Four After School Pieces

Description

As the title suggests, these four pieces were inspired by time and activities occurring after school. They are a combination of memories from my own school days and well into later life as a teacher. Not much actually changed!
Down Time is a dreamy, relaxed piece depicting that moment when after getting home, all you want to do is sit down and stop; allowing yourself a moment of peace, before going on to something else. The piece has been written to reflect calm and the musical passages should be fairly easy on the hands. The pedal sections need some care to ensure clarity, but with a bit of work this should provide an effective and atmospheric passage to the whole composition.
Homework is in complete contrast to Down Time. With a little nod to the later volumes of Bartók’s Mikrokosmos, this composition depicts the struggles an individual might have with motivating themselves to properly complete their homework. The frantic desire to get it done, so you can move on and do something else was a feature of my school days. The bars of silence are very important in the music and the performer should carefully observe the dynamics immediately following them. The piece has some instructions in italics, intended to help create the right mood. Though a tempo of 120 has been indicated I would encourage the performer to experiment with different speeds to see what works best for them. Be careful though, despite the work being ‘mildly frantic’, do not to rush sections!
Another day, almost gone… is a thoughtful, jazz and blues inspired work. When playing the music, you should allow the melodic line to sing though, almost like a human voice. ‘Wistful’ and ‘reflective’ is how I hoped this piece would come across to both pianist and audience. Again, I would encourage the performer to ‘linger’ on certain sections that stand out for them. That said, the music must not ‘drag’ and should flow right through to the final bar.
Piano Practice started life as a piano ‘study’ that I was writing for myself as I wanted a composition to help the fingers in my right hand work on runs. With a bit of adaptation, my ‘study’ fitted this collection perfectly. I was encouraged by my piano teacher to experiment with changing rhythms when working on difficult passages, in order to ‘get the notes under my fingers’. This is something I still do today. I would also add extra notes and mini-themes to pieces to make them more comical – this was not so well received by my teacher but amused me – I have added a few in the music for you! As in Down Time, care needs to be taken with the pedal to ensure the passages don’t become blurred. Just to put a final image into the mind of the performer (and please don’t necessarily follow my example!), I would have played the last bar of this piece as I was walking away from the instrument to go and pick up the next piano book!
I hope that you enjoy these pieces. RN