We couldn’t be happier to introduce our brand new classical piano music course with Dejan Lazić, internationally renowned pianist and celebrated soloist. Designed in collaboration with MusicGurus, Dejan Lazić’s new Guru course will teach you how to play Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven – the classic of all classical piano songs.
Looking at the three movements of Moonlight Sonata, Dejan will break down each movement, teaching you how to master the intricate chords and notes to help you perfect your piano-playing foundation. A must take course for piano learners and players, Beethoven fans and classical music enthusiasts alike.
Everything you Need to Know about Moonlight Sonata
Beethoven first wrote Moonlight Sonata between 1801 and 1802. However, it wasn’t until 1832, five years after the composer’s death, when German poet and critic Ludwig Rellstab compared the opening movement to the moonlight shining on Lake Lucerne, that the new song title was born. Beforehand, Beethoven simply referred to it as Piano Sonata No.14 – an accurate but not quite as catchy title.
Moonlight Sonata was revolutionary for its time and helped land Beethoven in the Sonata Hall of Fame from then on. Indeed, Moonlight broke the mould for sonatas at the time. Whilst most sonatas of that era followed a fast – slow - fast pattern, Beethoven opened Moonlight with a slow and rhythmic set of arpeggios.
This quiet and brooding opening is followed by a dramatic second movement, which may have further surprised audience members who would have been expecting the two tones to come in the reverse order.
For this and many other reasons, we can look at Moonlight Sonata as an example of Beethoven’s refusal to conform to the ‘rules’ of music at that time and play with the audience’s expectations by pushing the boundaries of what they had come to expect from sonatas. As a result, he was one of the key composers responsible for forging the Romantic era of classical music.
To this day, Moonlight Sonata is one of the most popular compositions of all time, instantly recognisable and admired by classical and contemporary musicians alike. With its beautiful melody and rolling chords, Moonlight Sonata is the perfect composition to learn for anyone wanting to level up their piano skills.
What to Expect from Mastering Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata Movements I, II, III
Our ‘Mastering Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata Movements I, II, III’ taught by Dejan Lazić will take your classical piano skills to the next level. As the newest addition to our MusicGurus Piano courses, the lesson has been designed by an industry leading artist to help you learn from his professional experience.
And really, there’s no better person to learn Moonlight Sonata from than Dejan Lazić. The Croatian pianist regularly performs in some of the world’s leading orchestras and has collaborated with some of the world’s most famous conductors including Giovanni Antonini and Iván Fischer.
Following in Beethoven’s rebellious footsteps, Dejan’s fresh interpretations of the repertoire have earned him the reputation as one of the most unique and unusual soloists of his generation. His interpretation of Beethoven’s iconic sonata continues to push the boundaries of classical music in a manner Beethoven himself would surely approve of.
In this 19-part course, Dejan will break down his rendition of Moonlight Sonata going through each of the three distinct movements of the sonata and sharing his expert tips and tricks.
Each section is made up of small, bite-sized HD videos, featuring integrated sheet music and carefully placed camera angles that allow you to see exactly what is being played and when. You can replay, loop and slow down each demonstration until you’ve mastered the movements and techniques yourself.
Under Dejan’s guidance you will learn about the genius that was Beethoven, master the Moonlight Sonata and learn invaluable core skills that will transform all your future piano renditions, in any genre or style.
So, what are you waiting for? Learn how to play Moonlight Sonata and take your piano skills to the next level today with Mastering Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata Movements I, II, III.
The purpose of this website: helping you learn to play the piano. Building a strong foundation of piano-playing skills will lead to a lifetime of piano-playing joy.
The first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata provides the piano student with an excellent study in memorizing by chords and harmony. It consists almost entirely of rolling chords, with a beautiful melody floating above. So not only do you get to strengthen your ability with chords, you also get to work on your ability to bring out individual melodic notes as you roll the chords... all in the same hand.
It's called "voicing" the melody, which refers to making the melody sing out above all the other notes being played. By working on this skill in the Moonlight Sonata, you will be improving your piano playing in a way that will affect all the other piano pieces you play. Making your melody sing out is a huge part of piano music, no matter what the style or genre.
In the video tutorials provided here, I'm trying to show you how to go about learning and memorizing the music at the same time. To get the most out of the videos, print out the music and follow along carefully as you work your way through. You will need to be constantly pausing the video so that you can work on playing whatever segment of the music you are shown. It's up to you to do each part over and over again, as I do not take video time to show the tremendous number of repetitions that it takes to really learn every single part.
Also, in the videos you will hear me continually reminding you to go slow. To keep the videos a decent length (I hope), I couldn't play everything as slow as you should be going when you are first learning the piece. So keep in mind that the videos are designed simply to help you see the process. It is up to you to take it slow enough to learn effectively.
Along those same lines (slowness), remember not to be in a hurry as you work through the videos. Take your time and learn each section well before moving on to the next section. The process of learning, memorizing, and mastering the entire piece should take you several months. So go slow and enjoy the journey.
For a more complete understanding of how to build your piano-playing foundation, read
"Piano Player... You".
For the most direct, organized, and progressive path to learning to play the piano, start
the Piano Skills Foundation series of piano lessons.
(Advertisement)
The music for Moonlight Sonata
-click here to see and print the music-
The Videos:
Section 1 (Phrases ABCDE)
Section 2 (Phrases FGHI)
Section 3 (Phrases JKLM)
Section 4 (Phrases N & O)
More Information
-click here for more about the Moonlight Sonata-
-return to "home"-
I’ve struggled with memorization of music, it’s not something I do easily. I’m a very visual person and I see things as pictures and stories. There is however, an interesting observation I become aware of when I was trying to explain this to a friend. I don’t actually sight read although I use the sheet music to play.
What happens is the music becomes a series of landmarks for me to remind me what thread I’m on. I’m not reading note for note I’m keeping on a trail of a story line. Let me see if I can shed a little enlightenment on the subject of music memorization.
Compare Two Styles Of Using Memory:
First might be learning a series of notes. Try this.
C E G A over C, G over D, add an F and then to CEG together.
Compare that to:
C broken chord played to a 6th interval using C as the root, then to a G 2nd inversion, which is made a seventh chord and resolves to a C Chord Root position.
Now ask yourself which would seem easier to memorize. One is a jumble of the alphabet the other more of a story. Now this is a basic example to illustrate the power of using music knowledge to understand your music rather than patriot it.
Consider That The Music Is A Language And Not Just An Alphabet Of Notes.
Memorization occurs when you can tell a story. It has been proven over and over again that trying to learn a simple sting of numbers or letters is more difficult than learning a story. Stories have a purpose, a beginning, middle, and end. They go somewhere.
My Example Of The Moonlight Sonata Introduction
When I memorized the first four measure of the Moonlight Sonata I didn’t do it by repeating note sequences I did it by patterns and a story of sorts.
First we need to recognize that the song has a system of chords. It is written in C# minor and uses chords based on the words or chords associated with that minor harmonic system. Since this article isn’t about systems I’m not going into that at this time, but looking at using the chords presented to us in this piece of music.
Consider that the introduction starts on a C# minor 2nd inversion chord. Rather than learning G# C# E played four times in a row. I looked at it as four beats sub-divided into triplets of a broken C# minor 2nd inversion chord played over an Octave C# for the first measure. In the second measure the base moves to a natural octave B. So in my mind I repeated the four beats of the C# second inversion over a natural octave B.
But that was just a start on the examination of the measures. I stepped back and looked at chord progressions. The bass notes played and interesting pattern. C# to down to B natural, on down to A natural down again to F# then up to G# before returning to the start of C#. All of these notes played as octaves.
At first you would have thought that this was note memorization that I just ridiculed previously. And you would be right, expect that I what I actually did was put it in terms of relationship with the C# minor chord system.
Bass Pattern
I told myself the story of starting at Home with the C# moving to the seventh of the scale, then to the sixth for 2 beats, dropping into the fourth for remaining two beats (something happens in the bigger picture here, which I’ll come back to explain), coming back up to the fifth played twice for 2 beats each and which leads nicely back to the home position at the fifth measure. That looked like this in my mind for a pattern, I – I/7 – VI (2 beats) – IV (2 beats) – V (twice for 2 beats) – I.
Chord Pattern
Now that was only the start, because I needed to go back and look at the chord sequence. It turned out to be a little different. There were two measures of our home or root chord C# in a second inversion. Next it went to A major Chord in the root position, which fit nicely with the sixth or A in the bass. However, once we when to the next measure where the bass was the fourth the chord was a D major in second inversion or an alternate of the D# that was expected. It was a flat II over the 3rd of the chord. So now I had a different idea of the chord in the last half of the measure.
Going on to the fourth measure the broken chord changed on every measure. The four chords over the two G# octaves were: G#7 played as (R/5/7), C#m 2nd inversion, C#m add 2 drop 3, finally going to the G#7 (7/3/5) where the Root of the chord was played in the bass. It finished in the fifth measure with a 1st inversion of C#m.
Melody?
Ok that’s a lot of explanation as to what happened in my story. There’s a little bit more to it, because I also looked at the melody line. In the intro it wasn’t much going on until the fourth measure. There we see the top note go down the scale starting at the F#, E, D# D#, and to C# in the fifth measure.
Now I’ve analyzed the four measures and I’ve come up with this pattern.
I – I/7 – VI – IIb/3 – V7 – I/5 – Iadd2/5 – V7 – I
The interesting thing is you see a pattern with slight variations of
I – VI – II – V7 – I
This is a common pattern. So now I’ve created a base for the story line. Then the next steps will involve the variations I observed on top of that and then making sure rhythm and expression or added and so on.
Moving On
So this long winded example is only to help you understand that using music as a language and not just an alphabet is where you will learn to memorize music. It will also play the one of the most significant elements in your ability to create or improvise music.
So reading music is more than just knowing what the notes are. Make sure you do all you can to learn the music principles and theory. It’s going to help you become a better musician faster.
Related
Tagged as: keyboard patterns, Learning Music, memorize music, music memorization