Satie to Debussy: sound, space and the pedal
Satie's Gymnopédies (1888) have few notes and no fast motion, so even a beginner can read them. But putting the notes in a row does not make the piece. A steady accompaniment, time spent waiting, sound joined by the pedal: this is music that asks more of the ears than of the fingers.
The path uses Satie's Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes to get used to handling sound and silence, then moves to an early Debussy piece, the First Arabesque, and on to Clair de Lune. Debussy was Satie's friend, and orchestrated the first and third Gymnopédies.
The MIDI files for these pieces carry no pedal information, so the player shows no pedal indicators. That makes them practice in changing the pedal by ear, listening for blur each time the harmony moves.
- Who it is for
- For players drawn more to beautiful sound than to fast fingers. The first three pieces are within reach of a beginner to read.
- Where it takes you
- Pedalling by ear, and choosing your own tempo and pauses - and Clair de Lune, played through.
The pieces, in order
- STEP 1
Gymnopédie No. 1
What this piece teaches
Gymnopédie No. 1, marked "slow and painful". A triple-time accompaniment repeats evenly while the melody drifts above it, unhurried, over chords containing sevenths that move on without rushing to resolve. Enduring doing nothing is where this path starts.
How to practise it
- Keep the left hand's bass-and-chord triple time steady without making it mechanical. Get the left hand through on its own first.
- Do not over-sing the right hand. Where you are tempted to shape it, try playing it flat.
- Change the pedal where the left-hand bass changes. There are no pedal indicators here, so check by ear that the previous sound does not blur into the next.
- STEP 2
Gnossienne No. 1
What this piece teaches
Gnossienne No. 1. Satie's score has neither bar lines nor a time signature, leaving the player to decide where the music divides. The left hand repeats one accompaniment figure while the right sings a melody on an eastern-sounding scale with an augmented second.
How to practise it
- The score view here is generated from the MIDI, so it has bar lines for convenience. Knowing the original has none, look for your own divisions.
- Get the left-hand accompaniment steady first, then experiment with how far to stretch the melody and where to leave space.
- Find where the augmented second - a gap of three semitones - falls on the keyboard in the falling notes, and it will not catch you out.
- STEP 3
Gymnopédie No. 3
What this piece teaches
Gymnopédie No. 3, marked "slow and solemn". As in No. 1, a melody drifts over a triple-time accompaniment, but here, centred on A minor, the harmony never settles into the weight of the minor and moves through paler colours. The lesson is drawing a different colour from the same kind of writing.
How to practise it
- Play it straight after No. 1 and listen to how the change of harmony alone changes the mood.
- Decide how to close: fade the volume, slacken the tempo, or change nothing at all. Loop the ending with A-B and try each.
- STEP 4
Gnossienne No. 3
What this piece teaches
Gnossienne No. 3, the largest of the three at over five minutes: the accompaniment runs on unchanged while only the melody above it alters. The lesson is the concentration to hold a long piece at one tempo without letting it turn monotonous.
How to practise it
- Listen first for where the piece's one real swell arrives, and plan the volume of the whole around it.
- It is long: finish it section by section with the A-B loop, and log your sessions in the practice journal as you go.
- STEP 5
Première Arabesque
What this piece teaches
The First Arabesque, written when Debussy was in his mid-twenties. In E major, broken chords spread like waves with the melody drifting above. Where right-hand triplets overlay duple division in the left, the outline of the beat blurs and the sound seems to hang in the air. The lesson is letting broken chords melt into one sound rather than spelling out each note.
How to practise it
- Where three meets two, do not count them together; feel the hands as two separate streams. Finish each hand at 0.5x before combining them.
- There are no pedal indicators, so find where the harmony changes in the falling notes, and change the pedal there at your instrument.
- Rather than articulating each note of the broken chords, think of layering sound. Keep the touch shallow and soft.
- STEP 6
Clair de Lune
What this piece teaches
The goal of this path: Clair de Lune, the third piece of the Suite bergamasque. In D-flat major and 9/8, it opens with a quiet melody in thirds; in the middle section broken chords spread like waves before the stillness returns. It draws together everything on this path about sound and the pedal.
How to practise it
- In the opening melody in thirds, let the upper note float slightly above. At 0.5x, check that the two notes sound exactly together.
- Loop the broken chords of the middle section with A-B, and finish each hand before putting them together.
- The moment anything is struck hard, the world of the piece is gone. Even at the climax, let the sound ring rather than forcing it.
The routine every path shares
- Listen through once with the falling notes to get the shape of the whole piece.
- Slow it to around 0.5x and learn the notes and fingering one hand at a time.
- Cut out the hard spots with the A-B loop and repeat them until they run without a stop.
- Put the hands together and bring the speed back up a little at a time.
- Log the time and what you noticed in the practice journal - it is where you pick up next time.
Other paths
The classic first pieces after a method book
Bach's minuets, Schumann's and Tchaikovsky's Albums for the Young, and on to Clementi's sonatina.
- Album for the Young Op.68 No.1 "Melody"
- Menuet in G major, BWV Anh. 114
- Menuet in G minor, BWV Anh. 115
- Album for the Young Op.68 No.2 "Soldiers' March"
- …
From Burgmüller's 25 Etudes to Für Elise
One technique per piece: twelve numbers from a collection Japanese piano teachers swear by, ending with Für Elise.
- No.1 La Candeur
- No.2 L'Arabesque
- No.3 La Pastorale
- No.4 La Petite Réunion
- …
Schumann and Tchaikovsky: pieces that paint a scene
From Morning Prayer, The Happy Farmer and First Loss to Träumerei: short titled pieces for learning tone and expression.
- Children's Album: Morning Prayer
- Album for the Young Op.68 No.10 "The Happy Farmer"
- Children's Album: March of the Wooden Soldiers
- Album for the Young Op.68 No.16 "First Loss"
- …
Sonatinas and Inventions, on to a Mozart sonata
Kuhlau, Beethoven, Bach, Chopin: the intermediate standards, leading to every movement of Mozart's K. 545.
- Sonatine Op.20 No.1: I. Allegro
- Piano Sonata No.20 Op.49-2 - II. Tempo di Menuetto
- Piano Sonata No.20 Op.49-2 - I. Allegro ma non troppo
- Invention No.1 in C major
- …
From Bach's little pieces to the Inventions and Sinfonias
A fingering study written for his son, a minuet from the Anna Magdalena Notebook, two little preludes, then two-part Inventions and a three-part Sinfonia.
- Applicatio
- Minuet in A minor
- Praeludium 2
- Petite Prélude No. 9
- …
First Chopin: from the Preludes to the Nocturnes
Short preludes first, then a posthumous waltz and nocturne, the "Raindrop" Prelude, and the Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2.
- Prelude Op.28 No.7 in A major
- Prelude Op.28 No.20 in C minor "Funeral March"
- Prelude Op.28 No.6 in B minor
- Waltz Op.69 No.2 in B minor (Posthumous)
- …