What are your steps of interpreting a piece?

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What is a good way to decipher a piece before playing?

The steps I take are:

1.)Find out what key it is in

2.)Study the structure and find, any repeats of phrases, any extreme changes in the song, any ascending and descending points, look for climax, see if there will be any large intervals that will strain my fingers, changing meters, changing key signatures, ect.

3.)I look for where the melody is strong, what the theme is.

4.)I look at how challenging the chords are and when they change form, any arpeggios. I check for harmonic form.

5.)I find the meaning of all the italian words

6.)Think of a storyline to go along with the song so I can play it as if I'm telling a story.

7.)Sometimes I also find out about the era it was in, and information about the composer.

8.)I also listen to other pianist's version's of the song and compare.

But I'm wondering how I can figure out where a song changes from major to minor, changing keys, ect, or any other thing which might help to prepare a better performance or practice session of a song. Tell me how you begin a song. Where do you start?

-- Zeldah Hanson (slw@cape.com), July 31, 2001

Answers

Zeldah Hanson,

I think you might get better responses by trying the Pianist Corner forum:

http://www.pianoworld.com/ubb/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi

-- nc (noname_poster@yahoo.com), July 31, 2001.


I start by singing each line of piece. Sing the bass, sing the soprano, sing the alto, etc. Next step is to sing the bass from beginning to end while playing the soprano, sing the soprano while playing the bass, sing the alto while playing the bass, etc. Once you have thoroughly sung every part of the piece, both with and without the piano, you will have a good foundation from which to proceed. Also, this is valuable to do throughout your study of the piece, not just at the beginning.

-- Alan (Noname_Poster@yahoo.com), August 11, 2001.

good idea i will try that =0)

-- zeldah (slw@cape.com), August 14, 2001.

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