Scarlatti, Sonata in G minor, K 450 (harpsichord, piano, organ)

[duffmasterofpuppets]

Epic hand folding at the end.

[xyaqua]

Hi Steven, Happy (belated) year of the Rabbit. Hope you are hale and hearty, thanks again for your indulgence, you are a true artist- in every sense of the term.

[realjuvelive]

Did you take lessons or classes properly to play like that ?

[smalin]

@realjuvelive I took lessons for the first eight or nine years, but I kept practicing after that.

[realjuvelive]

How long did it take practicing and reading the sheet music I would say a long long time huh?

[smalin]

@realjuvelive I started in 1961.

[realjuvelive]

@smalin Great but what I meant is how long does this piece take to play well?

[smalin]

@realjuvelive There's no single answer to that. If you are good enough, you can sight-read this piece; if you are a beginner, you could practice for years before you got good enough. I could sight-read it, but since it was "for the public," I practiced it for a few weeks (maybe ten minutes a day?) before making this recording.

[realjuvelive]

I can't sleep at night I'm still thinking of sheet music ! Confused

[bachaddict]

@realjuvelive That could be caused by reading a lot of music right before trying to sleep.

[ultimatenerd22]

are you playing this?

[smalin]

@ultimatenerd22 Uh, what does it look like?

[ultimatenerd22]

@smalin it looks like you are.

[smalin]

@ultimatenerd22 And why would you think otherwise?

[xyaqua]

I still love coming back to this, thanks so much Stephan, i'm sure it's because this was the first scarlatti i actively listened to, but do i love this sonata so. Hope you are well, my friend.

[Xenogeek2]

The shadow of the hands = Alfred Hitchcock?

[Dirkovic80]

lol how he folds his hands after playing

kinda freaky

[codonauta]

Really interesting. Smallin, why have you deleted the Brademburg 6, mov 1 from your channel? I hope it be back in the future. It was very pretty and didactic. Excellent to "see" and follow the voices in the composition.

[smalin]

@codonauta I've posted all the versions on my "archive" channel (musanim), and just left a couple of them here.

[codonauta]

@smalin From now, just paying for the DVD to watch those videos?

[realjuvelive]

what you mean by G minor k 450 ? i think the key signature is Bb but anyway what you mean ?

[gislim]

@realjuvelive G minor is the relative minor to Bb major (same key signature)

[realjuvelive]

@gislim aha you mean the circle of fifths ? that they are use to figure out what key signature ?

[Ccauceg]

maybe its because im a bad sight reader but it seems like its easier to just memorize it.

[realjuvelive]

oooh man that's not easy !! how long have you been play piano ? and did you take a special course?O_o

[xyaqua]

I'm still impressed! Sight reading this thing... WOW!

and i do not have any idea what the hands at the end mean, :-)

May I have a hint please, Stephen?

[smalin]

The hint is: consider the shadow ...

[collinlloyd]

@smalin The what? :x

[AlexanderLeonhart]

Good job!

You won't believe me, but I too invented a very similar music writing system a few years ago...

I have 2 proposal: 1) why don't you show dynamics by line thickness?

Example:

piano: ---------

mezzo-forte: =======

fortissimo: #######

crescendo: ---===###

diminuendo: ###===---

this shoul be helpful in piano and harpsichord music: notes fade away and you can draw them as a right-pointed triangle: > so they don't look joined when there isn't pause between them: ===== becomes >>>>>

[SYNcustomWILLbeMINE]

the sheet music is making my head hurt lol

[smalin]

Then stick with the bar-graph score.

[realjuvelive]

XD music is not easy !!

[realjuvelive]

@SYNcustomWILLbeMINE it's not hard but work

[TheFrightenersDeath]

I am a big fan of classsical music and I just want to ask you how can I make a video with this MIDI animation?

[smalin]

see the FAQ

[bachaddict]

it looks like you have to untwist your tendons at the end! Great piece.

[smalin]

No, but there is a little hidden meaning in the gesture; see if you can figure it out.

[danedaworld]

Can you play the Hand Ocarina? Or am I making things up again...

[onlyontuesdays99]

You have a unique playing style.

[smalin]

Not only that, it's different on every piece.

[xyaqua]

Dominico would smile.

[xyaqua]

God i love this piece! To think that it was written as an excercise... WOW.

The colors, yes, the colors. i hear organ and piano, and see left hand and right hand, might expect only 4 colors,  but there are more.

Please Stephen, what is the color coding? your videos are so full of intrigue, please help us out!

You have done this so well

[smalin]

Didn't you see the item in the FAQ about this?

[jdany]

sorprendente, tanto la ejecicion como en lo visual, un deleite, Thanks for sharing your video, wonderful song

[Mike2008and2008]

thanks for adding real time finger action! COOL!

[javitr91]

Excellent as always, however one thing that I notice is that when uploading keyboard pieces, with the exception of a few, you have almost every pitch as a different color and while it makes it look colorful, it also makes it harder to follow.

Just a suggestion. Also, someone else was talking about it looking too cluttered, and I have to sort of agree, it is difficult to focus on any one thing.

But great performance, I've always loved Scarlatti's sonatas.

[cotoocho]

gracias¡ maravilloso¿¿

[gabriela4504]

Impecable. Técnica y sentimiento.

[Elcomunisto]

tienes razon.

[energycore345]

that score is a real challenge for music reading. i can't even read one voice in the score :(

[xxxx0bleach0xxxx]

you are amazing! XD

[lizzy579]

MANOS MARAVILLOSAS..MÁGICAS..Y EL TALENTO MÁS !!!

Muy Bonita la Ejecución !!!

[hijodapuede]

well done! I heart he proper dynamics, I hear the proper notes, I hear how the score is very fitting! how indeed did you make the visualizations for your pieces.

[MoosaiLuver]

Very awesome work! I like it a lot! Keep on keepin' on, man!

[shizohal]

Why is the music notated with stems for each voice? I understand that theoretically it emphasizes the separate SATB voices, but gosh, to me the score looks needlessly crowded. Did you perform from this score?

[smalin]

The way it's notated in the scrolling score is very close to the way Scarlatti notated it. I learned the piece from the Ricordi urtext edition, but as I developed my own interpretation, I made my own edition that reflected the decisions I made and the ideas I had (it's very different from the urtext). Since I almost never memorize music, I performed while looking at my own score. See the FAQ for more ...

[xyaqua]

Stephen is just doing it this way to show off! :-)

I does look awfully complicated...

[smalin]

No, it's how I always do it: the score shown in the video is the closest to the "ideal" version of the score I can lay my hands on.

[teslaphysics]

I think its a great idea, it keeps the viewer's attention on your hands where its needed.

[smalin]

Being a pianist, I'm really interested to watch pianists' hands when they're playing, and it drives me nuts when I'm watching a video of some great pianist and the director chooses to have the camera pointed at the performer's face (or, worse, the faces of people in the audience) most of the time. I decided that if I ever made a music video, the viewers would be able to see what the performers were doing, all the time, just like if they were there.

[teslaphysics]

Blacking out everything but your hands, clever!

[smalin]

Heh, you're the first to mention that. I played the piece with one piece of black fabric (attached at its corners to the piano) in my lap and another hanging from a piece of cardboard to the side of the piano.

[teslaphysics]

I surely agree with you on that note, (no pun intended). Sure its ok to view their faces for a second or two, but watching the hands is the most important part!

[xyaqua]

in reply to concerns that this version is too complex- too 'busy' :

NON! it can be viewed over and over, as desired, and the various parts picked out.

This is more complex in the Music animation machine version than i imagined. it may take me days to appreciate the keyboarding.. wonderful!!!

[lars517]

Brilliantly done as always, Scarlatti is one of my favorites! May I request that you do Beethoven's sonata no 17 (the Tempest) and Beethoven's concerto for violin and orchestra in D major? Much thanks! :)

[smalin]

re: requests, see the FAQ

[bunnybunnybunny8]

yeah my piano teacher sometimes does that. just a couple of days ago he picked up moonlight sonata (the same copy u played) and sight read it with only a couple of mistakes. I am also trying to learn the moonlight sonata, just like the one u played.

[RarewareLover]

5/5 a pleasure

[bunnybunnybunny8]

cool.  how long did it take you to learn this? plz reply

[smalin]

A little over a month ago, YouTube user xyaqua said he'd pay me $500 if I did a video of this piece. I got out the score and sightread it. That is, I could play all the notes in the right rhythm the first time I tried. It's taken me most of my life to get that good at sightreading. After that, I practiced the piece (to get it more expressive and more under control) until last weekend, when I recorded. So, no time, forty days, or forty years, depending on what you count.

[killinusoon]

you should do this more often...easy money right there...specially with your skills

[smalin]

Let's see ... given the amount of time it I spent on this video, I might be making ... minimum wage? Maybe less ... I definitely can make money more easily by doing software consulting. But this is more gratifying.

[Chefodeath]

Man, I would kill to be that good at sightreading.

[smalin]

Yeah, killing is quick and easy. The question is: would you be willing to practice to get that good? If you put in the hours (and are willing to suffer; there are few things as painful as trying to sightread when you can't), you will get good. If you don't, you won't. I hope to make a video game to teach sight-reading (which will make it as fun as other video games, if not more), but until then, you gotta do the time (for killing or for sight-reading).

[Chefodeath]

Dude, If you somehow managed to turn those scratches of black and white into anything but hours of agonizing boredom, I might be able to avoid being Bubba's roomate for the next 20 years.

But how would you be able to make a videogame about sheet reading? Would you find some way to differentiate it for different instruments, or would it be only for keyboard instruments?

[smalin]

Sightreading is sightreading; if you learn how to do it for one instrument, you can transfer it to another instrument. Of course, learning to play an instrument is its own thing; if you learn to sightread on the piano, it doesn't mean you can play the saxophone (even if you put down the ducky), but if you can play the sax and you learn to sightread on the piano, you will be able to sightread on the sax. Sightreading keyboard music is the hardest, and that's what the game would teach.

[Chefodeath]

I suppose, but I'd still say there is a learning curve. If you learned to play piano using sheet music and then a violin purely by ear, there would atleast be some difficulty in transferring your sightreading prowess from one to the other.

Regardless, game sounds like a great idea if you can pull it off, and I really hope you do at some point =)

[smalin]

I wasn't a good sightreader when I first learned the piano. When I was 16, I played guitar for a while, and didn't learn to sightread it much either. About 18, I started playing recorder. That was the first time I had to sightread reliably, since I was playing in groups. When I returned to the piano, it all transferred right over. Of course, there were lots of other things to learn on the piano. Years later, returning to the guitar, I found I was sightreading better than when I stopped.

[Karamachandify]

I felt the emotion at the very ending. Great : D

[tinylittlesun]

Theres too much going on smallin! i dont know what to look at

[smalin]

Yeah, I know what you mean.

I've been thinking about doing another version without the hands, just the two scrolls, or maybe one with just the bar-graph and the horizontal keyboard ...

For now, though, you'll have to just pick one thing at a time to pay attention to.

[Todesviper]

great work!

nice to see how much effort you put into this.

as in all of your works.

[Phyle9]

Very VERY good harpsichord interpretation!!

-stands up and applauds-

thx Maestro!

[smalin]

Actually, there's no harpsichord in the mix, just piano and pipe organ. The title says "harpsichord" because it was originally written as a harpsichord piece (so that YouTube viewers could find it more easily).

[lilperch64]

I CANT BELIEVE MY EARS!!!!

its so awsome

[Asrialth]

man, this is good. You are extremely talented, man!

I am glad every time I see that you have uploaded something new, it really makes me happy! Great taste in music!

[AbsalomPitchingfork]

How are the graphics done, anyway? MIDI?

[smalin]

The bar-graphs score is from the MIDI that came out of the Moog PianoBar (see the FAQ), which is what is driving the pipe organ sound.

[mindygrahamkrauth]

i so love the minor keys...

beautiful to hear, beautiful to watch!

i so love all your posts...

i hope you never get tired of making your video's... i will never get tired of watching them!

Thank you!

[theogore]

I adore this piece.

LOVE the different views!

[MrPiano1994]

you could of at least split the the treble and bass into two, or at least three, to make it more easier to read

[TomHendricksMusea]

Well done. A very nice entry! No wonder you made the world's first best new music list.

[smalin]

"World's first best new music list"? What is that? Am I famous now? :-)

[mindygrahamkrauth]

you will always be famous, steve!

[TheBeethooven]

awesome; love the end

[Andy4355]

Awesome! Especially that "trembling" feeling, if it can be called so.

[augustmaple]

cool, it sounds improvish but awesome.

[smalin]

Glad you picked up on that; it's part of what I was aiming for. I wanted to get that feeling, the feeling of "huh, where should I go next ... oh, let's go here," in the piece ... so it's not completely metronomic, like many people play it. (The little connecting arpeggios that I added were in fact improvised.)

[bubbajiff]

whaaaaaat

that was sooo cool

[smeagolfreak1234]

Amazing as always !! :)