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In today's lesson, I'm going to show you a little bit of the techniques I use when I'm reading a piece of music.
I'll be showing you a reduced staff reading on one line. We'll do an example from C1.
And then we'll do an example from C2: reduced staff reading on two lines.
I'm going to look at Reading Drill C1 - Reduced staff one line and I think I'm going to take a look at number four.
Number 4 is for the left hand. I know that because the stems are pointing down, and I notice some things about this.
I notice that it starts on the 4th finger on the note "D."
I might just locate a "D" here and I'm going to look it over for direction and distance.
So from the first note, "D", I notice that it's going to move up a 2nd, up a 2nd, and then down a 3rd.
So I might just try that. Play a "D," up a 2nd, up a 2nd, down a 3rd.
And then I notice that in the next measure, it's exactly the same pattern of notes. Starting on "D," up a 2nd, up a 2nd, and down a 3rd.
The only difference is that I'm going to be playing it softly, rather than loudly. So, I'm going to try that two times now, one loud and one soft.
One - two - three - go....
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You might notice how much more movement there is when I play loud then there is when I play soft.
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Try to keep a quiet hand when you play soft. Alright, so let me look at the next two bars.
I'm back to "D" and I see that I have a repeated note and then I walk up a 2nd and I repeat that note, and then I go back down a 2nd.
I'm just going to try that little fragment.
One - two - three - four . .
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Alright,now I'm going to try the whole thing.
One - two - three - four . .
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Be sure you hold that whole note out for four counts. One - two - three - four . .
and lift.
Now let's look at one that is on a two line staff. Let's look at one that has a tie in it.
I am going to look at number six
which has a tie in it. You'll notice that I'm going to start again with the left hand because the stems are going down. I'm going to start on "E."
I have a tied note going from bar two to bar three.
so I want to be especially careful with the counting of that. So let's practice the counting of the whole thing.
one - two - three - four
one - two - three - four
one - two - three - four
one - two - three - four
one - two - three - four
You notice that I didn't restrike the note on the downbeat of bar three.
And now I'm going to try playing. I'm going to look it over for intervals.I see that I have a lot of thirds.
So from the first note, which starts on "E" with finger number 5, I'm going up a third, I'm going up a third, I'm going down a third,
there's my tie.... and then I go down a 2nd, up a 2nd, and down a 3rd.
I want you to watch especially how I'm looking at the music at all times while I'm reading this.
If I were to look up and down a lot, I would be unable to read ahead. You can see that as I turn my head to look down, I'm not going to be able
to tell if the next note is up or down or whether it is a step or a skip. So watch me read this. One - two - three - four.
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And I'm done.