Comptine – Yann Tiersen

LESSON ONE

The following material is for personal study use only. Respect artist’s copyright and always conform to the copyright legislation of the country where you live.

About the Comptine

The Comptine is from his soundtrack for the film Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001) directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and starring Audrey Tautou.

The piece’s full title is: 'Comptine d’un autre été: L'après-midi', translated (by the author) as ‘Nursery rhymes of summers past: The afternoon.’

Buy the digital sheet music (published by Music Sales) from www.musicroom.com via this link, or buy it in a book - Yann Tiersen: Six Pieces Pour Piano - Volume 2, Editions Bourgès - also from http://www.musicroom.com Buy the soundtrack (released by Virgin Records) from www.amazon.com, or from your favourite online store.

• YouTube video 1;

• YouTube video 2

• YouTube video 3

Using MIDI files to help you learn

The number of the MIDI file for the musical examples in this module is shown in the tables underneath the music manuscript or keyboard diagram.

To benefit, you need to download the files and have an application that can play them. Musicarta recommends MidiPiano, a small, free, reliable application that's easy to download and use. Learn how via the left hand link below. Download the MIDI files for this module via the right hand link below.

Take the time to download MidiPiano and the module MIDI files. You only have to do it once, and it will prove a valuable addition to your learning resources. If you need help ‘unpacking’ your zipped MIDI file folder, there are full instructions on the Musicarta MidiPiano page (link, above left).

Note: All Musicarta MIDI files are also available via the Musicarta MIDI file download page . Bookmark and visit regularly to see what’s on offer!

The four basic chords

Here are the four chords shown on keyboards:

Learn the chords with the fingering given. The fingering helps you find the notes when the chord changes.

The Em (E minor) and D chords are in root position - the name-note (root) is at the bottom. The G and Bm (B minor) chords are inversions – the name-note is not the lowest note. The roots (name notes) of all the chords are arrowed.

Voice movement diagrams

Voice movement diagrams can indicate that a voice

• stays the same;

• moves up; or

• moves down.

The three voice movement diagrams in use here ‘say’:

Study the voice movement diagrams as you play the chords and listen to the audio clip until you can see how they can help you to remember the string of chords. Which note moves? First the bottom note (finger 4 to finger 5), then the middle note (finger 2 to finger 3), then the top note (the thumb moves in).

Bottom, middle, top

The notes of a three-note chord can usefully be referred to as bottom (B), middle (M) and top (T):

Breaking the chords up (broken chords)

Here is the music and the matching audio file

The ‘unbroken’ chords are shown, to encourage you to prepare the hand and the fingering. In the audio file, the chords are played then broken up the first time round, for a rehearsal. After that, you play the notes one at a time in the order: bottom, top, middle, top (BMTM), repeating.

NOTE Always ‘prepare the hand position’. Unless you’re already an accomplished keyboard player, it’s pointless trying play a broken chord pattern if you don't even know what the chord is. You will save yourself hours of frustration and achieve your goal much sooner if you follow the Musicarta method. Prepare the chords and know the fingering.

A note on tempo (speed

Add right hand notes

The audio clip first plays all four chord tones together, then the new right hand note on its own, then the octave-lower bottom note, then the four notes bottom to top.

Using the new right hand note, play four straight right hand crotchets to the bar over the left hand broken chords. Make sure your left hand still plays B T M T.

Quite often, as soon as the right hand starts to play, the left hand pattern goes wrong.

The solution is to be quite clear which left hand note (bottom, middle or top) the right hand notes come with. Checking carefully, you can see that the right hand never plays with the left hand top (T) (thumb) note.

In this piece as originally written, the notes in the treble clef above are actually played with the left hand thumb, like so:

(FOR INFORMATION/ADVANCED PIANISTS ONLY!)

Making variations

Experiment with making slight variations in what you’ve just learned. For example, instead of just a row of crotchets, make some of the notes two-beat minims. Listen to the next audio clip and try to work out what combination of one- and two-beat right hand notes is used. (This is ‘playing by ear’.)

Copy the example – try to play it from the audio clip. (It really doesn’t matter if you come up with something different!)

The rhythm of sometimes crotchets, sometimes minims is a melody in itself. Try to get the most out of it. Here’s another example, with tied right hand notes. Listen hard to work our what the right hand pattern is. Change it, if you like.

To see those two right hand patterns written out, skip forward to the ‘Answers’ section. Your next possibility for a slight variation – which, like the variations above, makes the music more interesting to listen to – is: when the right hand plays a note, to miss out the left hand bottom-middle-top-middle (BMTM) note (if it sounds right), like this:

Use musical shorthand

• crosses where the right hand plays;

• a continuous row of BTMT’s with bar lines every eight (quaver) notes and slashes through the missed-out notes;

• a reminder of the left hand chords with the bottom note (which isn’t always the root) pencilled in.

Musical shorthands are great. They make you:

• Listen – when you write performances down;

• Think about the music – what it’s made of and what to write down;

• Use your memory – because you don't write everything down.

But best of all, you don’t have to wait until you can ‘write music’ (down) to get on with your creative life. Anybody with ears and a pencil can do something!

Type up or write down a row of BTMT’s and see if you can notate (write down) this performance. It’s a combination of one- and two-beat right hand notes and missed-out quavers in the left hand.

You are still using the same notes:

Performance notes

To enjoy yourself, you have to make it your goal to be carried away by your own playing.

First, commit to playing a beautiful performance.

You might notice that the performances in the audio clips are not very strict in tempo. They speed up and slow down a little as a way of being more expressive (rubato). They also get louder and softer in various places (dynamics).

Try to bring this into your playing. Imitate a concert pianist swaying madly over the keys. (Do this on your own!) You might feel ridiculous, but it helps get expression into your playing. Afterwards, you can forget the swaying madly and still have the expression.

Give yourself permission to ‘mess around’. Listen out for what you think is beautiful and interesting, trust your judgement, and play it to convince your (imaginary) audience.

Add the melody

When you start adding the melody to the left hand broken chord patterns, the left hand nearly always slows down. That's fine, but we want to at least keep going! So we simplify the music into what Musicarta calls ‘build-up versions’.

First, ‘prepare the hand positions’ – find the notes you are going to use at the keyboard. There are four underlying chords, and four lots of notes. The right hand here is a stripped-down version – you won’t be playing all the right hand notes yet.

The right hand fingering for the E minor chord – 1 and 4 – is correct. Also, don’t forget to use the proper left hand fingering.

Now play just chords (not broken) in the left hand and the right hand stripped-down quaver-beat notes.

This audio example uses only the notes shown in the keyboards above. You copy the pattern and its rhythm. Notice that the 'build-up version' sounds fine just as it is.

Next, you break up the left hand chords bottom-top-middle-top just as before. This sketch will help you work out which (bottom, top, middle) left hand note the right hand notes come with.

The actual right hand performance has more notes squeezed in between the quaver-beat notes we’ve been practising. The full set of right hand notes used is shown on these keyboards:

The new notes are all next door to the ones you've already played. The fingering in the first (Em) bar is correct – you pass the second finger over the thumb to play the F sharp.

Here’s another possible build-up version:

You have the full right hand melody, but over chords (not broken) on beats one and four.

That's just the 'finding the notes' version above, but t would sound quite all right in a performance, played up to speed. Give yourself official permission to use (and enjoy!) these ‘build-up’ versions. Playing the build-up versions is a way of practising the full version, anyway.

In the end though, you will want to play the melody over the broken chords. The following sketch shows all the right hand notes, correctly lined up above the BMT (bottom-middle-top) letters representing the left hand notes.

Note however that it is much better in performance to play the simpler versions in time than to slow down for the ‘proper’ version. Your audience will probably not know that you're simplifying the music, but they will notice if you slow down.

'Answers' section

Lesson Two carries straight on - link through here to continue.

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