Moving along in Alfred Year Two

I plugged along with the Cuban love song Guatanamara and have moved to the Theme from the Overture to the Opera Raymond by Ambroise Thomas. I haven't seen Raymond, but have seen his other opera Hamlet (yes adapted from the drama by Shakespeare by the same name) and loved it. It has terrific music and wonderfully dramatic scenes.

The Raymond theme is in A Minor, a key for which I have great fondness due to its melancholy tone. You could play Happy Birthday in A Minor and it would sound like a dirge. My preliminary tinklings sound dark and moody, befitting a transition into Autumn, when I'm sure my seasonal mood swing will kick in and my postings will take on a sombre and Gothic flavor.

This Year Two book has a lot of theory exercises in it and not as many pieces of music. Perhaps it's assumed you teach will roll up his or her sleeves and assign you extra work. Or, maybe, the pieces are longer and more difficult. However, the joke's on Alfred: the independent studies I'm doing on my own--Joplin and others--are much more difficult even than the pieces in the Year Two book. So far.

However, I'm sure Alfred has some surprises for me. He's a tricky old fellow.

I'm working on my scales diligently, and have pretty well learned C, D, G, and A Major. I've begun playing them in opposition; that is to say, left and right hands in different directions. These are the scales we've covered so far. If we continue to follow the Circle of Fifths (insert dramatic music here) the next scale will be E Major. Then B Major, which as I recall consists of mostly black keys. After that, F Major and that's it for the Major League. I get to start all over with the Minors, and the Flat-Majors, etc. You see, the study of the piano is infinite.

In other news I've added pedal to The Entertainer and polished it some more. It's starting to come together more and more. I may be ready to play it for someone in a couple more months. I took the beginning phrase from the original (advanced) version and tacked it onto the intemediate version I'm playing now. I also interjected segments from the original version, which is every bit as complicated as some piece by Chopin, into my intermediate transscription. My teacher pronounced this project very "ambitious." My idea is that over time, I'll transplant the original Joplin fingering into my simpler intermediate version until one day my Frankenstein version will be supplanted by the beautiful original in all its glory.

The "Conscience of the King" scene from Thomas' Hamlet: