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08 October 2018

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MusicOnline UK Teaching Notes - ABRSM Piano 2019/20 Grade 6 - C1

Tugela Rail

Darius Brubeck

ABRSM Grade 6 Piano 2019/2020.



This delightful piece explores a slightly different genre to that usually found in the ABRSM exams. You will need very exact counting and it might be helpful at first to practise against a metronome to get the chords that "anticipate the beat" timed correctly.

The whole piece is supposed to describe a rail journey, so bear that in mind as you perform. Although it is quite a fast tempo according to the suggested metronome marking, it should still have a "laid back" feel, with the the almost ostinato LH chords, possibly describing the monotony of the train's motion and the RH tune describing more the variation in scenery.

The rhythm of RH vs LH usually coincides. However, there are a couple of unexpected corners that could catch you out. For example, it might be tempting to place the first chord of bar 13 a quaver early, to match the RH. Be careful here that the RH "anticipates" the LH. Another place that might catch the less observant out is bar 44, where the harmony changes the pattern of the preceding bars.

Regarding, pedalling - the instruction at the beginning sempre refers to bars that have the same LH pattern. However, in bars 18 & 20, some variation from this pattern will be needed. The whole of these bars, should be without pedal, being careful here especially to lift between the phrases marked and observe the accent and staccato chord at the end. Similarly, the last chord of bar 44, should NOT be pedalled to enable the staccato. Other places where a deviation from the opening pedalling pattern is needed, are marked in the copy (bars 32-34 and 37-41).


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