into the other movements of this sonata, however, it's a challenge for me as I'm only an intermediate player! So, taking your advice to choose an easier piece for the two weeks, I'll see if I can find the sheet music for one of the two Beethoven sonatas listed, as I believe they're a more appropriate level for me.
Thank you for running these. So useful to have these focused intensives, for repertoire & practice ideas!
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Thanks Jarred! Quite wonderful. I am already experimenting with ways to learn pieces faster. I will use my Schubert sonata D783 a-minor.
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Thanks for the clarification.
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Thanks for the materials. I shall start this on Wednesday by my usual review of the TB library for any teaching on the recommended pieces. Can't start tomorrow - off to see the Marilyn exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery followed by dinner and then Rach 3 at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall.
Programme: Vítězslava Kaprálová Suita rustica; Sergey Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, and, Leoš Janáček Sinfonietta.
Performers: Lukáš Vondráček – pianist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jakub Hrůša.
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My selected piece is the third movement Molto Allegro from Mozart's C Minor Sonata K. 457. I am reviving this piece from several years ago and my primary goal is to secure memory on this movement over these two weeks.
The form of this movement is sonata-rondo (or rondo-sonata). This hybrid form is often described as ABACABA with the first ABA acting as an exposition, C as development and the second ABA as a recapitulation. Mozart uses a "six part" variant in some of his works that omits the A section after the C (ABACBA). This movement uses this particular variant with a brief repeat of C material at the end before a coda. So the form is often described as ABACBAC Coda (or ABACBACD).
This is of course useful to know for practice and memorization purposes but it is also noteworthy in that the more intricate rondo structure is part of what gives the final movement of the C Minor Sonata a greater gravity and structural intensity (unlike the many light-hearted final movements of other earlier sonatas). Beethoven would continue this idea of 're-weighting' the movements toward the finale in many of his own works (it is worth noting that Beethoven used a similar structure in the final movement of his C Minor Op. 13 "Pathétique" sonata - a work with a number of connections to Mozart's K. 457).
I will update this post with the provided targeted practice form in the coming days =)
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Hi everyone, I will choose the Mozart sonata K282, which I have not played before. It will be interesting to see how much I can learn in 2 weeks, with the new approach as explained by Jarred. Thank you for the details.
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I have filled out the form for Schubert 1. movement yesterday. In the beginning I was not too enthusiastic - why should I count all these things. But when I was finished, I looked at it and I was surprised. The form told me that the first movement is full of dynamic contrasts and it has a lot of accents. Very interesting.
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Apologies, I didn't realize there was a list of sonatas when I signed up. I had been working on Beethoven's Pathetique and feel comfortable with the first two movements. I'm trying to learn the third movement. Would it be all right if I use that movement for this intensive? Thanks.
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I started first movement of Haydn c minor sonata hob xvi 20 a couple of weeks ago and more or less have it in my hands now. Going through this exercise highlighted a lot f and p markings, many specifically marked for each hand ... also thinking of the attributes helped me be more aware of where the peaks and troughs are.
By contrast, the second movement which I started looking at yesterday have no dynamic markings and not much of anything else. Still, working on shaping the phrases to make the music flow is going to be interesting.