Need help with exercise

[ranniks]

long-short-long-short

I don't get it. I play it this way: normal - stucatto - normal - stucatto - normal - stucatto

My teacher said the long-short-long-short resembles something of Mozart. It's an exercise for the hand and notes. Does anyone know how to play in such a style or have a video where it is shown? When I try it, it doesn't really sound that well >..<. I just jump of the stucatto pieces and play the long notes normally.

[outin]

Do you mean playing legato with a dotted 8th note followed by a 16th note? This is simply a matter on learning a certain hand movement. Be patient, if you don't get it now, ask your teacer to go through it again next lesson. I am not sure if I am able to put it in words, especially in English.

I have always struggled with this light Mozart style. I guess I am just not made for it

[ranniks]

I think so, he did mention legato. He drew something like this above the notes:

- . - . - . - .

The - were a bit longer and the dots were in the middle. The notes are attached to each other. Do you have an example or something I can look at?

[outin]

When you play two or more notes that are connected (slurs) you play the last note with lighter touch.

If you just look at the note values, you play the dotted 8th note and then a 16th note. But really you play the shorter note just very short without any accent and with moving your hand up (the wrist rolls forward as the finger leaves the keys)  to make it very light... I think it is something that is better demonstrated than explained really

EDIT:

What he draw above the notes seems to be just an explanation of the basic rhythm with dotted notes. You do know what a dotted note is? In this case you give half of the time value from the next note to this dotted note.

What I wrote above is more about how to play in a certain style.

[ranniks]

So basically:

NOTE 1(2 seconds) NOTE 2(1 second) NOTE 3(2 seconds) NOTE 4(1 second)

The second is half and the fourth as well?

Is it just the amount of time you hold each note that counts in this exercise?

[ranniks]

What do you mean by giving half of the time to the other note? Could you please further explain?

I do know how the dotted notes work. Basically if you have a whole note with a dot behind it/near it, it means to play 6 beats, correct?

[outin]

I think it would be really helpful to see the score...which piece is this?

Normally if you have 4 8th notes you just play them all in equal time. But if you put a dot to the 1st and 3rd of the eight notes you take away half of the duration of the 2nd and 4th notes and add this to the 1st and 3rd notes.

I don't know how you count when you play. If the measure seems complicated, you can count twice on each 8th note. So without the dots you would count:
12-34-12-34
With the dots you count:
123-4-123-4

After a while you don't have to count because it comes naturally.

[outin]

So basically:

NOTE 1(2 seconds) NOTE 2(1 second) NOTE 3(2 seconds) NOTE 4(1 second)

Nope...that would be NOTE 1 (3 seconds) NOTE 2 (1 second).
But you don't think about notes in seconds...Note values are relative and you also have to think about your time signature

[ranniks]

I get it Outin, thanks! So basically the dots mean the beats are that much longer on the corresponding note. That seems tedious >..<. It's definitely not stacatto right?

[outin]

I get it Outin, thanks! So basically the dots mean the beats are that much longer on the corresponding note. That seems tedious >..<. It's definitely not stacatto right?

Well it can be staccato or not, that's a different issue. Staccato is marked by a dot ABOVE or UNDER the note, while the dot AFTER the note means to change note value.

And even if there's no staccato, if you have several notes tied with a slur (a legato curve above them), you tend to play the last one with a lighter touch.

Oh, and in case you encounter some, you can have both legato slur and staccato dots on the same notes. This is another touch, portato, which is something in between (very common with composers like Scarlatti). This can be a bit confusing if you don't know what it is

[ranniks]

Does anyone have a video on how to perform this exercise? Or a soundtrack I could listen to?

[outin]

Does anyone have a video on how to perform this exercise? Or a soundtrack I could listen to?

I would need to know what exactly is your exercise

Piano music is full of this kind of rhytmic patterns...