About a week ago, I received an email from a reader who states that he is learning the Bach-Petri transcription of “Sheep May Safely Graze.” (You may recall me posting a YouTube video of it here.) He writes:
I am by no means a concert pianist, but I did take piano lessons for 14 years (1 year into college), but I have never encountered such a challenging melody as is presented by this piece.
Obviously, this piece will take a lot of time to master, but I am determined to learn it. However, I was wondering if you could please offer some practice tips such as how to bring out the melody, for instance, in measures 10 & 11? I just don’t know the best method to train my 2nd and possibly 3rd fingers to bring out the melody while the other fingers play the counter melody.
Learning to bring out the melody properly is not easy! However, the good news is that once you’ve developed this skill, you will likely be using it again for situations in other pieces.
Here are a few general practice tips for bringing out the melody: Continue reading “Practice Tips: Bringing out the Melody” →