Lesson 28: Playing in G Major
- Move freely through G major up to F#5, recognising F# and avoiding F natural.
- Move freely through C major on your alto staff (alto's home key) up to the upper B, recognising B natural and avoiding Bb.
- Play three contrasting pieces in G major and feel them as one key.
- Play three contrasting pieces (in C major on your alto staff) and feel them as one key.
- Lesson 11 — F#.
- G major reading.
- Sharp-key fluency.
You don't fully know a key until you have played a slow piece, a fast piece, and a sad piece in it.
G major has been around since Lesson 11. This lesson asks you to spend a whole session in it — warm-up in G, scales in G, three pieces in G — so the key signature becomes a feeling, not a sign at the top of the page. By the end the F# should arrive without thought.
On your alto staff this whole lesson reads in C major — the alto's home key, where the lowest fingering is the tonic. Soprano students have been visiting G major since Lesson 11; today they spend a whole session in it. For you, that means a whole session in the most natural key on the instrument — warm-up, scales, three pieces — so the alto's home position becomes a feeling, not a fact you have to recall. By the end the cross-fingered B (soprano's F#) should arrive without thought.
Warm-up in G
Tonic, mediant, dominant, octave — repeated.
Tonic, mediant, dominant, octave — on your alto staff this is C–E–G–C, the C major broken chord.
Now play these
Three pieces in G — one fast, one slow, one moderate. Play all three in one session.
Three pieces (in C major on your alto staff) — one fast, one slow, one moderate. Play all three in one session.
Fast — a country dance
- Sellenger's Round
- An English country dance from Playford. Bright, repeated, the G major tune par excellence.
- Gathering Peascods
- Another Playford dance. Short phrases, energetic.
Slow — a courtly air
- Daphne
- An English melody on which countless variations were written in the seventeenth century.
- All in a Garden Green
- A graceful, sustained G major melody — the slow side of the country-dance tradition.
Moderate — a Bach minuet
- Bach: Minuet in G (BWV Anh. 114)
- The classic intermediate Bach piece. G major in its most dignified form.
When G major feels like the home key — F# automatic, no second-guessing — move on to Lesson 29.
When C major on your alto staff feels like the home key — the cross-fingered B (soprano's F#) automatic, no second-guessing — move on to Lesson 29.