Piano from Scratch

Before tackling the next section of the piece, I thought it would be a good idea to review the musical "paragraph" we just worked on. We talk about some advanced pedaling techniques, where the fingers are held in a manner that mimics the sounds of them being held by the pedal - a technique my old teacher Jorge Bolet called, "pedalizing" - and how that technique can be used to effectively connect and clean the sound when used in conjunction with the foot on the damper pedal.

Rolls, rolls, and more rolls! In this lesson, we explore these delicious rolled chords, and I reveal a fingering "cheat" inspired by my old teacher Jorge Bolet, one of the greatest modern pianists who was a very pragmatic musician when it came to working out technical problems on the keyboard. This brings us to the end of the 2nd page and the start of the most difficult section of the piece in upcoming lessons.

We get introduced to two new symbols: the 8va ("octava") symbol, and the "squiggly line", otherwise known as the "roll". After quickly mapping out the notes, we spend a good bit of time exploring various options for rolling the notes, from a simple unison roll, to a more complex "harp-like" note-by-note roll. Let your ears decide which effect you like best, and have fun experimenting!

Wow, we're approaching the home stretch of the second page! A little bit of finger waffling, but in the end I decide to recommend a simpler solution to avoid confusion (i hope...) The right hand keeps "cookie cutter" shapes for the most part, while the left hand has some slight chord fingering shifts, but all in all it shouldn't be too uncomfortable after a little practice. We end with another review of the rhythm starting from the previous measure and some pedaling recommendations.