The melody

First, watch the performance video, below. We're going to be learning just the melody (right hand) first.

Playing the melody by the fingering

Here's the Snake Dance melody. You don't have to read the music or play it just yet - just glance at it.

You notice that Lines 1, 2 and 4 of the tune are the same and Line 3 is different.

(The 'lines' of music start a bit before the lines of manuscript or MS - written-out music.)

To play the Snake Dance tune, you play fingers:

Say-and-play, or, better still, sing-and-play along, several times.

It’s quite legitimate to learn the tune just from the finger numbering if you don’t read music. In this case, you’re saying out loud the scale degrees (notes of the scale) and improving your aural skills.

Fingering difficulties

Use this fingering difficulties video in tandem with the teaching noes below.

The hardest part of the first line-type is the 5-2-3-1 section at the end – so practice that bit over and over.

Then put it in the phrase: 1-2-3-5-2-3-1.

Practice repeating any section of that fingering until “it’s all the same to you…”!

Copy the examples from the teaching video. Work out what’s difficult for you and make up little exercises for yourself.

Line 3

Line 3 has the same pattern twice, first from finger 3, then from finger 2.

Memorise the pattern. There are five of the top notes. Count them off as you play them – learners often stop at four.

There are two places in Line 3 (and going on) where you skip notes and change direction. They are 5-4-2-3 and 4-3-1-2. Practice them separately then stitch them together, as in the teaching video.

Your first performance

Check that you can play along (right hand only - left hand is up next!) to the first video.

Go back and fix up any places you're unsure of. You want to know the melody by heart and believe your fingers will play it correctly next time!

Adding the left hand

The two-handed position

To add the left hand, we find what Musicarta calls a ‘basic music-making position’. Follow the method in this teaching video.

Tapping the rhythm

To coordinate your hands better, follow the teaching video below and rehearse the together-left-right (TLR) pattern of the whole performance.

'TLR (together-left-right) analysis' - figuring out 'what comes with what' - and rehearsing by tapping are useful ways of tackling difficult rhythms.

Playing by numbers

Providing you’ve got the hand position right, you can play the Snake Dance by (fingering) numbers alone.

Hopefully, you can hear the version even as you just look at this fingering ‘script’.

This is the ‘theme’ we build all all the subsequent variations on, so be sure you can play it well before going on. Here's the module reference performance one last time.

When your performance is reliable, go on to the next lesson.