Ut queant laxis: Verset 3
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Get the practice plan for Ut queant laxis: Verset 3
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- Hear it through at Slow (36 bpm). Open it in the reader, choose Slow, and follow the page with your eyes without playing. As it plays, count 4 to the bar.
- Learn the right hand of bars 1 to 8 on its own. Say the note names out loud the first time through, then play it three times without stopping.
- Find the chords under it: Dm7, Dm, C6 and Am7. 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, 36 bpm. Bars 1 to 8 only. Stop after every wrong note and play that bar again before moving on.
- Move up to Steady (53 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 5 minutes) 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
Ut queant laxis, the hymn for St John the Baptist, is the chant from which the note names ut, re, mi, fa, sol and la were taken. Titelouze's third verset on it, arranged for piano from the organ original, begins with the tenor and bass alone before the upper voices take up the tune.
How to play it
The first bars belong to the left hand, so shape its two lines carefully and keep them apart in tone. When all four voices are going, hold the tied notes over the bar line for their full length.
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 #1370, licensed CC BY-SA. Converted to MusicXML by Artform and checked note for note against the original.
More free Titelouze sheet music
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.