Congratulations to our student Ee Woon for passing both diploma piano and Grade 8 music theory exam with distinction within one year.
Based on the examiner’s comments, expressive contour of the musical lines have been highlighted as key factors in scoring distinction, it is evident that Ee Woon reflected the moods and colors with a clear appreciation of the stylistic context in each piece. There are bold assertions of the thematic figures, and sensitivity in accompanimental textures. The expressive shifts were well acknowledged, on the whole, communicating the journey of all the pieces with fluidity.
We’ve shared a lot of articles on piano techniques on my past website’s blogs, and those are all basic requirements to pass the diploma piano exam. This time, I will lead you to study how to shape the lines of musical sentences more melodious, present more layers of timbre, and be more convincing for the composer’s style interpretation so that you too can score distinction for your diploma piano exam.
Sensitivity of tone colors: based on the composer’s style, we can use 4 types of finger touch weight to explore different layers of tone colors. They are 1) Free vertical dropping of finger touch weight for slightly heavy notes or loud accented tones, 2) ‘Sweep arouse’ of fingers inwards on the piano keys for soft ending of the phrases 3) Dropping of hands on the key by applying shoulder weight for loud chords and accented passages and 4) sliding the curved fingers outwards to the end of piano keys to achieve soft and ringing tones.
For pieces with long lyrical melodious phrases, we can make use of side way movements from the shoulder to join all the notes to ensure the phrases are linking smoothly from bar to bar, besides singing the musical phrases in our hearts.
Above are a few tips for scoring well. There are many more finger work techniques that can be used to capture the mood and reflect the emotional journey of the pieces, in order to score distinction for diploma piano exams.
Contact Jenny for a trial lesson if you would like to learn how to overcome technical difficulties in piano playing and score well for your diploma piano exam. pianoplaying@yahoo.com.
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