Beschreibung
This piece, written in a 5-note span in each hand to allow for position playing when needed, introduces late-elementary students to the 5/8 time signature and non-Western scales, but with more familiar Classical syntax and phrase structures. This piece can be used to ease students with common-practice tonal backgrounds into the language of composers like Bela Bartok. While the provided fingering assumes a 5-finger compass in each hand without shifts, students and teachers are welcome to depart from that position for greater comfort and control over phrasing.
While the modern "modes" as various half and whole-step patterns in a 7-note compass (like "Phrygian is what you get if you play the white keys starting on E") are not historically accurate to the old Renaissance usage and should not be presented as the Renaissance modes, there are various non-Western musical traditions that use similar-sounding scales, and that slight difference will likely be engaging and a source of growth for a student who's only ever played Western music.