On the afternoon of December 6th, Professor Alexey Sokolov, a foreign expert of the College of Chinese & ASEAN Arts, gave a lecture on “The Basic Required Skills of the Student’s Initial Work on the Works of Different Styles.”

Based on his 25 years of teaching experience, he concluded that when playing a new piano work, piano students should independently complete and master some basic rules for analysing the work and practising the piano.

The first step is to determine the tempo of the work. Take Bach's works in the baroque period as an example, in this period, there will be no extreme tempo, i.e. not too fast or too slow.

The next step is to determine the dynamic of the work. Professor Sokolov explained the meaning of the dynamic terms in different periods and to understand the dynamic symbols from different perspectives. For example, forte means strong but not loud; however, in Mozart’s works, allegro can be interpreted as bright and joyful instead of fast.

In addition, he also talked about how to deal with balance of dynamics between melody and accompaniment: In solo, melody and accompaniment can be proportioned at 70% and 30% respectively, but if it is a piano concerto it should be 80% and 20%.

Professor Sokolov has summarised many practical basic rules to help students study and practise independently in order to be better prepared for lessons. When students learn to solve basic problems by themselves, piano lessons would be more effective.