I know a challenge for many of my students, and for most musicians in general is favorite keys. First, they don't want to move out of C position, then they progress to not liking key signatures, which eventually finds them capable in certain keys, but dreading others.
Edna Mae Burnam has addressed that very issue in Play with Ease in Many Keys. This is a continuation of her Dozen a Day Series. However, there are not groups of a dozen exercises in this one. There are 32 exercises, one for each major and minor key. They still have the imaginative titles and little stick figure illustrations typical of any "Dozen a Day" book. Each exercise has a box describing the key signature, often with little hints for difficult keys, for instance: "A sharp minor, Key signature, 7 sharps: F,C,D,A,E,B. Sharp every note. Remember the 2 white key sharps E# and B#." You can look inside here.
This book includes the following concepts in addition to playing with every key signature:
4/4
whole, half, quarter, dotted quarter eighth, eighth, dotted eighth sixteenth, triplet, sextuplet, and sixteenth notes and corresponding rests
I-V7 chords
Pedal, staccato, legato, fermata, hand movement, finger stretches, accent, LH crossover,
Parallel hand movement, melody with chordal accompaniment,
This book progresses through the major and minor keys mixed. You will find this order: C major, a minor, C# major, a# minor, G major, e minor, Gb major, eb minor, D major, b minor, Db major, bb minor, A major, f# minor, Ab major, f minor, E major, c# minor, Eb major, c minor, B major, g# minor, Bb major, g minor, F major, d minor, F# major, d# minor, C major, a minor, Cb major, ab minor.
This book continues to reinforce techniques taught in the traditional Dozen A Day series, but acknowledges that playing in keys is a challenge in and of itself. Therefore, this book is not as technically demanding as book 3 or 4 with 4-note 7th chords for instance. The key signatures provide some of the challenge themselves.
This book is available at Sheet Music Plus for $3.95.
No comments:
Post a Comment