Old French Song: the full version

The same song, all the voices

This is the middle of the Old French Song as it is printed: bars 17–24, with both hands. Press “Listen”.

The middle of the song. In bars 17–20 the left-hand notes have dots: these notes are short. In bars 21–23 the left hand plays chords, and in bar 24 the right hand has a chord of two notes.

In lesson 4 you played the easy version: the right-hand tune and one bass note at a time. The tune of the full version is almost the same, note for note. What is new in it: a little turn of two sixteenth notes in bars 6, 14, 22 and 30, notes with two dots followed by a sixteenth in bars 7, 15 and 31, and chords of two notes in bars 24, 31 and 32. In the left hand nearly everything is new. In bars 1–16 and 25–32 it has two voices: the bass is held while a line moves above it. In the middle section there are short notes with dots, then chords.

Lesson 4 was about how a note begins: quiet or loud. This lesson is about how it ends, joined to the next or short, and about which note of a chord should sound louder.

A dot over the note

A slur over notes, from lesson 4, asks for them to be played legato: a key comes up at the moment the next one goes down. A dot over or under a note asks for the opposite. This is staccato, Italian for “detached”: the key is let go early, and silence sounds until the next note. Whether notes follow each other joined or detached is articulation.

In the song the staccato is in the left hand. In bars 17–20 it plays broken chords in eighth notes, as in lesson 7, and every one of the sixteen notes has a dot. One more dot stands on G2 in bar 8, at the end of the first phrase.

A short note does not make the beat shorter. A staccato eighth takes up an eighth's place in the bar, it just does not sound for all of that time: the rest is silence. The finger takes the key to the bottom and lets go at once, and the key lifts the finger by itself. There is no need to strike the key or jerk the hand: the staccato here is under p, a quiet one.

Look at the fingering of bar 17: C3 and G3, both with the little finger. While C sounds briefly, the hand has time to move to G, and fingers 2 and 1 take C4 and E♭4. Staccato gives the hand time.

Two lines. Legato: the pickup and bars 1–2 with the right hand, up to the first D5. Staccato: bar 17 with the left hand, twice in a row (bar 19 sounds the same). A strip is the time from one note to the next, the fill how long the key was down.

Any tempo will do here: the widget looks at what share of the time to the next note the key was down. For legato, from 90%; for staccato, no more than 60%.

In bar 17 the eighth-note C3 has a dot over it. How much of the bar does this note take up?

Half an eighth: the next note comes sooner An eighth: it just does not sound for all of that time, and the rest is silence A quarter: the dot lengthens the note by half

A dot over or under a note is staccato: the key is let go sooner, and the next note comes in its own time. A dot to the right of a note is a different sign: it lengthens the note by half, as in lesson 1.

The notes of bars 17–20. The exercise checks only the notes, and its staff has no dots: play each note short yourself. The first note of the bar with the little finger, then the little finger moves higher.

Sixteenths and two dots

In bar 6, after D, the right hand has two notes with two beams: E♭ and D. These are sixteenth notes: each is half as long as an eighth, and both together make one eighth. In the easy version there was a single eighth-note E♭ here, and now the tune makes a little turn: E♭, D and on to C. The same turn comes in bars 14 and 30. In bar 22 it is higher: F and E♭ after an E♭.

Count in eighths: “one-and, two-and”. The sixteenths split their “and” in half, and bar 6 sounds like this: “one, and-a, two, and”.

In bar 7 the A has two dots to its right. One dot lengthens a note by half; the second adds half of that addition again. This is a double-dotted note: a double-dotted quarter lasts 1 + ½ + ¼ = 1¾ beats. The last quarter of the beat is left for a sixteenth-note G. In the easy version G was an eighth; now it comes later and shorter, a light pick-up before the last note of the phrase. Bars 15 and 31 are built the same way.

Tap the bar shown after the count-in. “8 16 16 8 8” is bar 6: two quick taps on the first “and”.

In the exercise the A of bar 7 is written differently: a dotted quarter and a sixteenth under a tie. The length is the same, 1¾ beats, and there is one press. A with finger 3.

The left hand: a bass and a line above it

The first phrase with both hands. The left hand has two voices on one staff: the bass with its stems down, the line above it with its stems up.

The lower voice of the left hand is the bass: G3, with the little finger. It sounds nearly all the time. In bar 1 it is pressed, and the tie from lesson 6 holds it to the second beat of bar 2. There it is pressed again, and it is held to the second beat of bar 4.

The upper voice moves above the bass: B♭, C, D, C in eighth notes, then B♭ for the whole of bar 2. Fingers 3, 2, 1, 2 and 3 again. In bar 2 finger 3 holds B♭ while the little finger under it takes G afresh: the same independence as in lesson 8, only inside one hand. In bar 3 the thumb reaches for E♭4, and the little finger stays on G.

The left hand in bar 1: the little finger on G3 holds the bass, and fingers 3, 2 and 1 lead the line above it: B♭, C, D.

In bars 4 and 6, on the second beat, the voices meet on one key: the upper one comes down to G just as the bass takes G afresh. There is one key, and it is pressed once. In bars 7 and 8 the voices part again. The bass comes down through F♯ and D, and then G and a short G2. Above it the upper voice holds C, then B♭. The sharp before F♯ stands by the note itself, as in lesson 4.

First the line alone, without the bass: B♭ with finger 3, D with the thumb, E♭ in bar 3 with the thumb as well. Both hands and both voices come in the practice below.

A chord in the right hand: the top voice

The right hand has three chords in the song, all of two notes. In bar 24, F♯ sounds under A; in bar 31, E♭ under A, then D; and the last chord, in bar 32, is G with B♭3 under it. The tune is on top in each of them. The A of bar 24 is the same note on which the phrase ended in the easy version. The A and G of bars 31–32 are the end of the whole song.

Hence the rule: in a chord, the note that carries on the tune sounds loudest. Most often that is the top voice. The lower notes sound more quietly and do not cover it. How do you press two keys with one hand at different strengths? The weight of the hand goes to the finger on the top note, the little finger or fingers 3–4, and that finger takes the key down faster. The thumb on the lower note is light: it touches its key and takes it down more slowly.

The right-hand notes in columns, one column per press; higher in a column is the note that sounds higher. The top voice is in colour, and a dotted outline marks a note that is still held. The bar by a note is its force.

In bar 31 the top A is held for 1¾ beats, while under it the thumb plays E♭, then D. These are also two voices in one hand, like the left hand's at the start. D is the lower voice: it is played more quietly than A.

The song's last chord, bar 32: G4 and B♭3. Which note should sound louder?

G: it ends the tune B♭: the lower note holds the chord up Both alike: a chord sounds as one sound

In bar 31 the tune comes down from A to G, and in bar 32 G sounds once more, for a long time: it is the last note of the song. The B♭ under it is the lower voice, and it sounds more quietly. Lean on the little finger, and let the thumb be light.

The left hand has chords too: in bars 21–23, where the tune reaches mf. There the whole left hand is quieter than the right, like the accompaniment in lesson 7.

Panel Sustain

Staccato can be heard only if the sound ends with the key. The EZ-310 has function 027 “Panel Sustain”, shown on the display as “Sustain”. When it is switched on (On), the instrument itself lengthens the sound of every note after its key is let go, and the detached eighths blur together. It is off (Off) by default, and the setting is kept after the instrument is switched off. If your staccato sounds smeared, check it:

Function 027 “Sustain”

The widgets on this page hear the keys, not the sound: they see when a key is let go even if the instrument lengthens the sound. So check by ear as well.

The song on the instrument

With the cable, put the course's recording of the full song onto the EZ-310: both hands, ♩ = 70. The file is loaded just like the Ode in lesson 1. In it the right hand is on channel 1 and the left on channel 2, and the 3-Step Lesson from lesson 5 will wait for the hand you choose.

The whole song with two hands

The full song is a pickup and 32 bars, with no repeats: four sections of 8 bars. The second and fourth repeat the first almost note for note; the third is the middle section. In all, 64½ beats; at 75% that is 1 min 14 s.

First the left hand, bars 1–8: the bass held with the little finger, the line moving above it. The right hand is played by the “teacher”.

Both hands, from the pickup. The tune is the same as in lesson 4, with the turn of sixteenths in bar 6 and the two dots in bar 7.

The middle section, left hand: staccato eighths in bars 17–20, then chords under a slur. “Wait for me” waits for the notes, and making them short is up to you.

The middle section, right hand: sixteenths in bar 22 and the chord in bar 24, the top A louder.

The last section repeats the first, and in bars 31–32 the right hand has two voices and the last chord, while in the left the bass goes down to G2.

The whole song in “Wait for me”.

Now in tempo: the middle section at 75%, which is ♩ = 53. The count-in bar is two clicks.

And the last rung: the whole song with both hands in tempo. Add 5% each time a run is passed: the result line shows at least 90% right notes and 75% “on time”. A hundred per cent, ♩ = 70, is the tempo the course's score of the song is written in.

What next

Now you play connected and detached, by the slurs and the dots, and read sixteenth notes and double-dotted notes. You lead a long bass and a line above it in the left hand, and bring out the top voice of a right-hand chord. On the EZ-310 you know where Panel Sustain is switched off.

The last piece of the course is the theme of Für Elise in the full version. It is written as it is printed: in 3/8, in sixteenth notes, with pedal marks.

The pickup and the first bars: sixteenth notes in 3/8 time, the tune in the right hand, broken chords in the left under the pedal.

The full Für Elise comes in lesson 10.