I chose to perform the piece “Waterlilies” by Christopher Norton for my Keyboarding Skills III Midterm. At a first glance, one of the main challenges of this piece appeared to be that it is in 7/4 time. This being a technical challenge, one of the musical challenges was that the piece had to be performed as smoothly as flowing water, I would have to know the piece well enough that I could let the notes flow along and not be concentrating so much on each individual note. To understand the 7/4 time, I divided each measure into 4+3. The subdivision made it easier to understand the piece. I also practiced the treble and bass lines separately before putting the two parts together. All of my strategies were effective, and it made it easy and enjoyable to learn the piece.
My conception of this piece after learning it was similar to my conception of it prior to learning because I had a concept of what I wanted the piece to sound like. After hearing it in class, I knew that the piece had to be performed very smoothly and legato and I tried to keep this image in my head throughout learning the piece, regardless of how I had to break the piece down. I also tried to incorporate the dynamics throughout the piece enough to emit a sense of rolling water. All these factors formed my conception of the piece and dictated how I would perform it.
