What is the key of Night Flight
D minor (The way we can tell by the key signature - Bb and the beginning and ending notes are D. The piece also uses a D harmonic minor scale pattern a lot)
What is the time signature/explain the time signature
c - stands for common time, and is association with 4/4, encouraging us to count four crotchet beats in a bar. There is a theory that C might also mean an unfinished circle.
Bonus, the bars are 4 crotchet beats, but the pulse is on Beats 1 and 3, so Beats 1 and 3 are louder than 2 and 4)
What does con moto mean
Con moto means with movement. This is an direction of HOW to play (play with movement/play fast ish)
What is the metronome mark (what is a metronome mark)
Each crotchet is to be (roughly) 100 beats per minute (eg fit 100 beats into 1 minute)
What does the plus sign above a note mean
Left hand pizz. We pluck the string with our left hand pinky
What does Arco mean
Arco means to play with the bow. It is written after the mark pizz (or +) to say we use our bow from now on (or until the next pizz mark). Arco is our default way of playing so we don’t always see it on our music.
What does sfz mean
Sfz is the shortened form of sforzando, it translates to suddenly loud. We interpret this as an accent on a note. We put emphasis on that note by using more bow speed and bow pressure.
What are the lines on all of the quavers?
The lines are called measured tremolo. In this piece we divide each note marked into two (eg the quaver note is played twice as two semiquavers)
What does the marking fp mean/tell us to do?
fp is the abbreviation for forte piano, meaning we start this phrase with a forte, immediately followed by piano, the (a dynamic mark different to sfz)
Explain the three lines under the semibreve in the second to last bar
These three lines tell us to play an unmeasured tremolo, tiny up and down bows as fast as possible for the duration of the note length (eg super fast bows for for counts)
What is the up bow in brackets
A suggestion to smoothly transition to an up bow while the sound continues to flow as the note is tied.
Can you explain and find other signs and symbols?
Eg. Sharps signs, slurs, mf, f, mp, p, the hair pin crescendo and decrescendo?
