6 Musical Decisions

This study needs to be made music, the 1948 edition does not have all the expression marks in this piece. The 1928 (& modern Zigante edition) do. This etude on the surface presents only block chords, however there are inner elements to each chord that need to realized and brought out. Bass & melody are the obvious ones, there are also places, such as bar 14 to 16 where an inner voice is present, in the alto range. Dig deeper into the chords to see if there are more places that have inner lines.

This etude is by far and away the least technically challenging one of the twelve. So it is my recommendation that you pair it up with the other pedantic studies:

• No. 6 & 1.
• No. 6 & 2.
• For a full RH work out: no. 6 to no. 1 to no. 2.

All three together will work the RH, and the coordination of left and right, along with LH barre technique. Adding in etude no. 4 might be overkill, but it too belongs in the RH workout group of these early etudes.

I will leave the final advice to Abel Carlevaro, writing in his study guide on the 12 etudes, who councils not rolling any chords but aiming for a staccato nature, “When rhythmic precision is desired, it is best to mark the separation of subdivisions of the beat.”