How do I play this?

by Ashton G
(Alamo, California US)

Sheet music

Sheet music

I'm not sure how I would go about playing the left hand for measures 11-15. I'm aware that the slashes mean that you repeat the last measure, but when the guy in this video:

https://youtu.be/up559ruqTVU

plays it, its not the last measure, rather its a bunch of different notes that I cant seem to find any reference to on the sheet music.

Also, I'm not exactly sure how to play these notes with slashes on them either on measures 37 - 56.

If you would offer your insight it would be a great help. Thank you and have a good day.

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starstarstarstarstar 		Slashes: As Rhythm markers and in Chords
by: Maria

Hi there!

In this music, there is notated music as well as a "chord approach" to playing.

This means you'll play the sheet music as written, but you may also alter the accompaniment following the (slash) suggestions for the rhythm.

The measures with the slash signs as you mentioned, are in this case NOT for repeating the last measure.

Instead, in this case the slash signs indicates the main rhythm to be played with the left hand as you accompany with the written chords.

You're still free to vary the accompaniment as you like, of course, as you saw that the pianist in the video was doing, adding a note here and there.

But the main feeling of the rhythm follows the slash signs.

The slash chords work like this:

The note name before the slash is the chord, after the slash is what note you'll play in the bass. This note may be from the chord or not.

For example F#/A# means that you'll play an F# chord with the A# note in the bass.

My suggestion is that you look at other places in the piece where you have the same slash chord, but notated, so that you can get an idea on how to play it.

I hope this helped.

Happy playing,
Maria

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