The Sycamore Stands by the Water (Stoit yavir nad vodoiu), by Hulak-Artemovsky
Every score here is public domain, free to read, print and keep. Open it in the browser and it plays, at whatever tempo you can read it.
Get the practice plan for The Sycamore Stands by the Water (Stoit yavir nad vodoiu)
Here it is. Check your inbox for day 1.
- Hear it through at Slow (25 bpm). Open it in the reader, choose Slow, and follow the page with your eyes without playing. As it plays, count 2 to the bar.
- Learn the right hand of bars 1 to 8 on its own, in D minor. Say the note names out loud the first time through, then play it three times without stopping.
- Find the chords under it: Dm, Gm, A7 and Fmaj7. Play each one as a block in your left hand and say its name, so you know what the harmony is before the left hand has to move.
- Learn the left hand of the same bars on its own. Keep it quiet and even: it is the floor the tune stands on.
- Put hands together at Slow, 25 bpm. Bars 1 to 8 only. Stop after every wrong note and play that bar again before moving on.
- Move up to Steady (38 bpm) once Slow feels easy three times in a row. Then learn the next 8 bars the same way: right hand, left hand, together.
- Play the whole piece (about 1 minute) from the start, at whatever speed keeps it going. A steady run with a few slips beats a fast one that stops.
About this piece
A Ukrainian song credited here to Semen Hulak-Artemovsky, the singer and composer of the opera Zaporozhets za Dunayem, taken from a 1963 album of songs from the repertoire of the bass Ivan Patorzhinsky. As the sycamore leans over the water, so the Cossack bows under misfortune, and the Andantino melody sits in the right hand over the accompaniment.
How to play it
Let the melody sing sadly and freely, leaning gently on the sighing two-note figures. Keep the chords underneath soft so the voice line always leads.
Reading it, and printing it
The score opens in Artform's reader, which shows the music as engraved notation and plays it back so you can hear the line before you try it. You can slow the tempo down, loop a passage that is not working yet, and print the page when you would rather have paper on the stand.
The file itself is MusicXML, which MuseScore, Sibelius, Finale and Dorico all open, so the notes are yours to keep whatever you read them in.
Edition: Mutopia Project, in the public domain. Converted to MusicXML by Artform and checked note for note against the original.
Who Hulak-Artemovsky was
Ukrainian singer, composer and actor who sang bass roles at the imperial opera in St. Petersburg. He wrote the comic opera Zaporozhets za Dunayem, the first Ukrainian opera to hold the stage. He was a close friend of the poet Taras Shevchenko.
Learn the music behind it
Reading a piece and understanding it are different skills. If you want the harmony under this one, the chord trainer teaches chords the way songs use them, and the scale pages cover the fingering for every key, including D minor.