Wonderfully Written
- Rating
- Posted by
- Ophelia Barlow
- Date Posted
- 02/19/2024
I played this piece for my district solo and ensemble performance. This piece is definitely harder than I thought it would be when I bought it, but taking the time to learn and play the piece makes it worth every penny. This piece is split into a few parts for me: The Beginning, The Polyrhythm section, The Big Stretch, First Key Change, Second Key Change, Ending. The Beginning of the piece introduces the simple melody and a simple pattern of arpeggios on the left hand, progressively getting more difficult until you reach The Polyrhythm section. This next section is made up of eighth note triplets on the left hand and medium sized intervals on the right hand. Getting the hang of this section is one of the more difficult parts, but pretty easy once you have learned it. The next section, The Big Stretch, is the hardest section in my opinion. What makes this section so hard is the right hand part of the section. It seems simple at first, but your fourth mallet is moving a half step while your third mallet moves a whole step. This maneuver is pretty difficult to get the hang of as an intermediate player, and it is also hard to continue to get right over and over again; I recommend taking extra time practicing this section especially because there are some massive reaches you will need to perform with your first, third, and fourth mallet. The next section is the first key change of the song, changing from A Major to C Major. Overall this section isn't too hard to learn, and there is a lot of flexibility with the phrasing. The second key change isn't too hard to learn as long as you can hold an octave interval with your right hand. The ending is also fairly easy. I recommend playing this section quietly, and using whatever phrasing you want with the last measure. Overall, this is a fairly complicated piece with some pretty hard sections. You should be able to learn this pretty quickly if you put in a fair amount of regular practice. If you know how to play piano, I would also recommend playing through on there as it helped me learn the left hand really quickly. 5/5