Chords for (1/3) TUTORIAL, "Moonlight" 3rd Movt. (bars 1-20)

Hello Len, how are you?
Hope you're doing well.
This is one of several tutorials
that I'll be doing on the _ Moonlight Sonata third movement.
This tutorial
is just on the first section up to bar 20.
And this also recaps from bar 102
to bar 115.
So this tutorial is only on these.
Now most pianists seem to be
very obsessed with speed.
And when they hear this and they want to play this, all
they think about is speed.
You need to just get rid of that notion altogether.
Forget about speed.
Don't think about speed at all.
Just blot it out of your
mind.
Because it's not about speed.
It's about accuracy, precision, articulation,
dynamics, clarity.
These things, if you become obsessed with all these things,
become obsessed with clarity, become obsessed with precision, _ obsessed with
with your finger technique, then speed will become another issue.
You will be
able to get it fast if you do these things.
But if you only focus on speed,
you will never get it.
Never.
I guarantee you'll never get it if you only focus on
speed.
So I'm going to take a slow speed of 63.
63 per quarter note.
This is about
at half speed actually.
My finish speed is at 126.
So 63 is actually at half speed.
So now I'm going to play through this and you can hear it at 63 and I want to
talk about a few things.
_ _ _ [C#] _
[C#m] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [G#] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [C#m] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [F#m] _
_ _ _ [A] _ _ _ _ [G#] _
_ _ [B] _ _ _ _ _ [G#] _
_ _ [B] _ _ _ _ _ [G#] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [C#] _
[C#m] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [A#] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [G] _
[D#] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [G#m] _
Okay?
Now, very slow but very precise and very accurate.
Now I want to go over a few things.
First of all, when you're playing these broken
chords, they're actually not arpeggios, they're broken chords technically, it's
always very important you keep your thumb always here because your thumb
almost always is on the black keys.
So your thumb, _ _ [C#m] _
thumb, _ _ _ _ _ thumb, keep your thumb.
[G#] Do not do
this.
_ A lot of pianists, beginning pianists, when they play broken chords or
arpeggios, they come up, they bring their arm out and they bring their thumb way
out.
Or maybe not even that bad, maybe just to here.
Still, that's way too far.
Keep your [N] thumb in.
The secret to doing this is to keep your elbow near your
side.
Do not put your elbow out.
I know this goes against prevailing opinion
with a lot of piano teachers.
A lot of piano teachers tell you to move your
arms out.
I say to keep them in because if you keep your elbow in, of course,
don't be tight.
You don't want to be tense, but keep your elbow in [C#m] and it's
going to help your thumb maintain a line.
_ _ So your [G#] thumb always must maintain a line.
Never bring your thumb outside that line.
Never, ever do this.
[C#m] _ _ _ Never, [B] do not do this
with your arm like this.
A lot of people, a lot of teachers and students [C#m]
think that
it's necessary [N] to do this with your arm to help your fingers.
Do not do
that under any circumstances.
You'll never get it fast and you'll never get
it clean.
You need to keep it, keep your arm, keep, actually, keep your wrist that
way [C#m] _ [G#] and keep your elbow towards [C#m] your side. _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [G#] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ Okay, so [N] that's the most important
thing of the technique in playing these quick broken chords is to keep
your elbow in, keep your thumb in one line.
The next important thing is