Grade 8 - Musical Knowledge Flashcards
The Derry Hornpipe - candidates reasons for choosing the pieces
- accuracy and attack of the flat pick
- flatpick is fast
Acoustic Fuel - candidates reasons for choosing the pieces
- different to ‘The Derry Hornpipe’ as this was a fingerstyle piece
- the speed of the piece was unique - as a fingerstyle piece it makes it lively with allegro
- constant drone note used (the D on the 6th string): the fact that I have continually played it is interesting
- never experienced a fingerstyle piece that has a constant drone note
The Derry Hornpipe - Basic Background Info
- traditional Irish hoornpipe with a jaunty rhythm
- notated in ‘straight eights’ BUT can adapted
- strong feel of two-per bar to capture the natural pulse of style
Acoustic Fuel - Basic background info
- rock influenced piece - I enjoy rock music
- from British guitarist Chaz Hart’s 2001 ‘Hartbeat’ album
- uses a dropped D tuning - means the 6th string is tuned a whole tone down to D
Styles of pieces performed - The Derry Hornpipe
Traditional Irish Hornpipe
Styles of pieces performed - Acoustic Fuel
- rock influenced piece
- from the British guitarist Chaz Hart’s 2001 Hartbeat album
The Derry Hornpipe - Candidates approach to interpreting the pieces
Use cross picking as this would allow me to switch from one note to the other quite easily
- vibrato used in some areas of the piece in order to generate a stronger musical effect and make the music more exciting
Acoustic Fuel - Candidates approach to interpreting the pieces
- Had to have a strong bass note that played throughout and did not stop
- I practiced by separating the bass from the notes initially and then joining the two elements together
- interpreted the coda by strumming the chords to increase the dramatic effect
The Derry Hornpipe - Content of piece
- harmonic, rhythmic or melodic features - ‘straight eights’ BUT I have used a jaunty rhythm in this piece. Strong two-per-bar feel used to capture natural pulse of the style
-as a result, a lot of staccato was used in order to achieve strong musical effect - key and time signature - 4/4 : F# maj
- repeat signs - indicate
dynamic markings - other signs appearing in music - triplets, hammer-ons and pull-offs, jaunty hornpipe rhythm
Acoustic Fuel - content of piece
- harmonic, rhythmic or melodic features - ‘straight eights’ BUT I have used a jaunty rhythm in this piece. Strong two-per-bar feel used to capture natural pulse of the style
- key and time signature - 4/4 : key of C maj (as the D is played throughout it could be interpreted as a D Dorian mode)
- repeat signs - indicate
- dynamic markings: crescendo
- other signs appearing in music - pp, ff, mf, f, p, harmonics, rest signs, sim
Sim:
Simile - (abbreviated to sim.) “In a similar way.” A direction to play something in a similar manner to that previously marked. Often applies to pedalling or articulation. For example, a passage of staccato notes will often have the first few notes marked staccato, followed by ‘sim.’, meaning that all subsequent notes are also staccato.
D.C al coda and coda: first time through we play up to D.C al coda, then we play from the beginning up to ‘To coda’ and then we play from there to ‘Coda’
The Derry Hornpipe - technical and musical challenges involved in preparing / performing pieces
- pace of piece was very fast initially: had to start slow and build it up and had to practice small segments of the piece on loop
- pull offs were proving difficult (especially 5,3,2) as there were so many pull offs in one go. To improve my technique, I curved my fingers round more so it was easier to perform a pull off on the string.
- changing from one string to another was also difficult, so I used cross picking to make this easier
Acoustic Fuel - difficulties in preparing
Primarily - used to flat picking.
- playing the bass note in correct time with the notes/ chords. Separated the two parts and then brought them together
- responding to changes in dynamics
- playing 4 notes at once (indicate) - played really slowly and ensured that I could execute the chord changes effectively before moving on
The Derry Hornpipe - critical self evaluation (I know you haven’t done the performance yet but what might it be?)
Pull offs may not have executed as well as I would’ve liked
Also errors in tune slightly
Acoustic Fuel - critical self evaluation (I know you haven’t done the performance yet but what might it be?)
timing may have been slightly off at places
The Derry Hornpipe Use of capo, transposition or altered tunings
None
Acoustic Fuel - Use of capo, transposition or altered tunings
Yes - drop D used - means that the E on the 6th string had been tuned a wholetone down to D
