Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Study Group: Clementi Sonatina in C Major, Op 36 No 1

We gave a small quiet polite cat and a big boisterous one that has decided to break or eat (or both) everything in the house that can be broken or eaten and some things that can't. I feel I should dedicate Movement 2 to the nice polite one and Movements 1 and 3 to the other.

Thank you for this thread

I've been motivated by it to add this sonata to what I'm practising - though my first impression is that the first part and the third are just impossibly fast and I can't see how my fingers would ever move at that speed.

As the second part is much more leisurely, I'm starting with that one and will see how I get on.

ps I do tend to agree with the comments above that some things sound better played more slowly than indicated - hope this isn't just because I can't play them fast enough!!

I suspect you've not been playing long enough, Lillith. This is a third level piece, roughly three years of playing for the average starter.

The patterns used in the piece are common enough that in two or three years you'll have played them before in different pieces. Getting them up to tempo start by taking small, maybe half-bar fragments and getting them into the fingers. After that playing through at a steady and manageable tempo with specific work on the trickier fragments soon allows the tempo to come up.

Measure 7 is the first one that has both hands doing something at the same time. This will be the first stumbling block for many. M9 is the second and that's really just a coordination issue once the left hand pattern is known, and it's a really common one in the classical era. M37 should be easier after getting M7.

The arpeggio might be a stretch in M12 if you aren't used to a one octave broken chord, and three years in you really should be, so M12-15 (and M35-38) shouldn't hold you up much.

M20-23 might take a little longer to get confidently loud.

Are there other passages that you find harder?

I would say the difficulties in descending order are: M7, M37, M9 and M11, M12-15, M35-38, M20-23 (though that's experience dependent). If I were learning this myself I'd get M7, M37, M9 and M11 sorted first, maybe a day or two. M12-15 and M35-38 next. Finish the first week working on M20-23. After that work the following sections in order after going through each of the above difficulties slowly and carefully once or twice each day: M1-5, M24-28, M16-20, M5-9, M28-32, M8-12, M32-25, M12-15, M20-24. I'd get each section flowing before moving on and go through them all before joining any together.

The final speed will come up as your fastest playing speed rises (the speed you play your fastest piece). Don't let the final tempo be a challenge. It needn't go any faster than you can sing it out loud comfortably. All of this piece would work at nursery rhyme speed with the possible exception of M20-23, and you could take that as straight RH octaves until your left hand is under control.

This explains, in a single sentence, why I enjoy learning it now and hated learning it a year ago. Now, all patterns are familiar enough that I quickly pick them up. When I tried to learn it last year, it was frustrating, my playing quickly became uneven, and my hands would start hurting within ten minutes of practice.

It got me wondering if Sonatinas would be best, for me, to learn only once I've surpassed the technical requirements of the piece...

Another idea is to isolate tricky patterns and mop them up before starting on the piece proper, just as I described above.

Spending time on isolated patterns or fragments avoids building tension into the piece, develops mechanical proficiency and reduces the technical difficulty of the piece - which can be growing in your head from periodically reading through the score, singing it in your head without actually playing it.

There's a typo in my post to Lillith; M32-25 should read M31-35. Also, M12-15, like M35-38, is part of the daily once-overs.

Thank you Richard, just starting my first session on it straight after this, so I've corrected the typo on my printed copy

Yes, definitely. I've started trying this just this week with another piece, Grieg's Watchman's Song (Op. 12, No. 3, the broken chords in the Intermezzo). I already employed a strategy which let me spend more time on the problematic parts, but it never occurred to me that I might want to tackle the problematic parts before I start the piece proper.

Even for the first movement, I find that there is a difference between the first and second part in how fast I can play it. For the first part, I've gotten it way beyond where I need. I can play it at even minim/half-note = 120-130. On a single pass, I've even gotten it up to 140 one time. I'm doing this just to try to get my fingers fluent with it, as I do know the performance tempo is a lot slower than that for mvt 1. I am not even close with the first half of the 2nd part, especially mm.22-23 & 30. M.22 also happens to be the one I complained about over here. Anyone have any tricks to speeding up those particular measures? If I can get these 3 measures up to tempo, and also get out all the errors, I'll have the first movement in pretty good shape.

BTW, I noticed something odd about myself. If I play super slowly, I can keep the rhythm of the runs very even. If I play it super fast, the rhythm is also even (or least as far as I can hear). But when I'm at around minim/half-note = 90, then my runs become uneven. Anyone else notice their runs being uneven at an intermediate speed but not when playing faster? How to address this? Playing slowly doesn't help since my runs are already even when slow.

FWIW, for those with spotify I like this version of the allegro movement in particular , nice touch, fast, yet light on the keys and effortless sounding , it's all too easy to get into that sort of hammering harsh sound when playing some of these pieces fast, as I find with many versions ... even recordings by experienced pianist I heard at times.

https://open.spotify.com/album/5uSl0tcZmMiqmz6hYIvXuc?si=td6Tps4TRt2qa0r_6StRDA

It has never been my favourite type of music, yet when they are played really well they sure have something and it can get addictive.

When I got my kawai I spent some time on that allegro months ago, since the CA series comes with a lot of books including these, it is my favourite of the three, not quite a that speed mind you, but it was coming together day by day . I'll return to it at some point and get it faster, but for me it must never be at the expense of the fluidity it needs.



I agree, I often find that with the UIPianoPed linked earlier in the thread, not for these pieces, but things like Schumann, Tchaikovsky I find it is sometimes the case, it sounds rushed with some pieces, they may adhere strictly to tempo markings, but for me it comes at the expense of feel.

In part, for me, it is because of the modern piano, the instrument has evolved so much to have much better sustain and full bodied sound compared to the historic pianos on which they were played, then a slower tempo sounds better ... sometimes. Just as a bit of pedal here or there in Scarlatti or Bach is just fine if done tastefully on the modern instrument.

That reminds me, there was a very heated debate on that topic here on PW once as to what the real intended tempo of Träumerei should be, it was demonstrated with a performance . I didn't like it at all at the faster tempo, the modern versions are often slower, and IMHO rightly so (for my ears anyway) because it suits the sound of the modern piano more.

Some historians are fierce and very fanatical about historical "correctness" of tempo. I don't buy it. As Simone Dinnerstein once said, there is no point reinventing the past on the modern piano, music evolves as the instrument evolves. I like that idea much better

Yes, that's nice. I wasn't trying for light, but I found that to play the first half of mvt 1 fast, I have to use a very light touch. Probably to minimize the key travel. Perhaps I'll have to do the same for the 2nd half of mvt 1, as well, to get the speed up. But that said, I'm playing the first half way beyond performance tempo, so perhaps at performance tempo, such a light touch won't be necessary.

BTW, to add onto the tempo estimates I made earlier:

Schirmer uses:
I. Allegro (half note = 80 - 100)
II. Andante (quarter note = 54 - 69)
III. Vivace (dotted quarter = 69 - 80)

and in the Youtube reference performances in my first post above, Dr. Huckleberry uses:
I. Half note = 107
II. Quarter note = 66
III. Dotted quarter = 72

Chun-young June version on Spotify:
I. Half note = 98
II. Quarter note = 58
III. Dotted quarter = 85

I've been meaning to ask what is the difference between the metronome setting for a quarter note vs. a dotted quarter?

Just started playing the first movement with a metronome using the beat as a half note. Playing it slow and it took some getting used to. Just to make sure I am doing this correctly I set the metronome on 60 to start with two beats per measure. So the tone from the metronome is on the 1st and 3rd quarter note. Is that correct?

Not sure what you mean here. For mvt 3, the pulse is on the dotted quarter, which means that there is one pulse for every 3 eighth notes, and since there are only 3 eighth notes in every measure in mvt 3, there is one pulse per every measure. In mvt 2, since the pulse is on the quarter note, and there are 3 quarter notes in every measure, that means there are 3 pulses for every measure. Is that what you are asking?


It sounds right, but not being familiar with your particular metronome (in case it has 4/4 common-time vs 2/2 cut-time settings like mine), the main idea here is if you want to play mvt 1 at 60 bpm, then this is equivalent to 30 measures per minute since there are two pulses per measure in 2/2 cut-time (i.e., a measure every 2 seconds). Check this with your watch and make sure that it is right. If your metronome has a 2/2 cut-time setting like mine, it's possible that it might be off by a factor of 2x if you don't have the time signature set correctly in the metronome.

BTW, if you are just starting with mvt 1, you might find 60 to be way too fast.

That's it. I hadn't looked at the 3rd movement yet and because of the staccato in the first movement I misinterpreted dotted quarter as a staccato note. (Yep,. time to walk away from the piano.) So the third movement is one pulse for every measure? Got it. While I try to bring the 1st movement up to speed I am going to start tackling the 3rd movement.



The metronome I am using is the one with the Smart Pianist app for the DP and it doesn't seem to have cut time. It's actually pretty basic but I like it because it uses a traditional bell sound on the first pulse and I can hear it in my headphones. I may look for an app that does more.

Well, if it is really basic, then it probably is doing it correctly as long as it is giving you one beat every second when set to 60. It's when things get overcomplicated that it get all futzed up

[quote=oneilt130

Any thoughts? At what point do others start using a metronome when learning a new piece?[/quote]

I'm actually playing the first movement for a recital next weekend. It took me about 4 weeks to play it through hands together very slow and I tackled it in two sections. I never used the metronome until I was ready to start repeating the whole piece as practice and start raising the tempo, but mainly because I was continually pushing the tempo to the very edge of crashing constantly, and I was crashing on the runs all the time. I'd like to play around 74 for the recital, although I like 80-84 and 100 is way too choppy at the moment on the runs for me and doing it that fast in front of a crowd would probably not end well.

What helped me with this piece too was to go back and set the metronome and practice just 1-2 bars of the toughest runs 5-7 times to smooth them out and that helped a lot to prevent stumbling and improve those sections when I play it in full. In fact, in preparation for the recital I've been practicing it very softly and half speed, no metronome, then practice my method stuff, then do it full tempo with the metronome.

Did I read that right, 140? That's fast!

I play this sonatina from time to time, however I never got to perfect it as it should be. This thread made me want to pick it up again, and that's what I did. I managed to play it from start to finish with a few dozen mistakes.

Thankfully there are these Muzio Clementi sonatinas that are accessible to almost everyone. The 'easy sonatas' form Mozart and Beethoven are not so easy. I was listening to the six sonatinas from op. 36 and I have realize that they are of increasing size and difficulty. Maybe the second one is not harder than the first but the third one is certainly. And the last three are clearly more laborious and difficult, also preparing for more complex pieces. So, I hope that in the sequence it will come other threads with the other sonatinas.

Actually, I checked with the metronome last night and I'm wrong. The fastest I've gotten it to was 110. The problem is that at that speed the metronome is very fast clicking and it's hard for me to know if I'm in sync or not. (I'm not). Also, I cannot maintain a consistent tempo at that speed. For example, at 110, I'm good through the Alberti bass section and just slow down after that section. Anyways, this is in general not useful. I am just trying to get my hands used to going faster. I've decided to start being religious about playing with a metronome last night when I was trying to take the measurements and found that I was just not close to even in tempo, even in just the first half.

Here's a question...Mvt 1, Measure 22 is a spot I stumble a lot. very quick 3,4,5 finger movement and those fingers just don't play well together...any suggestions for exercise to work those separate fingers a bit more so independence in the 3 and 4 fingers is more fluid for this bar?

Check the last bullet under "III." in my original post.