Murder in Nantwich - Back to the 1910's

Don't worry - I'm fine. Nothing to worry about.

Sadly, however, the same could not be said for the Captain of the SS Richmond Villages, Nantwich, who - on Thursday 16th May 2024 hosted a Murder Mystery for their residents and put on quite the show for them.

And this Murder Mystery took place on - you guessed it - a cruise ship!

Set shortly after the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, this exciting afternoon was set up in the restaurant of Nantwich's Richmond Villages to resemble a cruise ship restaurant.

And what is no cruise ship restaurant complete without?

A pianist, of course!

Luckily, I lived to see the whole thing to its conclusion, and I was very glad to do so as I had prepared quite an exciting set of music I'd barely - if ever - played before; music from the 1910's.

So, armed with iPad and setlist in hand, I busked my way through:

• Baby Bumble Bee

• Moonlight Bay

• Waiting for the Robert E. Lee

• I Love You Truly

• When You Were Sweet Sixteen

• My Gal Sal

• In the Good Old Summertime

• Yankee Doodle Dandy

• Let Me Call You Sweetheart

• Casey Jones

• Come, Josephine in My Flying Machine

• Oh! You Beautiful Doll

• The Darktown Strutter's Ball

• Livery Stable Blues

• They Didn't Believe Me

• Where the River Shannon Flows

• Alexander's Ragtime Band

• Shine On Harvest Moon

• Londonderry Air

• A Good Man is Hard to Find

• America, the Beautiful

• When Irish Eyes are Smiling

• You Made Me Love You (I Didn't Want to Do It)

• After You've Gone
  

It took a bit of research to find out what was popular in the 1910's, as I didn't know much at all, but I think I ticked the mood with a mixture of upbeat swingy pieces and some more downbeat ballads.

Thank you to the staff and residents at Richmond Villages, Nantwich, and I look forward to playing for you again very soon!

---

Jack Mitchell Smith is a piano teacher based in Macclesfield, Cheshire. Click here to find out more.

Weekly blogs are posted that may help you with your musical or piano journey. Click here to sign up to the mailing list so you never miss a post!

---

#cheshire #piano #pianist #murdermystery

"Unlocking the Secrets: How to Perfect Your Piano Sight Reading Skills"

There is nothing more exciting for the budding pianist than the idea of learning a brand new piece of music! Yet, in order to do so, we have to accept the unfortunate truth that is that we do, in fact, have to learn it - and learning takes time.

Sight reading is one of those essential skills that a pianist must have in order to be able to accurately translate the composer's intention into a beautiful performance, but it is also one of those skills that causes fear. All those notes with different rhythms, reading across two hands, trying to keep the beat going all the while and trying to incorporate the often too easily glossed over tempo and dynamic changes. It can be a challenge.

So this blog is written with the intention of giving you a few pointers in sight reading. It is not intended to take you back to basics, but moreover it is a checklist of what you need to look out for prior to committing to sight reading a passage or piece of music.

NB - if you are doing an exam, these tips are great to put into practice in the 30 seconds / 1 minute you are given prior to being asked to perform!

Before I give you the run down of what you need to look out for, we need a test piece of music!

And to ensure there is no cheating, here is a quick little composition I have come up with specially for this exercise:

So, before you give it a go, let's investigate how we can make the sight reading a little smoother right from the off:

Key Signature and Scales

One of the key things (no pun intended...) to work out before you start to play is - which key are you playing with?

Well, I'm not getting into the discussion of how to identify key signatures on this post, but if you need a refresher then click here.

Use the time you have prior to playing a piece wisely and identify not only which key a piece is in but also identifying any key changes.

In the piece above, we can see that we start in the key of E major (4 sharps). However, at bar 7 you will notice that the key changes to D major (2 sharps). Because the bulk of it is in E, it is worth playing the scale of E major just to get into your system the need to sharpen those notes that need to be sharpened as you come to them. However, playing the scale of D won't be much advantage as it might just muddle you up - so it is worth playing the first bar of the key change just so that gets off to a good start.

Don't forget to be on the lookout for whether or not the key could in fact be the minor key. This piece could be in the relative minors of what I said above (C# minor and a key change to B minor). But how would you find that out?

A few tricks you can do:

• Look at the start and end notes - particularly in the left hand. Usually this will give you a clue. In the left hand, the first note is E. We are in either the key of E major or C# minor. So it is safe to assume we're more likely in E major.

• The ending chord has a root note of D in the left hand, and given that the key change takes us to either D major or B minor, it is another fairly safe assumption. However, because we have got some definite harmony we can explore this chord even more. Reading up, it is D - F# - A - C# (this chord is a D major 7). The inclusion of A and absence of a B is what separates the chords of D major from B minor, so we can assume D major.

• One telling sign that a key may be in the minor key is the use of the raised seventh - especially in classical music. The relative minor of E (C# minor) would feature all the sharps from the same key signature so that would still apply. However, if the piece is writte according to the harmonic minor scale and its principles (click here to refresh) there would be accidentals marked on the seventh note of the C# minor scale - the B. If you see any regular accidentals of B# notated, it is highly likely we are in the minor key!

Start and End

By now, you will already have looked at the start and end with regards establishing the key signature. However, there is another advantage to doing so - particularly in a pressurised sight reading instance (such as an exam);

• Confidently starting a piece will put you in a good mindset, but also allow the listener to immediately be hooked by your playing.

• Confidently finishing a piece leaves a more positive impression of you performance on both yourself and your audience once you have finished.

So, if there are any parts you should prioritise playing through before you go for the full piece, make it the first bar and the last bar!

Count the Time and Tempo

Make sure that you have a good understanding of time signature (again - see here for a recap) and have a quick look throughout the piece to ensure that you understand which notes come on which beats and identify anything that may be a little untoward (see next point!).

In addition, however, make sure you identify any changes in time in the same way you identified any key changes. On my example above, we start in 4/4 and we stay in it, so we don't have to worry there.

However, at this point it is worth observing our tempo markings:

• Moderato: - literally 'at a moderate speed'. So make sure you count 1-2-3-4 to yourself a couple of times to get you into the mindset. Remember that if you are under pressure, it's all too easy to go too fast! And aside from not being the right speed, we make more mistakes when we go too fast anyway! So going at the right speed is a win-win.

• rit: - short for 'ritardando'. You can probably guess from the full word what it means - to slow down. Consider where this comes in the music now and try and sing to yourself the rhythms notated whilst incorporating the gradual tempo change instructed.

Clefs

Identifying which clefs you are playing at the start is an obvious point as this is essential for reading all music, but have a skim through and check that you are, in fact, playing with those clefs the whole way through. As exemplified above, you don't have to play the left hand in the bass clef (or vice versa). Bar 5 switches the left hand into the treble clef, meaning it moves position to higher up the keyboard.

If this happens, consider that - unless the clefs change in both hands (they don't in this piece) then you will either be playing with your hands much closer together than you would have been or you may have a pitch change in the other hand. Your music may suddenly be written using more ledger lines than you would like - and these are almost always a priority to identify before committing - or, as in the example above, you may see 8va markings such as those that occur across bars 5-6 and 7-8. This simply means to play an octave higher than the notated pitch. Make sure you are ready for it and know which pitch it is jumping to.

Reading treble clef in left hand and bass clef in right hand is amongst the most awkward things for a pianist to get used to, so if this is where you find yourself struggling, try sourcing musical exercises to help strengthen this almost 'reversed' approach to sight reading.

Explore Complex Rhythms

What we find rhytmically complex can be a very personal thing, but due to it being how most people learn it would be safe to assume that anybody able to perform the above piece would find the opening bars - made up of minims, crotchets and quavers - simple.

When we get to bar four, however, we have a syncopated rhythm. A dotted crotchet, followed by a quaver tied to a crotchet, followed by a crotchet. The rhythm itself isn't complex to understand, per se, but it contrasts the un-syncopated rhythms before it as it suddenly gets 'between' the beats.

This isn't a post in which I will explore syncopation, but this is an example of a bar that you may need to identify so that it doesn't catch you off guard.

Moving onto bar 6, we have some crotchet triplets / tuplets. Some triplets - such as the quaver triplets in bar 2 - are based around shorter notes and so don't affect the overall rhythmic flow too much. However, crotchet triplets and longer (minims etc.) can give the sudden impression of a change in time without actually affecting the pulse (a full 4/4 bar of crotchet triplets would fit 6 notes in, giving a sudden, almost dragged out '1 and a 2 and a' feel). Consider this when you are counting through the time signature and checking the rhythms and ask yourself how you are going to approach these triplets so that they don't come as a surprise to you when you are playing!

Find Patterns

And now - onto the main bit! The music itself!

We know how the first bar goes because we've played it by now. But just to help us keep a nice pulse going through the music, have a skim through and identify patterns - if you have an opportunity to pencil on a helpful hint for when you're playing then so much the better!

Here are some examples:

The above minims in the opening 2 bars of the left hand are E - G# - B - G#. This is simply a broken E major chord.

As long as we remember to move our right hand up the octave to keep with the 8va marking, we can play the above notes as E, G#, B and E. It's another E major chord - this time we'd call it arpeggiated because it starts and ends on E's with an octave interval.

Not to get predictable, but the above triplets are E - B - G# - E descending in the right hand, and E - G# - B - E ascending in the left. Both arpeggiating E major chords...

Worry only about the rhythm in the example above, for if you establish that the first note is B then the nature of the rest of the passage is descending one note at a time. Therefore - a descending E major scale starting on B.

The above left hand part is also a scale. It starts on E and, aside from rising back up to the D# after the C# it is always descending. If you identify this prior to coming to play that bar it will be much easier to keep a confident pulse going! If you have the opportunity to play this prior, it might be a good one to as you might want to consider which fingers you play with in relation to the following bar.

These chords in the right hand look awfully complicated. But...look harder! It's actually only the top note that changes. If you identify the bottom two (G# and B) then you only have to follow the top notes when you come to playing it!

Piano Sight Reading: Conclusion

Now, you are ready to play!

Remember to keep your eye on markings that are more extensive within the piece, such as dynamic markings or articulations (staccato, tenuto, staccatissimo) and go for it.

If you have the opportunity to do so - for example, if you're practising for the sake of improving your sight reading ability - feel free to take it slower than your intended performance speed.

Learning to spot patterns and preparing for sight reading is as much a skill as reading music, which in turn is as much a skill as playing piano - so keep at it and you will be rewarded!

---

Jack Mitchell Smith is a piano teacher based in Macclesfield, Cheshire. Click here to find out more.

Weekly blogs are posted that may help you with your musical or piano journey. Click here to sign up to the mailing list so you never miss a post!

---

#sightreading #piano #classicalmusic #printedmusic #howtoreadmusic #sheetmusic #learnpiano #pianolesson #musiclesson #pianoteacher

Exercises to Improve Voice Performance on Piano

No, not your singing voice. Don't panic!

When we talk about voices on the piano, it can often lead people who are fairly new to the game to wonder what it actually means. Whilst it is true that I did write a blog that explains this in a little more depth some months ago, I will gladly recap here before getting onto the exercises:

What is a Voice in a Piece of Music?

In short, a voice is each individual part.

For example, the melody is a voice.

Any harmonised melody or counter melody alongside that is another voice.

Chordal accompaniments can be considered as a single voice if they all progress together (for example if you have triads playing in every bar and each note is a semibreve / whole note), pedal notes / drones would be a voice and basslines would also be a voice.

When we start learning piano, we normally learn no more than two voices at the start. This is a usually in the form of a monophonic (only one note at a time) melody in the right hand and a monophonic accompaniment in the left hand.

Playing two voices - one in each hand - is the simplest form of playing more than one voice. If the melody is in the right hand and the right hand is in a higher register than the left then it is easier still due to the natural tuning in of the ear to a higher register rather than a lower one (we always want the melody to dominate).

However, it won't be long on your piano adventure that you do begin to incorporate more than one voice and - as we only have two hands - it's true to say that at least one hand is going to be performing more than one voice a lot of the time!

Seeing Multiple Voices in Practice

Let's take a classic beginner's piece - 'Merrily We Roll Along' / 'Mary Had a Little Lamb':

In this piece of music, the right hand takes a monophonic melody. Therefore, this is one voice.

Each bar in the left hand has three notes at any time. Because these three notes all move together, this can be considered as an individual voice...

...to add a third voice, note how the above example now substitutes crotchet beats for the lower note of the left hand chord. Because this is different to what the other notes are doing in that bar, we consider this a new voice - a third voice...

...to further exemplify, the above music adds a fourth voice. In the right hand, we now have our melody happening at the same time as we hold a semibreve. This is our new, fourth voice.

Other Ways to Identify Voices

As well as voices often being clearly different from one another rhythmically, it is often possible to identify voices using other methods too:

• Stem Directions: one of the most obvious examples is to look at the directions of the stems. Whereas in music with just one voice per hand the rule of thumb suggests that the stem goes up if the note head is below the middle line of the stave and vice versa, using multiple voices forces the stem directions of an individual voice to be consistent with one another. In my example above, the crotchets in the left hand would ordinarily be stem up because of their position, but because of the placement of higher notes they are stem down. Needless to say, if these higher notes were shorter than a semibreve (e.g. minims) they would be stem up.
  

• Phrasing: in my example above, we can pick out the individuality of the top voice of 'Merrily We Roll Along' by the use of the slur. This implies that what it covers or what it falls under is all one voice. Because this slur is above the bars, it is safe to assume that the notes that are generally on the top (the semibreves) are its reference. Another such way that you could dissociate these slurred notes from the melody is to recognise what a slur actually dues - it creates legato. The melody in the right hand features too much note repetition (E-E-E in bar 2, D-D-D in bar 3) to justify this type of articulation. Note how the melody line is also stems down. It would be inconsistent notation to put a slur over a passage of music where the majority of the stems were on the opposite side of the stave.

Multiple Voice Red Herrings

As with anything, the above is your starting point. Three notes doing the same thing don't necessarily count as being one voice when done so in the context of a bigger piece.

For example;

Going by the logic I have just taught, you'd be forgiven for assuming that the left hand in bar 4 could be interpreted as one voice. However, look at the second bar left hand - note that this has a semibreve held underneath a vamp. This splits the voicing into two. We would consider the left hand to be in two voices here because the semibreve is different to the vamps above it in that second bar.

The third bar - despite changing from a two part harmony on top to one note at a time on top - stays in two voices. You don't add voices on unless you could see a distinctly different third voice there.

Meaning that we are still in two voices when we come together for the chords at the end. The score reflects this, as the bottom note of the triads in the left hand stems downwards. However, this is something you may gloss over in the early stages of reading multiple voice music so it is worth mentioning.

Now let's get thinking about how we can perfect our performance of playing a piece with multiple voices:

Ensure Chordal Even-ness in the Hands

When we start doubling up on notes in any hand on the piano, we are normally doing so to create a chord to accompany the melody. As such, we generally consider this to be one individual voice. Think of a voice like a different sound of the orchestra - if your right hand is playing a melody that could be attributed to flute or clarinet, perhaps your left hand could be a chord that would be taken by a split violin section. As long as it all moves together, it can be considered one voice.

Therefore, it's important to ensure that you can play chords with evenness in both hands. Take the typical C major triad (C-E-G). Naturally, we will likely tune into the top note anyway (G) due to its higher register, but we do need to ensure that we're not giving any additional weight to one or more notes. The fingers should not only play the keys at the exact same time, but they should do so with even velocity, thus creating an even dynamic.

It's very important that you perfect this technique first before attempting to play around with different voices, mainly because we need to approach multiple voices in one hand with a different technique. In this instance, we actually do want to dominate a note in particular, and we need to be comfortable switching our technique according to what is required of us.

Play the above notated C major triad - hands separately and hands together using standard fingers (5-3-1 left hand, 1-3-5 right hand) - ensuring that you hit all keys evenly and at the same time, listening to check that the sound between each note is even.

Apply this to the first score of 'Merrily We Roll Along' above, and ensure that not only do you hit the chords cleanly and evenly, but you play the right hand slightly louder so that the melody sings out above them. Don't forget that even if you play both hands at the same dynamic, the left hand can be anything up to three times as loud as you are playing three notes at a time here as opposed to the one note at a time in the right hand.

Once you feel comfortable with this, let's advance our technique and look at playing multiple voices per hand:

Adding Another Voice into Each Hand

It's up to you whether or not you would prefer to start with the left or the right hand, but for this exercise assume that the bass clef is the left hand exercise and the treble clef is the right hand exercise (they are effectively the same but one octave apart):

Right Hand Voice Exercise

Left Hand Voice Exercise

Please be reminded that:

• you need to be comfortable in playing evenly before you advance onto these exercises, and
  

• these are difficult exercises! It looks easy on paper, but trust me...you'll probably not get it straight away. Just take it at your pace and keep working on it and never feel like it's beating you.

So let's take a look at the exercises:

The exercises use the first two notes of the C major triad (C and E) and we will assume the same fingers as we would in each hand if we were playing a full C major triad to begin (5-3 left hand, 1-3 right hand).

Each bar can be repeated as often as you like, but you need to be mindful of three types of markings:

• Dynamic: one finger will be playing piano (softly) and one will be playing forte (loud). It's difficult to get into the mindset of this - especially when the lower notes are to be more dominating than the higher ones - but it really will help you bring out the important parts of pieces of music you play. If it helps, physically rotate your wrist initially so that the emphasis falls naturally on the finger you wish to play forte, and imagine that your hand is falling heavily onto that finger. Be careful, though - you still want to play both notes at the same time!
  

• Staccato: the dots above / below some notes are staccato dots. This means that you need to jump off the notes more. For this exercise, the staccato notes are intentionally given to the quieter notes (piano) so that you can make something more of the forte notes - something that comes much more naturally.
  

• Tenuto: the lines above / below some notes are tenuto markings. Tenuto is like the opposite of staccato - make sure you hold these notes on for the full length notated (in this case - 1 beat).

This will take time and it's also not something you wish to be practising a lot. It will tire your fingers quickly if you overdo it - especially if you have to exaggerate your hand position in the initial stages!

Have a look and a listen to the video below for an idea of how it should sound:

When you're feeling a lot better about them, try playing around with the fingers - perhaps finger 1-2 in the right hand, or fingers 5-2 in the left. If you wish to change the interval between notes to make it a little more comfortable on the fingers for the sake of the exercise, by all means do, but bear in mind that you will be setting yourself a harder challenge the closer your intervals are (for example, try the exercise with a C and a C#/Db together. It's hard to get one to dominate out of that muddy sound!)

Putting It into Practice

Let's refresh our memory of our four voice 'Merrily We Roll Along':

I have deliberately left out dynamic markings to allow for you to play through this with different interpretations. Ordinarily, you will see a piece of piano music marked with no more than two dynamics at a time (right hand and left hand) - and even this isn't that common. Usually you just see an overall dynamic marking between the staves to suggest that the whole piece is to be played - for example - piano or forte.

Therefore, it is up to us as the interpreter and performer to work out which bits require the attention. Usually we give the most attention to the melody.

In the case of the above, this would not be the semibreves in the right hand, and so the semibreves will need to be balanced nicely at a quieter dynamic than the melody. This is especially true on bars 1 and 3 where the note is higher than the melody (bear in mind bar 2 is tied so the note will be fading away by this time anyway).

In the accompaniment, it is often advisable to make prominent the lower end to give a broad range of frequency. Therefore, it stands to reason that we play the lower crotchets a little louder than the semibreves. This is further advisable in that this will be giving a distinctive rhythm, so bringing that out a little more may benefit the flow.

But use the piece above as a blank canvas. Try playing with different dynamics around the whole thing and see what you can create!

---

See me talk more about voices on my YouTube video below:

I post regular updates about piano and music theory. Make sure you sign up to my mailing list to be notified of all new posts!

---

#music #musictheory #piano #sheetmusic #learnpiano #pianolesson #pianoteacher #macclesfield #congleton #Cheshire #pianist