core_elements_of_learning_repertoire_-_leann_osterkamp_-_tonebase_workbook

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Core Elements of 
Learning Repertoire
COURSE WORKBOOK
Your Instructor: Leann Osterkamp
tonebase Piano
https://app.tonebase.co/piano/dashboard
About This Course
Contents
WATCH COURSE
Looking to improve your piano skills to play pieces like Für Elise or Clair de lune, but don't want to 
go through years of boring beginner pieces before graduating to your favorite repertoire? If so, this 
course is for you. Join Steinway Artist Leann Osterkamp as she introduces you to the core 
elements of learning serious repertoire at the piano. Designed both for novice players with only a 
basic familiarity with treble and bass clef as well as more experienced players looking to fill in gaps 
in their skills and understanding, this course will put you on a fast track to learning the gems of the 
intermediate concert repertoire – from Bach Inventions to Mozart Sonatas, Brahms Intermezzi to 
Rachmaninoff's C-sharp minor Prelude.
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22
29
33
35
42
47
52
I. Encountering the Score
II. Creating Texture
III. Polyphony
IV. Phrasing
V. Pedals & Pedaling
VI. Trills & Ornaments
VII. Polyrhythms
VIII. Memory
If you have any corrections, comments, or critiques relating to this 
workbook, please send them to ethan@tonebase.co. We strive to 
deliver the highest quality enrichment experience. Thank you! 
What You’ll Learn
• How to begin learning real pieces • How to practice • Basics of reading music
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I. Encountering the Score WATCH LESSON
Certain repertoire pieces are the primary reason we first fall in love with the piano. Paradoxically, it 
also can make us quickly fall out of love with the instrument. The pieces we most want to play are 
usually quite challenging, and attempting to jump in right away can lead to frustration or apathy if 
we’re still in the beginning stages of our development.
How do we encounter a score for the first time? This lesson is intended both for beginners with a 
basic understanding of grand staff notation as well as more experienced players looking to 
reinforce fundamentals of score interpretation. We’ll look at how to engage with the music you love 
right away as it appears on the page, and begin mapping the score onto the keyboard. 
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) did not actually give 
this piece the title it is now famous for. He titled it simply 
“Klavierstücke in A minor” (German for “Keyboard piece”), 
and the dedication is made to Elise (however, the actual 
identity of Elise remains uncertain). Place the score on 
your piano stand, and let’s get started. 
03
Big Idea: Start with what you know, and build from there – in music, with your instrument, and 
in life! Even if a problem seems overwhelming, there’s always something you already know that 
can kick off your journey toward solving it, and your understanding will grow from there.
Für Elise
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The first thing we’ll do with our Beethoven score is write in the letters of each note. To review, 
notes are written on staves (plural for staff), which are just groups of five horizontal lines. Piano 
music is written on two staves connected by a squiggly line called a grand staff. The top staff is 
usually accompanied by a treble clef, and the bottom staff by a bass clef.
The lines and spaces refer to different notes depending on whether that staff contains a treble or a 
bass clef. Below is a diagram showing the position of notes on each staff and what letter they are 
assigned:
Labeling notes in the score
F F
F F
G G
G G
A A
A
B B
B
C C
C
D
D D
E
E E
bass clef
treble clef
grand staff
C C CD D DE E EF F F FG G G GA A AB B B
05
For those with less esperience reading notation, keep the previous page handy for reference as we 
move forward. Taking a look at the Für Elise score, we can now identify the first note as an E.
The second note is a D, but it has a strange symbol next to it. You can see that it’s only one line 
below the first note, so we know it’s some version of a D. 
Though it might seem laborious, it’s useful at this early stage to write in the names of every 
single note in the piece you’re working on. Even if you have several pieces under your belt, it will 
serve you very well to go through this exercise. Students all want the fluency to read perfectly, but 
it takes time to develop this fluency. For familiar pieces, students will often rely on their ear instead 
of the notes on the page, resulting in certain notes being learned incorrectly. 
Although you may be familiar with accidentals, it’s worth reviewing exactly what they signify 
and how they function. There are three types of accidentals: sharps, flats, and naturals. Each of 
these symbols alters the note you should play at the keyboard. Accidentals always refer to the 
note directly to the right of the symbol. 
The sharp sign looks a lot like a hashtag, a pound sign, or a number sign. They indicate the note is 
to be raised one half-step. (At the keyboard, “up” means to the right, creating a higher pitch; 
“down” means to the left, creating a lower pitch). 
Accidentals
sharp
♯ =
06
In the first measure of Für Elise, the sharp tells us to play the note directly above (to the right of) D. 
This means to play D-sharp. As for most sharps and flats you’ll see, D-sharp is a black key: 
Later in the measure, we encounter another symbol: a natural. Naturals cancel out any other 
accidental that happened before in the measure, and play the normal note. Here, we will play D-
natural. “Natural” notes are always white keys on the piano. 
natural
♮ =
C
D♯
D E F G
C
D♮
D E F G
must rewrite a sharp symbol 
for following measure
D♯ D♯ D♯
It’s important to point out that once an accidental occurs in a measure, it applies to every 
subsequent appearance of that note in that measure. For example, in meausre 36 of Für Elise, all 
of the notes highlighted below are D-sharps, as the the sharp on the first D carries through for all 
remaining Ds in the measure. 
every D is sharp for the 
rest of the measure
07
In measures 22-27, we start seeing symbols that look like tiny b’s. These are called flats, indicating 
that the note is to be lowered one note down. Here, instead of B-natural, we will play B-flat, the 
black key right below B. 
To review, sharps raise a note by a half-step (meaning, the very next note up), naturals refer 
the original note signified if there were no accidentals present (always a white key), and flats 
lower a note by a half-step. Since there is no black key above B, B-sharp is actually a white key – 
the same as C. We use the word enharmonic to describe that B-sharp and C are the same pitch. 
Equivalently, C-flat is the same pitch as B. 
The key signature tells us what key a piece is in. It is a collection of 
sharps or flats at the very beginning of the staff, signaling what 
accidentals to apply to the entire piece. Sometimes, like in Für Elise, 
a key signature will be empty. This means there are no accidentals in 
the key signature and that the key is either C major or A minor; all 
notes will be played as they are written, unless an accidental is 
present.
When you do encounter a key signature, the sharps and flats refer to 
the line or space they are centered on. For example, in the following 
key signature, the notes B and E will be played as B-flat and E-flat 
everywhere they occur in the piece (and in any octave): 
Key Signature
flat
♭ =
B♭
F G A B C
08
If you’re playing a piece with accidentals in the key signature, write down the notes that are 
modified by the key signature. Next, highlight them wherever they appear in the piece.
Remember that an accidental that appears in the flow of apiece will apply only through the rest of 
the measure, or until another accidental appears first to cancel it out.
When exactly do we play notes in time? How are 
beats organized? Für Elise is a familiar piece, so it’s 
fairly easy to pick out the first few notes and know 
how they’re supposed to sound. 
The composer, however, does give us information we 
can use to figure out the meter. Just as there is a 
key signature, there is also a time signature. The 
time signature looks like two numbers arranged 
like a fraction at the beginning of the score:
These two numbers can be just about anything! Without explaining exactly what they mean yet, 
let’s focus on only the top number for now. In Für Elise, the time signature is 3/8 (pronounced 
“three-eight”). The top number tells us how many beats are in the measure. 
The most common number to see on top of a time signature is 4, meaning four beats per measure. 
Music “in three,” or with three on top of the time signature, is usually associated with dances 
(waltzes, minuets, and the like). Für Elise is in three, which might be why it’s so catchy! 
Time Signature
09
Home base on the piano is middle 
C – usually found under the 
emblem of the instrument, closest 
to where you sit. It’s not the exacty 
mid-point of the keyboard, but it’s 
the best place to start!
On the score, middle C is always the line immediately below the staff with treble clef, and 
immediately above the staff with bass clef.
Big Idea: The top number of a time signature says how many beats are in each measure. The 
bottom note says what type of note gets the beat. For example, in 3/8 time, there are three 
beats, and each beat is written as an eighth note. 
Mapping notes to the keyboard
modern 88-key piano middle C
middle C on treble staff
middle C on bass staff
C CC C C C C CD DD D D D DE EE E E E EF FF F F F FG GG G G G GAA AA A A A ABB B B B B B B
10
Sometimes, notes can be so high or low that they don’t fit on the five lines of a staff. In those cases, 
composers add extra lines called ledger lines to write them. We can think of them as simply 
extensions of the staff, where the same rules of lines and spaces apply. 
Now we know that the first note in Für Elise is an E, but which E do we play? 
Let’s begin with what we know. We can identify middle C on the piano, so can we find middle C on 
the score? There’s one in measure 2:
Remember that when the notes go higher, they move to the right on the piano. When the notes 
go lower, they move to the left on the piano. You can even write “up” or “down” on your score and 
show arrows. Or you can make one long line that traces the arc of the line.
middle C
11
With this knowledge, we can work backwards to find where the first E is located on the piano. Just 
before the middle C in measure 2, we see an A just a few lines above middle C. This means we go 
to the right on the instrument to the next A we find:
Going back another note, we find another C. This isn’t the same as middle C, however (notice that 
it’s higher on the staff). This is a C above the A that we just played:
middle C
which E 
is this?
middle C
C CD DE EF FG GA AB B
A above middle C
middle C
C CD DE EF FG GA AB B
12
A shortcut we could use to immediately find the position of the first note on the keyboard is to 
write in a middle C on the score and measure the distance to our first note. 
Take care to move in the correct direction on the keyboard! Don’t worry about which finger to play 
the notes with quite yet. 
Skipping back to the very first note of the piece, we see an E slightly above the last C we played. 
We’ve now located the starting point for Für Elise!
middle C
C CD DE EF FG GA AB B
starting note of Für Elise
Looking at our first few notes, we’ll 
notice that they’re all beamed together 
with these double lines:
Grasping rhythmic notation
Notes beamed with double lines are called sixteenth notes. By looking at the first measure, we 
learn that there are 6 sixteenth notes per measure. 
13
Time for Math: We already know that we’re in 3/8, which means that there are three beats per 
measure. If a measure also contains 6 sixteenth notes, how many sixteenth notes are there 
per beat?
3 beats
6 sixteenth notes
2 sixteenth notes per beat
14
It would be quite difficult to play Fûr Elise using only our pointer finger. How do we approach 
finding a fingering for every note?
Here, and only here, it is useful to go through the piece hands separately. Avoid the urge to run 
through a piece with only one hand – while it might be easier at first, it’s usually a lot harder to add 
the other hand in than it is to learn it with both hands from the beginning. This might be more 
frustrating at first, but it’s worth it! For the purposes of determining fingering, though, we will 
consider one hand at a time. 
A good place to start finding fingerings is by identifying your lowest and highest notes in a 
measure. Will both of these notes fit in your hand at once? Or will you have to shift to reach them? 
In the very beginning, the hand must reach from A to E in one position. 
Since it’s in the higher part of the keyboard, it’s most logical to play this with the right hand. You’ll 
find that the distance from A to E is actually quite comfortable for the hand. Put your thumb on A 
and your pinky on E. 
Choosing fingerings
C D E FA
thumb pinky
B
15
Pianists use numbers to refer to their fingers. Your thumbs are 1, then your index fingers are 2, 
middle fingers are 3, ring fingers are 4, and pinky fingers are 5. This means that the numbers are 
asymmetrical (or flipped for each hand), so on the keyboard, they look mirrored:
Returning to the opening measure, place your first finger (thumb) on A and your fifth finger (pinky) 
on E. A pianist’s goal is to be as lazy as possible in shifting their hands. Don’t twist, bend, or leap 
unless you absolutely have to. Aim for an economy of movements.
Try to play every note in the first measure without moving your hand.
 Our pinky is ready to go on E.
 D-sharp is most naturally played by rotating in with the fourth finger.
 Our index finger is already very close to B, so let’s use that one.
 Our ring finger is already on D-natural, so we’ll use that
 Our middle finger is already on C, so we’ll use that.
 The A is played with our thumb. 
This measure came out quite easily since all of our fingers were naturally on the right key. 
1
2
34
5
1
2
3 4
5
5 5 54 4 4 3 12
16
The second measure in the treble staff is also quite natural for the hand. If we take the C with our 
thumb and the higher B with our pinky, the other notes fit nicely:
Your task is to go through the piece and write in every fingering for each hand, using the 
principles we’ve discussed. Sometimes it’s actually easier to follow along with the fingers rather 
than remember the names of the notes. If you always change your fingering while playing, you’ll find 
it a lot harder to memorize the piece and will feel less confident in performance. Aim to play the 
same fingering every time! Of course, you may find eventually that you like a certain fingering 
better than others, in which case, a change is useful. 
Let’s look at the third full measure in the left hand (bass staff). These three notes are too widely 
spaced for most people’s hands. How can we reach the G-sharp? Well, you might be tempted to 
play the low E and then immediately move the hand to the next E. This often results in too much 
wrist activity, and means we have to leave the low E too early. A simpler alternative is to play the 
second E with the thumb, and then cross the other fingers over the thumb to reach the G-sharp 
with 2 or 3. 
5
1 2/3
1 1 2 4 5
17
Let’s review the rules to find good fingerings
 Work in short section
 Locate the lowest and highest notes in the given sectio
 Determine if your hand naturally covers the notes in between withoutshiftin
 Aim to reach as many notes as you can within one hand positio
 Cross over to new positions only when necessary, aiming for an economy of motion
Remember that practicing hands separately is usually not a great way to practice once you’ve 
established your fingerings. You’re essentially learning three pieces if you do it this way: Für Elise for 
the right hand, Für Elise for the left hand, and finally Für Elise for both hands! 
Our main goals while practicing are training the eye to read accurately and training the hands 
to go to the right keys in a relaxed and accurate way. It’s common for players of other 
instruments (wind, brass, or strings) to want to read an entire phrase at once. Similarly, it’s common 
for total beginners to read big groups of notes at once. At the piano, at this early stage, it’s best not 
to focus on the end product quite yet. Focus on very small sections, making sure that the effort we 
put into marking up our score translates into our fingers!
Beginning to practice
18
Let’s take measure 23 as an example of a passage to practice.
 We begin by looking for fingerings. The notes in the left hand fit nicely in one position (531), 
while the left hand may play 1, 4, 3.
 Intentionally think about the first two notes you have to play, and what fingers you’ll use. We 
have an F and A in the left hand, and a C in the right hand.
 Play the two-note passage a few times until you feel really confident. (In this case, the left hand 
is playing two notes while the right hand is only playing one.) Repeat until you can do it in your 
sleep!
Note that when staves are connected by a grand staff (the squiggly line on the left margins), it 
means both staves happen at the same time. Notes that line up vertically should sound 
simultaneously. 
Continuing our example of m. 23, the third and fourth notes don’t have anything happening in the 
right-hand simultaneously, except that the C from before is still sustaining. Practice the next two 
notes (C and A) while holding the C in the right hand. 
For the next group of two notes, the right hand does come back in. We see something strange in 
the right hand – there’s a dot next to the F. Just look vertically at what order the notes appear
 The F and C happen together
 Then the A is played in the left hand
 Finally, the E is played in the right hand.
19
Group these three notes together, not thinking specifically about rhythm yet, only the sequence of 
events. Repeat the above steps: find your fingering, think about the notes you’re about to play, and 
then play them. Break it down into even smaller pieces if you have to, and take your time! 
Test your abilities in looking, interpreting, and playing at once, and be scrupulous in checking the 
notes your playing against the score. 
Go through each passage in these two-note groups. It might be time-consuming, but it’s worth it.
Then, once all the two-note groups are feeling comfortable, practice in four-note groups. 
Don’t always start practicing from the beginning of a measure or a piece. It’s common for players 
to start practicing from these initial points, leading to less comfort in passages found in the middle 
or end of a given section. Starting from the middle of a measure trains your accuracy and builds 
confidence! It also saves time to be able to isolate a difficult section and start from there, rather 
than constantly resetting to the beginning. 
The bracketed measures with marked 1 and 2 ending in double-bar repeat signs are called first 
and second endings. The two vertical dots along side the double-bar indicate to repeat the 
material from the previous section. The first bracketed measure is called a “first ending,” while the 
second bracketed measure is called a “second ending.” The first time you’ve reached the repeat 
signs, play the first ending. Then, upon approaching the repeat signs again, play the second ending, 
skipping the first ending entirely.
20
You’ll always find that there are sections that are difficult and aren’t working quite as well as you’d 
like. Let’s explore a few learning tools that can help us with other repertoire. 
We’ll start at m. 22 in Für Elise, or the second second ending. This measure always trips students 
up! When performing a piece, it doesn’t make sense to slow down right when you come to 
something difficult. The tempo, or speed, should remain the same throughout. So, when playing 
through Für Elise, think about the most difficult or complicated passage, and use the speed you 
can play that comfortably to determine your tempo for the whole piece. 
Reading chords with a lot of notes in them can feel foreign, especially if you’re used to only reading 
single melody lines. Sight-reading four notes at once is a skill that takes time to develop. In the 
meantime, try grouping the notes into smaller chunks before stacking them into full chords. Read 
the notes from low to high (bottom to top on the score, or left to right on the keys) as you go. While 
practicing, it’s okay to play the chords out of time to get the hang of where the notes are. 
Then, try grouping the notes by hand; think first of the notes the left hand must play, and then the 
notes in the right hand. Again, we can practice out of time to get these groupings. Then, when 
combining the hands, continue thinking from left to right but playing them together. 
Reading dense chords
21
Playing repeated notes is another common challenge for students. Often, editions will write in 
different fingers for each of the repeated notes. While this isn’t wrong, it isn’t always necessary. We 
can play every repeated A in m. 59 with the third finger if we want, and then the challenge lies in 
avoiding tension. It’s really common for beginners to strain their arms with passages like this! 
Practice putting the thumb and second finger together, pecking the key like a bird. Play with a 
slightly flexible wrist to absorb each attack. Strive for balanced, coordinated motion to avoid injury. 
A chromatic scale appears in mm. 80-81, so-called because it contains every note between the 
starting and ending notes, white and black keys. A shortcut for fingering is to use the thumb on 
white keys, and 3 on black keys. Where there are two white keys in a row, use 2 . 
Arpeggios are broken chords; looking at m. 77, recognize that we play the same shape in different 
octaves. 
At m. 64 in the right hand you will find “parallel intervals.” Just as the two-note intervals retain their 
shape on the score, keep your hand in a constant shape while moving up or down the keyboard. 
Focus on the thumb instead of thinking of every note every time, and let it guide the arm.
Repeated notes and chromatic scales
59
II. Creating Texture WATCH LESSON
What does the word “texture” refer to? It relates to our five senses–wet grass, a warm sweater, or a 
soft blanket. Our body develops a way of seeing or hearing texture once it associates a sound or 
sight with that feeling. This is what makes music so unique and wonderful; how we produce sound 
can cause the listener to experience a sensation a texture. 
Dynamics and articulation most impact the texture we create at the piano. Dynamics refer to 
how loud or soft a passage is played. Articulation refers to the attack, sustain, and release of a note. 
The pedals also impact the sense of texture, but this will be covered in later lesson. 
As you may have notied, piano scores are filled with Italian words! We’ll start off by learning four of 
the most essential: piano, forte, legato, and staccato. 
Let’s look at how these words are used in the context of a piece of music and what they’re asking 
us to do physically. Let’s examine two pieces of music intentionally chosen from very different 
eras: Mozart’s Sonata in C major, K. 545 and Debussy’s Claire de lune. 
The instrument Mozart played on, which today we call a fortepiano, had a lightaction, with very 
little resistance and a more direct sound. Debussy’s piano on the other hand was closer to ours. 
22
piano
soft
forte
loud
legato
long/connected
staccato
short/separated
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Playing softly doesn’t mean we have to pull away from the instrument or play timidly. We actually 
have to have firm fingertips to project our sound while playing softly.
Create a soft sound by using your arm weight and maintaining clarity in the fingertips. This creates 
more of a singing quality. Go deep into the key, like someone tiptoeing while walking (still with 
balance, just soft, light, and controlled). No noodles for fingers!
Playing loud is the opposite; put a lot more weight into the hand, as if you’re jumping up into the air. 
You don’t want to lock your legs while landing, otherwise, too much pressure goes into your knees. 
While playing a loud chord, play with a heaviness, but still relaxed in the fingertips. 
Playing soft, playing loud
24
When playing staccato, be careful not to raise your fingers too high above the key. This adds time 
and effort to playing, making fast passages impossible. You can play just as short without ever 
leaving the key! When playing legato, be careful not to press and overhold keys – you may build 
tension and lose control. Transfer your weight from one key to the next, overlapping slighlty. Still 
play each note as its own event, but create the illusion of connectedness.
Looking at the first measure of Claire de Lune, we immediately see a key signature with five flats: B, 
E, A, D, and G. Highlight every time one of these notes appears to remember to play them down to 
the lower black key. 
Debussy wrote pp at the beginning; if one p stands for piano, two stands for pianissimo, which 
means “very soft.” The tendency might be to play very timidly with fingers that retract toward the 
body. However, this won’t produce enough resonance and will sound weak. Create a tiptoe effect 
with a bit of arm weight for a more singing sound. 
Staccato and legato
Creating texture in Debussy’s Clair de lune
B, E, A, D, G
25
In measure 15, we find another pianissimo, but this time with more notes happening. Play with more 
control at the fingertips, thinking of dropping the weight of your arm. We can even bring out 
specific notes more than others, which we’ll talk about later, taking advantage of our refined sense 
of control. 
Let’s say that we want to play fuller in measure 25. Relax your fingertips and drop more weight into 
the arm. 
Then we come to measure 27; how do we play soft and legato? Maintain the fingertip control and 
light weight drop we use to play soft. Playing legato, however, is slightly more complex and is often 
fraught with misconceptions. 
You don’t have to hold onto every single note - this is awkward for the fingers and creates too 
much sound. Drop your weight into your fingers for each individual note, focusing first on creating a 
good soft piano sound. Legato is about knowing exactly when to release your fingers. Picture a 
leaping frog: as a finger hops off a key, it has momentum. It’s a difficult balance that can take a lot 
of time to get! It’s like a toddler learning how to walk: knowing when each leg will land and when to 
switch our weight to the other leg. 
25
26
If you’re already fluent with the the sustain pedal, you might be asking why we aren’t using it here! 
Sometimes, this is an adequate solution, but not always. The pedal is more about color, not about 
creating legato. We have to learn to create legato with our fingers first. 
Let’s jump back to m. 5. Here we see Mozart using scales to create texture. Start with the 
traditional scale fingerings. Then on the 4th beat of m. 5, cross over to the fourth finger on C. This 
allows the hand to continue the scale down to the next low point. Do the same in mm. 6-7. 
Mozart used a fortepiano, with an easier, lighter action which facilitated faster runs. It’s actually a 
bit harder to play Mozart on a modern piano. Aim for a clear articulation, somewhere in between 
legato and staccato, with more crispness and space between each note. 
Creating texture in Mozart K. 545
Can we apply these same concepts to create texture in a piece by Mozart? In fact, they have 
plenty in common! The arpeggiated texture in Mozart’s K. 545, m. 18 is not far from Debussy. 
At a finger level, the two are quite similar. Think about exactly when you leave each note to play the 
next. We don’t want to hold every single note down the whole time – just a smooth connection 
from one to the next. Most editions don’t write a slur here, but we can use our knowledge of history 
and performance practice to inform our interpretation; in this instance, legato is most appropriate! 
18
4 4 4
27
Control the tips of the fingers just the same, but have a faster attack and release. Rather than a 
frog jump, find the bottom of the key and then come straight back up. Avoid bringing your fingers 
far above the keys. Picture little “zaps” on each key, and practice by attaching your third finger to 
your thumb and focusing on wrist motion, as pictured below. It’s a very microscopic movement! 
In contrast to playing soft, playing loud comes from dropping a lot of weight on the key. Always 
remain relaxed, and avoid tightening or tensing the fingers, or this will lead to injury. Don’t pound 
the keys, either!
The chords in m. 12 of Mozart K. 545 should sound loud and declamatory. The worst thing to do 
here would be to tense the hand. Imagine you’re landing a jump: you’ll naturall absorb the shock of 
the landing by bending your knees. Similarly, the fingers should firmly catch your weight but also be 
flexible enough to absorb the key strike.
Playing forte in Mozart and Debussy
12
28
In m. 41 of Claire de lune we see a forte marking in a different texture; drop your weight from the 
arm, and find a suitable fingering for the parallel intervals.
Remember that every note doesn’t need to be at the same dynamic level! Our dynamics can’t 
fluctuate, while still contributing to a general forte sonority. You have creative license to shape the 
texture with these variations in dynamics. Go through other pieces you’re working on and apply 
these concepts. How legato can you make a passage sound without pedal? How separated? 
III. Polyphony WATCH LESSON
Polyphony is a term that derives from Greek, meaning “many sounds.” It is the superpower of the 
piano, and keyboard instruments in general! How can we make the many layers and individual 
voices found in piano music clear to the listener? 
Polyphony originated with combinations of actual human voices. When J.S. Bach wrote keyboard 
music, he preserved this idea of independent “voices” singing in combination, only now intended 
to be sung at the instrument. For this lesson, we’ll look at Bach’s Invention No. 8 and 
Rachmaninoff’s Prelude op. 3, No. 2 – featuring polyphonic music from two different eras. 
If everyone on a bus or crowded subway were talking at the same volume, it is likely that no single 
voice will sound distinct. If you get really close to one person, or they talk with a microphone, your 
attention is more focused, and you can hear them more clearly. 
Similarly, in Mozart’s C major Sonata K. 545 we can’t play everything equally loud, otherwise the 
listener won’t know what to focus on. If we give the right-hand melody a bit more volume and back 
off with the left hand, it’s much clearer for the listener. 
More generally, how do we decide which notes to bring out and when? Ask yourself what the most 
important theme is in this moment. What should a listener be able to sing back to you? Who are 
the characters speaking, and how are they interacting? These are some of thequestions we’ll look 
at in this lesson. 
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Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
J.S. Bach was a one of the most 
influential musicians in history, a 
multi-instrumentalist and virtuoso 
in his time who left behind a prolific 
body of instrumental and vocal 
music.
Rachmaninoff was a Russian 
composer and conductor, one of 
the finest pianists of his day ,and 
one of the last great representatives 
of Romanticism in Russian classical 
music.
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)
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The first few measures of Rachmaninoff’s Prelude Op. 3 No. 2 feature two distinct layers: very low 
notes and an upper part in eighth notes. What’s the tune that should be heard most clearly? It’s not 
immediately clear in this instance, so let’s ask further questions.
After the dramatic opening, the staccato notes can be likened to bells. The top part is marcato, 
which means weighted and separated. In measure 14, the marcato line appears again, but this time 
they’re under a slur, meaning legato. How can the notes be both separated and connected? 
What Rachmaninoff intended to communicate with the marcato marks was that these notes 
should stand out. This doesn’t mean the other tune is insignificant, just that this upper voice 
should be emphasized in the beginning, while the lower voices are a bit more understated. 
Lines and layers in Rachmaninoff
voice the top
voice top of LH
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J.S. Bach played keyboard instruments like the harpsichord and clavichord that had less dynamic 
range than the piano. Thus we shouldn’t only rely on dynamics to create a sense of polyphony 
while playing his music. Let’s analyze the first few bars of Bach’s Invention No. 8:
Interacting voices in Bach
If this upper voice is most important, the pinky has to play louder than the other notes of the right 
hand. To practice this, roll each chord in the right hand from bottom to top, giving the most weight 
on the fifth finger. Then, practice repeating the pinky note to reinforce the feeling of added weight. 
The art of prioritizing some notes over others in a chord is called “voicing,” and it will consume 
much of our practice time as we move forward. 
The right hand begins with a two-measure melody (called a “subject”) that the left hand 
imitates with a one-bar delay. This subject is the main theme that a listener should be able to 
sing back. It repeatedly returns throughout the piece in different positions. Mark on your score 
every time you see a line that resembles the arc of the first two measures. 
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The subject can be further broken into two parts; the first measure ascends like a trumpet fanfare, 
while the second measure is a descending scale, reminiscent of Mozart. Keep the first measure 
more staccato and the second measure smoother but still non legato.
Assign the themes personalities, and try to realize their characters in your playing. Perhaps the 
first measure is a proud and stubborn character, while the second measure is more gentle and 
passive. As you go through the piece, ask yourself how the two characters are interacting. Try to 
preserve the independent personalities. The voices will sometimes talk in sequence, sometimes 
argue, and sometimes join together, as if one finally convinced the other of their idea. 
Many of the great piano composers like Mozart, Beethoven, and Rachmaninoff were also masters of 
orchestration. We can gain insight into how their music should be played by thinking about how a 
string player would bow a passage, how a flutist might play with a sharp and fast attack, or how a 
trumpeter might have a slower attack but a grand sound. Try imitating these instruments at the 
keyboard, keeping in mind that that some instruments require the player to breathe.
For more on Bach Invention No. 8, click to check out this lesson by Benjamin Grow.
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IV. Phrasing WATCH LESSON
Nearly all of the greatest composers of piano music also composed for vocal music. 
Considering the voice is our most natural instrument, studying the contours of vocal phrasing can 
provide us vital information for how to shape lines at the piano. 
Phrasing is how we play smaller passages of material within larger forms – it’s akin to grammatical 
structures in language. The way we phrase music depends on the era the composer lived and the 
style of the piece. We should ask ourselves what a composer’s intention was in composing the 
piece, and what instrument they were writing for. Do the sections repeat or not? What do the 
repeats mean? Is the piece a journey from point A to B, or is it more circular in form? Are certain 
melodies evocative of the human voice? Are other instruments being imitated? As we answer 
these questions and more, we’ll develop more conviction in how to phrase at the piano!
Brahms consciously evokes the human voice in his piano music, notably in the slow movements 
from his 2nd and 3rd Sonatas. His Intermezzo in A major, Op. 118 No. 2 is in “ternary form,” or three 
sections: the “A section” from m. 1, a “B section” from m. 49, and a return to “A” in m. 76.
Let’s first consider the texture and polyphony of this passage before looking at phrasing. The 
Intermezzo is mostly legato and features dynamic change. Two voices are singing in harmony in the 
right hand, as indicated by the stems pointing in separate directions. These voices should be 
differentiated, with slightly more prominence given to the top voice.
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Approaching phrasing in Brahms
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The left hand serves more of a rhythmic role, also extending the instrument’s resonance. The pulse 
will influence our understanding of phrasing. The short melodic phrases on 3rd beats, and creates 
a rhythmic pattern of “short, short, long,” or 8th-note, 8th-note, half-note. How do the other voices 
relate to this rhythm? The bass emphasizes the meter, reinforcing the downbeat with a low A. The 
arpeggiated middle voices create a sense of motion to move us forward,.
After the first two repetitions of “short, short, long,” we get an even longer phrase, marked by a slur 
spanning almost two bars. Where as the first two phrases spanned 3 beats, here we cover six 
beats.
Observe the nested phrases Brahms has created: the “short, short, long” rhythmic pattern found in 
the first measure is now, itself, the first “short” phrase of a “short, short, long” phrase lasting four 
bars! This pattern continues in the ensuing bars.
By contrast, in measure 49, the right hand sings a long phrase, which Brahms indicates with a long 
slur. Here, try to articulate the slurs in the left hand, which, by contrast, will contribute to the sense 
of a long arc in the right hand. Follow Brahms’s dynamic markings in the left hand as well to create 
a sense of “sighing” in the tenor while the soprano soars.
Influence of beat and rhythm
short, short, long
short
X4
short long
short, short, long short, short, short, short, long, long, long, long
V. Pedals and Pedaling WATCH LESSON
What do the three pedals do, and how do we use them in music? (If you’re using an electronic 
keyboard, you might have to purchase a physical sustain pedal and plug it into the back port 
labeled “sustain.”) 
First, be sure not to stomp on the pedal or lift your heel. Instead, plant your heel firmly on the 
ground and only use the pad of your foot to depress the pedal. Rotate the foot from the ankle.
The sustain pedal lifts the dampeners for the instrument, allowing the strings to ring openly for as 
longas they are naturally able. When you release the pedal, the dampeners come back down and 
the sound is stopped. When the harmony changes, we have to release the pedal so the notes don’t 
blend with the new harmony. The following sequence of events will eventually become automatic
 Press down the sustain peda
 Play the first harmon
 Release the hands, and position them in the new chord, without playing ye
 Release the pedal and immediately play the new chord, so there is no gap in soun
 Quickly put the foot back down on the pedal if the new chord should be sustained
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The sustain pedal
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In a score, the use of the sustain pedal will be indicated by the letters “ped” in cursive and a long 
line extending under the sustained notes:
The left-most pedal, also called “una corda” (meaning “one-string”), gives the piano a softer sound 
with a different, more muffled quality. Pressing the soft pedal shifts the keys and hammers slightly, 
reducing the number of strings that the hammer hits. It is commonly used as a practice pedal 
when one doesn’t wish to wake up their neighbors, though it’s not intended for this purpose. 
The middle pedal, and rarest of the three, is usually used in tandem with the sustain pedal. The 
sostenuto pedal allows you to sustain a specific group of notes. Only the dampeners for the notes 
you are currently playing get lifted when pressed. This means that you can sustain one set of notes 
while playing the rest of the keys short. Effectively, we can create an entire orchestra! 
The sostenuto is only used in very specific moments, marked with “sost.” in the score. 
Una corda pedal
Sostenuto pedal
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Pachelbel’s Canon features one of the most iconic chord progressions in classical music. When we 
use the sustain pedal, we mustn’t blur the notes of different chords together:
Refer to the sequence of events from page 35. Begin with the foot down on the pedal, and play the 
notes of the first chord. Find the next chord with the fingers, release the foot while immediately 
playing the keys, and then quickly go back down with the foot. Repeat this for every chord. 
It can help to think of pedal changes as rhythmic gestures: “play-up-down,” three events 
happening in quick succession. It will eventually become automatic.
You’ll notice that the higher notes won’t require as frequent of a pedal change and that lower notes 
require the pedal to be changed much more frequently. The notes in the middle register can sound 
cluttered very quickly if the pedal isn’t changed often. 
It’s important to point out that the sustain pedal is not intended to be used as a crutch for playing 
legato, though it does connect notes. Sustain is a specific texture of its own that should be used 
deliberately. Legato, on the other hand, comes from the fingers. 
Sustain pedal in Pachelbel’s Canon
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In Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2, the chords in the left-hand change every beat, similar to the 
Canon in D. It’s impossible to play a true legato between the low bass notes and the upper left-
hand part; the leap is too wide. Played without pedal, the passage sounds too optimistic and joyful. 
The staccato marks will come across naturally because of the size of the leap. Maintain a legato 
fingering and feel the weight shifting from key to key, but change the pedal on each chord. 
Mozart certainly wouldn’t have played his Sonata K. 545 with too much pedal – the lines and 
melodies should have clarity at all times. We can use a bit of finger pedal; this means that we hold 
certain notes down with our fingers longer than they are written to create the illusion of sustain. 
Osterkamp recommends using finger pedal on the lowest note of each arpeggio, the C, in the 
opening.
Pedaling Chopin
Pedaling Mozart
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Für Elise has a lot of notes in the middle register, which can get muddy if we use the pedal. Some of 
the most effective moments for the sustain pedal are arpeggios and left-hand parts that can be 
made to ring a bit more. 
Some editions of Schumann’s Arabeske don’t contain information on when to change the pedal. 
Begin the piece with the pedal down – the notes A, G, and F actually work nicely under one pedal 
in this context. Change the pedal when the left hand goes to C. You may want to use finger pedal 
for the initial G and leave out the grace note A of the original pedal. You’ll find that pedaling 
decisions will also be influenced by the room you’re playing; if there’s a lot of reverb in the room, 
you’ll tend toward using less pedal than a very dry room. 
Be sure not to use the soft pedal as a crutch to play soft! Instead, it’s a texture change. The 
Arabeske is already very soft, but it should have a different sonic character in the coda. It isn’t 
essential to use the soft pedal here, but it can help create a sense of a dream state. 
Pedaling Beethoven Für Elise
Pedaling Schumann
Using una corda pedal in Arabeske
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The sostenuto pedal isn’t often indicated in scores, but this doesn’t mean we can’t use it where 
appropriate! After the low, suspended grace notes in measure 15, which sound nice sustained, the 
twinkly high notes accumulate a large amount of sound if we keep the sustain pedal down. If we 
clear the pedal, we lose the bass note, which helps provide a nice pad for the upper voices. A 
solution is using the sostenuto pedal on the bass notes; this lets us change the sustain pedal more 
frequently for the upper voices, using both pedals in tandem to create the ideal sound. 
In this instance (Rachmaninoff’s Prelude Op. 3, No. 2) , the sostenuto pedal can help a listener 
distinguish between the upper and lower voices. Play the low C-sharp with sostenuto so you can 
change the sustain on the upper chords. 
Sostenuto pedal in Claire de Lune
Sostenuto pedal in Rachmaninoff
sostenuto
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Remember that the amount of sustain you’ll require will vary from room to room, and even from 
piano to piano. To experiment with how much sustain you need for a given piece, try overshooting 
and recording yourself using constant 100% sustain for the whole piece. Clearly, this will not sound 
correct most of the time, but listen back to the recording and identify the moments where it 
sounded kind of good. 
Then, undershoot and record yourself using no pedal (0% sustain) for the entire piece. Where did it 
sound good doing it this way? Continue this process, going back and forth between gradations of 
high and low (90%, 10%, 80%, 20%, etc.,) until you’ve identified the correct sustain values for the 
entire piece. 
Practice with isolated segments to ensure you’re lifting or depressing the pedal at the right time.
Practice singing the vocal melodies, even if you’re not a good singer! Practice with your foot on the 
sustain pedal even though you’re not pressing keys - this removes the distractions of the notes.
Choosing how much pedal to use
VI. Trills and Ornaments WATCH LESSON
How do we play ornaments? How can we decipher the squiggles we see on the score and why 
do they exist anyway?
Ornaments mostly come from the Baroque era, when they were most frequently utilized. The 
dynamic limitations of the harpsichord meant that it was difficult to create a melody that soared 
above the accompaniment. Keyboardists would add notes to a long sustained melody, making it 
fancier, so there was more differentiation. Many of these ornaments remained in performance 
practice, despite the invention of the modern piano. 
The trill is the most common ornament that pianists encounter, but it’s often technically 
challenging. The basis of a good trill is not just to alternate the fingers as fast as possible. This 
fatigues our hand and results in uneven notes. A good trill is generated by a slight rotation of the 
wrist,performed very naturally and without strain (see pictures below:)
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Playing trills
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In Mozart’s K. 545, there is a one-bar trill in measure 25. How can we play this trill quickly and 
without strain or tension? Use fingers 1 and 3, and begin by practicing starting on B. Balance the 
weight of the entire arm on the middle finger. Try to play A by only rotating the wrist. Without 
releasing the B, try to control your wrist rotation to modulate the speed of the A from very fast to 
very slow. When that’s comfortable, try to lift the B just slightly. Then lift closer to 50%, and some 
Bs will start sounding. Gradually lift the B until the two notes are even. The weight is still centered 
on B, and the finger never actually leaves the key. 
Sometimes it may be easier to begin by balancing on the A and rotating the wrist to hit B. Typically, 
we want to try and rotate our wrist toward the thumb when trilling, so this may feel awkward to 
practice. Return back to the normal order of fingers after working this way. The same principles 
apply if you’re working on a trill that uses a different fingering. 
We can ornament trills further by adding notes before and after the main trill. Let’s define some 
German words:
Starting and ending trills
Vorschlag
ornament coming
before an important note
Nachschlag
ornament coming
after an important note
25
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In m. 25, we might add a vorschlag (before the main trill) that starts on B:
Neither way is right or wrong, it’s just a different aesthetic. However, adding a nachslag to this trill is 
generally considered correct, since the following note sounds too sudden without it.
Bach used ornaments extensively, so we can expect to add many of them while playing his music. 
19th-century composers typically utilized them less, though still in certain cases (such as the 
Chopin we’ll study next). Consider the era of the composer that you’re working with to determine 
how many ornaments are tasteful. 
Measure 2 in Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 contains a turn, an ornament that means to start on the note, 
go up, back, down, and back. The flat above the turn means to play D-flat, not D, when going up. 
The natural underneath means to play B-natural when going down. If a turn has no accidentals, use 
the notes in the key signature. This turn has the musical purpose of generating momentum before 
the high note. 
Ornaments in Chopin
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The squiggle we see in measure 5 is called a mordent. Begin on the note, go up, and back down. 
Mordents are essentially “baby trills.” 
A mordent with a line through the middle would mean to go to the note below instead. 
For the trill in measure 7, we have the option of re-articulating the G as a vorschlag. A nachschlag 
adds elegance and helps bring out the initial melody. These ornaments illustrate the text and are 
vital to the main theme; these aren’t purely decorative. 
The last ornament we’ll look at today is called a grace note – they appear on the score like small 
notes with slashes. Play them very quickly and lightly. You can practice grace notes by playing 
them simultaneously with the main note they’re attached to. Then, break the notes up slightly at 
the last second. 
8
46
Many composers write the grace note without the line, and the interpretation of this depends on 
the composer. In m. 13 of Chopin, we can treat these grace notes as a fast arpeggiation:
By contrast, in Mozart, a grace note without the line should be played in time, borrowing half of the 
rhythmic value of the note next to it. Compositionally, this shows that the grace note is not the 
main note of the measure. (See the example below from Mozart K. 545:)
In summary, ornaments should serve the music. Don’t cram too many notes into a melody, but 
always think about the purpose of the ornament and how it can serve our interpretation! 
VII. Polyrhythms WATCH LESSON
“Poly” means many, so one might infer that this lesson is about playing many rhythms at once. 
Composers in the Romantic era ran with this idea and did just that. The scores of Liszt, Chopin, 
Schumann, Brahms, and many more are decorated with various simultaneous subdivisions of the 
beat. How can we play triplets in one hand and sixteenths in the other? How can we possibly fit 17 
notes evenly into one beat? Don’t be afraid of these strange rhythms – let’s make sense of them. 
Each time Chopin repeats the main theme in his Op. 9 No. 2, he adds more notes (look at 
measures 4, 16, and 24.) In measure 16, he writes a group of notes with a 13 over them. Don’t panic!! 
This does not mean to fit 13 notes into a measure perfectly evenly. It shouldn’t feel mathematically 
exact – this is just Chopin writing out a form of ornamentation.
Our task is to identify the target notes – the skeleton of the melody that exists beneath the 
ornamentation. One of the ways we can do this is by choosing notes to line up with the left hand 
(even though, mathematically, none of them should). The second left-hand note makes a nice 
harmony aligned with the A-flat in the right hand, and the last note can land with the C-flat. 
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Polyrhythms in Chopin
16
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We see a similar thing in measure 24, but a bit more spread out. Here, the C natural lines up with 
the strong beat nicely, and the B-flats can go together in each voice:
Dividing ten notes into two beats results in five notes per beat; it’s much easier to be close to 
exact in this case.
Big Idea: Chopin often uses wild subdivisions like 13 and 17. We don’t have to subdivide these 
precisely! Pinpoint the most important notes of the run, and keep a smooth subdivision, but 
not necessarily a precise one. 
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In the middle section of Brahms’ Op. 118 No. 2 (m. 49) Brahms writes two notes in the right hand 
and three notes in the left hand. These notes have to be played in the same span of time. This 
polyrhythm, written “2 against 3,” “2:3,” or “2 over 3,” is probably the most common one you’ll 
encounter in music. Let’s think about this mathematically and visually:
Notice that the 2nd note of the three comes before the 2nd note of the two. This means the left 
hand will play its second note before the right hand. We can go further and order the operations of 
the hands: together, left, right, left. Practicing this way isn’t always the most musical, but it is helpful 
at first to understand the math of what’s happening. 
Polyrhythms in Brahms
3
2
together left right left
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There’s a larger pulse that remains throughout the music surrounding the polyrhythm. Whatever 
rhythms happen, we have to keep the underlying beat “123, 123” going in our heads. 
Using a physical metronome (or a metronome app on your phone), set a slow tempo that 
marks the downbeat of every bar. Start by looping the left hand, dividing each click into three 
beats until you can play it on autopilot. Try to get so comfortable with just the left hand that you 
can do other things simultaneously, like talking to a friend or reading a book. 
Then try adding in the right hand, starting with just the first note, and then both. The second right-
hand note should come exactly between the second and third left-hand notes (see the diagram 
above.) The next day, flip this process: begin by practicing the right hand independently until it’s on 
auto-pilot. Then add the left hand in slowly. 
Practice this polyrhythm in other contexts away from the piano – it can be valuable to work on it 
while commuting, on the bus, or waiting in line by tapping your fingers quietly. 
Practicing 2 Against 3
left
right
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Debussy didn’t write a polyrhythmin the strict sense here, but he did very precisely juxtapose 
duplets with triplets. It’s a common misconception that one can be ambigious about rhythms in 
romantic music; Debussy was actually very precise in his rhythmic notation. 
A handy way to conceive of this alternation in the opening bars of Clair de lune is to replace the 
rhythms with familiar words. Take, for example, “ap-ple” to represent the duplet and “ba-na-na” to 
represent the triplet. Then, go through the passage and apply “apply” to every duplet and “banana” 
to every triplet:
It’s much easier to hear the respective subdivisions when using familiar words, so try whatever 
words might work well for you! 
Polyrhythms in Clair de lune
ba - na - na ba - na - naap - ple
ap - ple
ap - ple ap - ple
ba - na - na ba - na - na
VIII. Memory WATCH LESSON
Memorizing music is essential to performing without sheet music, but it can be a real daunting 
challenge for many pianists. The best way to memorize a piece is to memorize it as you initially 
learn it. But what if you’ve gotten so accustomed to playing it with the score that you can’t get 
unstuck from it? 
The two main subsets of memory are physical and mental. Physical memory refers to spatial 
information in the world around us (walking through our house in the dark and remembering where 
things are, or remembering the layout of the keys and the shapes we make as we play). Mental 
memory is abstracted, like learning math facts. We have to switch between both of them to have a 
successful performance. 
The best way to begin memorizing a complex piece like Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 is with the 
form. We should have already done work on the form while analyzing phrasing in a previous lesson. 
Notice where the main theme reoccurs, and come up with an umbrella term for this material (it 
could be the letter A, for simplicity). 
On a microscopic scale, memorization has to begin with the individual notes. If we know some 
music theory, we can look at the first beat and recognize an E-flat major chord: 
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Physical vs. Mental Memory
Analyzing phrases and form
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But what if we don’t know any music theory? We can still use our mental memory to remember 
the notes “E-flat,” “G,” and “B-flat.” Perhaps you can also remember the physical shape these notes 
make when you play them. Look for places where this combination of notes is together again. You’ll 
find that this chord is an anchor of sorts, both for the piece and for our memory. 
Spend time developing spatial recognition of where the hands are throughout the piece. Even if 
you don’t know how to analyze each chord, it’s much more helpful to think about the movement of 
individual voices in helping develop memory. Draw arrows on the score to show the direction of the 
voices:
From the first to the second chord, you’ll see the bottom notes moving inward. In the second part 
of beat 2, the outer voices move up a step, and the middle voice goes down to a D. Rather than 
use mental memory on every single note, use physical memory to remember the motion of 
voices. 
It’s also very helpful to think in terms of layers: this Rachmaninoff piece has a melody layer, an 
inner voice layer, and a bass layer. Think about the motion of each layer and how they interact with 
one another.
“home chord”
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The tendency while memorizing is to hesitate when we aren’t sure about what music comes 
next. This pause causes our hands to tense up and undoes some of the work we’ve done with 
texture and phrasing. The solution to this problem is to only practice small segments that we’re 
confident that we know while memorizing. Don’t play so far that you have to insert a dramatic 
pause to remember what comes next, or this will ingrain bad habits. If it means only playing the 
first beat by memory, that’s a great place to start! 
Sometimes, repeated sections can throw us off if something is different. The chords in measures 1 
through 4 repeat exactly in measure 5, but the bass is up an octave. It’s crucial to study these 
sorts of slight changes to aid in memory. The melody in m. 5 is also very similar to measure 1, 
though it’s more ornamented. Remember which notes are ornaments and which notes form the 
core of the original melody. 
Analyze the changes that the composer made to every new section, and try to understand 
why the new section is there. 
When chords become more dense, having music theory knowledge might seem like a good idea, 
but it actually isn’t always useful. Some of the shapes Rachmaninoff uses in his Prelude Op. 3, No. 2 
aren’t triads, so we have to begin by memorizing them note-by-note anyway. 
Memorizing in chunks
Seeing simple chords within dense textures
5
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Remember that we can use the motion of the individual voices to help memorize chords that aren’t 
triads. We can also use the similarities between chords; the first two right-hand chords in measure 
5 contain the note G♯, while the middle of the first right-hand chord becomes the middle of the 
second left-hand chord. 
 A mistake that even many pros make is to memorize from the very beginning of the piece and 
then become bound to starting from measure 1. Then, when they make a mistake, they have to 
start back at the beginning. The more places you can begin working in, the more confident 
you’ll be. By only starting from the beginning, the first few measures will sound awesome, but 
then confidence will start to dwindle, and notes later in the piece will likely slip your memory.
 Practice singing one hand while playing the other, or visualizing playing the other. Writing all over 
your score can also really help with memory; when you recall the score in your head, you’re also 
conjuring the highlights, arrows, circles, and annotations you’ve made.
 Physical memory requires a lot of repetition to develop. If you have a healthy technique, you 
can practice things on loop. Be sure to use the same fingering and continue to think about 
texture and pedaling.
 Try relating your memory to other physical objects by putting things on your piano stand with 
you; you could try reading a sentence from a book as you play to associate that music with 
another sensation.
 Practice the piece while standing, or on dfferent pianos, to change the physical sensations of 
playing. This builds mental memory and increased confidence when you return to a 
comfortable situation. 
General strategies for effective memorizing
	vid 1.pdf
	vid 2.pdf
	vid 3,4.pdf
	vid 5.pdf
	vid 6.pdf
	vid 7.pdf
	vid 8.pdf