8.1 Balance three independent lines
Study Bach’s three-voice Sinfonia in C major, BWV 787, following each line through its rests and sustaining its held notes, and balancing the middle voice against the outer two. In the separate keyboard model, connect four written voices and listen for their independence and any unwanted parallel fifths or octaves.
- Technique
- C major five-finger pattern, hands separately
8.2 Harmonise a chorale phrase
Study Schumann’s Figured Chorale, Op. 68 No. 42, in F: the chorale melody in half notes in the right hand, with a fermata at the end of each phrase, while moving eighths fill the harmony around it. Sing the chorale tune alone, then hear which chord supports each melody note. At the keyboard: harmonise a four-part chorale phrase.
- Technique
- F major scale, hands separately, 2 octaves
8.3 Realise a numbered bass
Study Bach’s Invention in B minor, BWV 786. Play the bass of closing bars 19–22 and suggest figures (6, 6/4, 7…) for a harmonic reduction, using the right hand and final F-sharp–B cadence as guides. No figures are printed, and two voices need not determine every note of a full chord. At the keyboard: realise a short figured bass.
- Technique
- B harmonic minor scale, hands together, 2 octaves
- B melodic minor scale, hands together, 2 octaves
8.4 Recognise a galant pattern
Study the Rondo (Allegro), the second and last movement of Beethoven’s Sonata in G minor, Op. 49 No. 1. Despite the sonata’s name it is in G major, with a G-minor episode in the middle. In bars 149–153, play the stock cadential bass C–B–A–G, then C–D–G. Compare it with the cards’ named galant schemas: a descending bass alone does not make a Prinner. At the keyboard: improvise a phrase over a galant bass.
- Technique
- G major scale, hands together, 2 octaves: soft, then loud, then soft
8.5 Borrow a chord from minor
Study Schubert’s Moment musical No. 3 in F minor, D 780. Bars 19–34 turn to A flat major, the relative major (a change of key, not a borrowing); the piece closes in F major, and there, in bar 75, the left hand’s D flat, the lowered sixth from F minor, colours the major ending: a chord borrowed from the minor. At the keyboard: borrow a chord from the parallel minor.
- Technique
- F harmonic minor scale, hands together, 2 octaves
- Leading-note diminished-seventh arpeggio of F minor, hands together, 2 octaves
8.6 Read richer chord symbols
Study Joplin’s Elite Syncopations in F. It prints no chord symbols: name the chords of its first strain (bars 5–20) using the bass together with the right-hand chord tones, distinguishing passing bass notes from chord roots; then read your symbols as a lead sheet. At the keyboard: play a lead sheet with a broken-chord pattern.
- Technique
- F major scale, hands separately, 2 octaves
8.7 Plan a four-octave journey
Study MacDowell’s Improvisation, Op. 46 No. 4, in F major. Follow its arpeggios and rolled chords as they travel across the keyboard, keeping the arm free and letting the hand close after each stretch. At the keyboard: play the A-major scale and arpeggio through four octaves, the same travel in a scale.
- Technique
- F major scale, hands together, 2 octaves
- A major scale, hands together, 4 octaves
- A major arpeggio, hands together, 4 octaves
8.8 Shape the bass and inner voices
Study Bach’s three-voice Sinfonia in G minor, BWV 797. Its middle voice shares the right hand with the top one, or the left hand with the bass: shape the bass line first, then bring out the inner voice where it takes the subject, and listen for two voices exchanging their notes. At the keyboard: read voices written on separate staves.
- Technique
- G harmonic minor scale, hands together, 2 octaves
8.9 Keep a ragtime bass light
Study Tom Turpin’s Harlem Rag (1897) in C, in 2/4. From bar 5 the left hand plays the ragtime bass, a low note on each beat and a chord off the beat: keep its leaps light and exact, and the right hand’s syncopations even above it. The stride bass of the 1920s grew out of this pattern, with wider leaps and faster tempos; the stride card prepares it. At the keyboard: play a stride bass and a twelve-bar blues.
- Technique
- C major stride bass: bass note, then chord, left hand, staccato
- C major scale, hands separately, 2 octaves
8.10 Bring the voices together
Study Bach’s Little Prelude in F major, BWV 928, and keep its independent lines. Separately compare the keyboard model’s chord built in fourths with a cluster, then use their contrasting colours in a cadence and an answering phrase: an experiment in colour, not something Bach used. The tremolo-and-glissando card belongs to the same modern palette; the prelude has neither.
- Technique
- F major scale, hands separately, 2 octaves
8.11 Build even speed in a finger study
Study Czerny’s Op. 740 No. 37 from The Art of Finger Dexterity, in D minor, headed “Clearness in great Strength”. The left hand runs in triplet figures under the right hand’s chords and octaves: keep every note of the running figures even and clear, give the chords strength from the arm rather than the fingers, and raise the tempo in small steps only when the figures stay even. This is the level’s second study, beside MacDowell’s Improvisation.
- Technique
- D harmonic minor scale, hands separately, 2 octaves
