” Grade 3 – Album Leaf Piano Sheet Music”
In Grade 1, Grade 2 and Grade 4, the pieces that we will present here will be in a relatively conventional form: they start with an introductory section (prelude) and then go on to two different main sections (ABA). In Grade 3 we take a look at some pieces that are more unconventional. Album Leaf (by Grade 3 piano students) starts with a bit of background noise and then breaks into a breath-taking introduction, which is the main theme of the entire piece. This theme is repeated over and over again in different ways: sometimes it’s accompanied by different figures, sometimes some figures get played and others don’t.
This piece has two different main sections, but maybe you could consider the first section as the third part of the ABA sequence. Album Leaf begins with a very monotonous introduction which goes on for over 10 bars. The melody is mostly repeated only once at each go and the bass line doesn’t change much either. This section ends in a puff of smoke – it’s so staccato it can’t be played any more.
The second section is the climax of the piece, with a beautiful theme repeated over and over again in different ways as mentioned above. It starts at bar 35 where we have a long bass line which stretches all the way till bar 50. In this bass line we have three different phrases: the first phrase starts as a descending fourth and later the two notes become separate quarter notes. The second phrase starts with a glissando figure that leads into the third phrase. At bar 36 we see what I call “the little grey cells” because it looks like somebody was irritated by this chord and just hit any note from the chord. The fourth phrase continues with the same glissando figure but now it’s approached by a semitone and repeated until bar 50, where we have a great climax.
