[The Lesson]

[Overview]

This lesson had me kind of excited. We’ve finally moved on to grade 4. The pieces in grade 4 are pieces that I actually enjoy listening to, and is actually considered to be the beginning of the intermediate levels. From this grade on, we must perform exam pieces from memory. So, I guess I’ll start to build some repertoire that I can actually use to perform somewhere. The first grade 4 level piece I’ll be playing is an etude. It’s called B flat 调上把位音准校正练习 (An Etude for Correcting Intonation in the First Position in the Key of B flat). This is the first piece I’ve played in the key of B flat, so that was a big stumbling block during the lesson. Also, the most important part of this exercise is to make sure that the open string notes and fingered notes are perfectly in tune with each other. But needless to say, that’s difficult. I guess I’ll be practicing this exercise for a while. I’m thinking about skipping the third level exam and directly moving on to taking the exam for level 4. But, we’ll see.

[Technique]

Although I learned to play the pentatonic B flat major scale in grade 3, playing a piece using it is confusing. But I guess that qualifies as a new technique?

[Repertoire]

小花鼓(Little Flower Drum), B flat 调上把位音准校正练习

 

[The Practice]

[This Week’s Practice]

Warm Up

Vibrato practice at 125BPM: make sure that my vibrato motion is correct, the fingers should rock up and down.

Long bow practice: Keep a consistent tone

B flat Major Pentatonic Scale: Pay attention to the position of my index finger, my teacher said that my index finger tends to shift down too much.

B Flat 上把位音准校正练习

Measure 1, 9: Make sure that the open strings are in tune with the fingered notes.

Measure 6, 10: Make sure that the same notes played in different positions are in tune with each other.

Measure 5, 12: Make sure the grace note is articulated and that the trills are clean and crisp

Measure 11: This measure is difficult because you need to stretch your hand a bit to reach the “re”. Use either the middle finger or ring finger to anchor yourself while using the pinky to play “re”. The pinky should be slightly curved at the first joint, do not play that note with a flat finger.

Play through the whole section that we learned in the lesson this week.

小花鼓

Measure 25-30: Be able to play this without stopping. Make sure the intonation is good.

Measure 42-44: Make sure to put heavy emphasis on the mi. Make sure to completely lift your finger off the string.

Measure 57-60: Make sure to play separate bowing between the do and re. Finally take a pause between mi and re. Trill right on the beat for re.

我是草原小骑手

Play through the piece.