Piano Performance of No. 37 and No. 39 From Bartók's Mikrokosmos

Hello ladies and gentlemen, I have recently completed these two pieces from Bartók's Mikrokosmos , so I decided to add them to my posting schedule. These pieces may sound simple, but they actually present a decent challenge, when learning about them. Each piece in this book was written by Bartók as he traveled around the countries near Hungary and wrote down their folk music, which had never been written down. 

No. 37 In Lydian Mode

I will be doing an article on modes very soon (possibly Sunday the 26th), but I can tell you that the modes (other than Ionian and Aeolian were not very popular in music at the time of this book (so pianists didn't have a good idea of what they should sound like) this piece familiarizes the student with the Lydian mode/scale. 

It is actually a lot harder than it sounds to learn to hear this scale. I had great amounts of difficulty playing this until Mr. Barone (my teacher) told me to (in a week) learn to sing the left hand part in solfèggio, and play the right hand part at the same time. (This is very difficult) After a week of practice I was able to sing the left hand part (acapella and while playing the right hand part ), and had absolutely no problems playing it hands together (At a much faster speed than 120 which is what this video is because that's the speed the book says it should be played).

No. 39 Staccato and Legato (canon)

This piece teaches the student to play one hand staccato (short and detached) while simultaneously playing the other hand legato (long and connected). This is also very hard to do, and before this piece I had never done it. To learn this, I had to play it incredibly slow for a few days, then gradually speed it up.

Here is the video (The speeds are No. 37: 116, No. 39: 86) 

Image Source

[Image Source: Pixabay.com, license: cc0, Public Domain]

Thanks for reading/listening to this! Sorry I uploaded so late, I got incredibly side tracked downloading and sorting some of the classical music I included in recent Weekly7s. Anyway, as always feedback is appreciated, let me know what you thought of the pieces. I know they sound simple, but really they present challenges that every pianist needs to learn to solve. See you later!

Also remember to check for: My weekly 7 post, [Something else will eventually go into this space]!