Put It All Together

Day 1 | 20 to 30 minutes

Map the gavotte and the rondeau

Focus: hear architecture before touching the mandolin.

• Learn the dance frame. A gavotte is a French dance in duple meter, characteristically beginning around the middle of the measure instead of planting heavily on beat one.
• Learn the form frame. A rondeau repeatedly brings back a recognizable main theme between contrasting episodes: A, new material, A, new material, A.
• Listen to the complete Gavotte en Rondeau once without counting, reading, or playing. Let the character register first.
• Listen again. Raise your hand every time the main theme returns. Do not look at notation.
• On a final listen, make a simple tally mark for each return. If uncertain, rewind only after the uninterrupted pass is complete.

What to notice: a return does more than repeat. Familiar material feels different because an episode has changed what your ear remembers and expects.

• Violin Partita No. 3 in E major, BWV 1006Alexander Schneider, 1950, violinFree to hear, in the recordings list on the page that holds the score. Issued by Mercury: the complete partita, with a file for each movement. The Gavotte en Rondeau is movement 3.Listenhttps://imslp.org/wiki/Violin_Partita_No.3_in_E_major,_BWV_1006_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian)

• End-of-day check: Without the recording, explain rondeau form in one sentence and sketch the piece as a row of A sections separated by contrasting episodes. Exact labels are less important than hearing return and departure. Write down the return you recognized most quickly.

Day 2 | 30 to 40 minutes

Learn the main theme by ear

Focus: use the Week 6 method before checking notation.

• Listen to the opening theme several times. Then stop the recording and sing it. If you cannot sing a fragment, shorten it until you can.
• Find the first note on the mandolin. Do not hunt for a complete fingering yet. Establish the tonal starting point.
• For each next note, ask in order: up or down? step or leap? what interval? what contour?
• Work phrase by phrase. Sing, find, play, and then connect. Keep the rhythm recognizable even at a reduced tempo.
• Only after a real ear attempt, verify the notes and rhythm with notation. Mark what your ear got right and where it misread direction, distance, or timing.
• Try one alternate fingering for an awkward spot. Because violin and mandolin share G, D, A, E tuning, notice when an open string or familiar string crossing clarifies the phrase.

What to notice: "Wrong note" is an incomplete diagnosis. Name whether the ear missed direction, interval size, contour, rhythm, or tonal destination.

The score on IMSLPThe Gavotte en Rondeau is movement 3. Open it only after the ear has made its full attempt.mandolintrainer.comhttps://imslp.org/wiki/Violin_Partita_No.3_in_E_major,_BWV_1006_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian)

• Violin Partita No. 3 in E major, BWV 1006Alexander Schneider, 1950, violinMonday's recording, movement 3. The opening theme is the part to loop today.Listenhttps://imslp.org/wiki/Violin_Partita_No.3_in_E_major,_BWV_1006_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian)

• End-of-day check: Start from silence. Sing the opening, find the first note, and play the portion you learned without the recording. Then check it once against the source.

Day 3 | 30 to 40 minutes

Analyze what your ear learned

Focus: connect Weeks 1, 2, 3, and 6 without losing the sound.

• Play the theme slowly and divide it into phrases. Sing each phrase and mark where the musical sentence breathes or ends.
• Circle likely chord tones and underline passing or connecting tones. Name any arpeggio that makes a harmony especially clear.
• Mark a motif and any place its idea repeats, changes, or forms a sequence.
• Locate the strongest cadence. Play into it, stop on the arrival, and compare its sense of completion with an earlier pause.
• Trace the phrase's contour in the air while singing. Notice how its high point, low point, and final direction support the phrase.
• Play once more without stopping for labels. Hear all three layers at once: implied harmony, sentence shape, and contour.

What to notice: analysis should sharpen the same musical event, not replace it. One note may be a chord tone, the high point of a contour, and part of a cadence at the same time.

• End-of-day check: Choose four to eight notes and explain them aloud using at least three of these terms: phrase, chord tone, passing tone, arpeggio, motif, sequence, cadence, contour. Write down the most revealing note in the theme, and why.

Day 4 | 30 to 40 minutes

Make the theme dance

Focus: revisit Week 5: pulse, phrase, and direction create music.

• Play the theme deliberately mechanically: one volume, equal note lengths, no accents, no breath. Record this control version.
• Listen to a strong violin performance. Ignore pitch accuracy for one pass and listen only for accent and note length.
• Listen again for breathing, forward motion, and resolution. Mark one place that presses ahead and one that settles.
• Copy one expressive feature at a time on mandolin. First accents, then note length, then phrase breathing. Do not add everything at once.
• Play a shaped version and record it. Compare it with the mechanical pass without judging tone quality or speed.
• Keep the two changes that most clearly reveal the gavotte's lift and the phrase's destination.

What to notice: the pick cannot sustain like a bow, so articulation choices matter more, not less. A clipped release, a ringing note, or a tiny breath can redraw the phrase.

• Violin Partita No. 3 in E major, BWV 1006Alexander Schneider, 1950, violinThe recording from Monday and Tuesday, movement 3. Listen for accent and note length first, then for breathing.Listenhttps://imslp.org/wiki/Violin_Partita_No.3_in_E_major,_BWV_1006_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian)
• Violin Partita No. 3 in E major, BWV 1006Karen Gomyo, violinOn the same page, under a Creative Commons license: a complete performance at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. A second violinist, for comparing where each one places accents and how long each lets a note last.Listenhttps://imslp.org/wiki/Violin_Partita_No.3_in_E_major,_BWV_1006_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian)

• End-of-day check: Play the mechanical and shaped versions back to back. If a listener could identify which one dances without being told, the exercise worked. Write down the expressive change with the biggest effect.

Day 5 | 25 to 35 minutes

Find the skeleton, then ornament it

Focus: bring back Week 7 ornamentation and Week 3 motif variation.

• Choose one short phrase from the theme. Sing it, then play it in its current form.
• Strip it to its skeleton: keep the structural notes that carry harmony, contour, and arrival. Remove anything the phrase can survive without.
• Restore the original and add only one small change: a grace note, neighbor-note ornament, approach note, or rhythmic variation.
• Play three passes: skeleton, original, and varied. Keep the pulse and phrase destination constant so the comparison stays clear.
• Move the change earlier or later in the phrase. Decide whether it supports the line or only draws attention to itself.
• Keep one version you can defend musically. This is an experiment in identity and variation, and it makes no claim to historically correct Baroque ornamentation.

What to notice: a successful ornament belongs to the route toward an important note. It should clarify direction, tension, or release without burying the skeleton.

• End-of-day check: Play your varied phrase twice, then the original once. Name the structural notes that kept all three versions recognizably related.

Day 6 | 30 to 40 minutes

Hear and build multiple voices

Focus: revisit Week 3 counterpoint through resonance and register.

• Listen to the violin performance again. Mark moments that use double stops, multiple strings, implied bass movement, or register changes.
• At one marked moment, decide what your ear treats as the leading voice and what it retains as a supporting or bass voice.
• On mandolin, choose one note that can ring on an open or held string. While it sustains, play a short moving figure on a neighboring course.
• Reverse the attention: hear the ringing note as the voice that matters, then hear the moving notes as the voice that matters.
• Place the two-voice effect into a tiny passage from the theme if it is practical. If not, keep it as a separate technical study.
• Record one clean attempt. Both notes sounding is the low bar. Listen for whether both voices stay continuous.

What to notice: counterpoint can be literal or implied. The ear connects separated events when register, timing, resonance, and repetition give each line an identity.

• Violin Partita No. 3 in E major, BWV 1006Alexander Schneider, 1950, violinThe recording from earlier in the week, movement 3, for marking the double stops, implied bass, and register changes.Listenhttps://imslp.org/wiki/Violin_Partita_No.3_in_E_major,_BWV_1006_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian)

• End-of-day check: Create one short example with a ringing voice and a moving voice. Play it slowly enough that you can deliberately follow either one.

Day 7 | 35 to 45 minutes

Week 10 integration checkpoint

Focus: recognize, choose, and recover without turning the music into a vocabulary quiz.

• Listen to the complete Gavotte en Rondeau. Mentally call out what you recognize: theme, cadence, sequence, chord tone, passing tone, tension, resolution, ornament, counterpoint, return of theme.
• Listen again without labels. Raise your hand at each theme return and trace the larger tension-and-release arc of the complete piece.
• Play the theme once as a skeleton, once with your chosen phrasing, and once with Friday's controlled variation.
• Add Saturday's two-voice study or a practical two-voice moment from the piece. Favor continuity and resonance over density.
• Make one uninterrupted performance pass at a tempo you can own. After an error, recover at the next structural point rather than restarting.

What to notice: Week 10 asks you to hear form, harmony, gesture, variation, and voices as cooperating parts of one musical thought. Nobody expects you to catch every label in real time.

Bluegrass, week 10: Put It All TogetherThe bluegrass track for this week, on Wheel Hoss, which asks the same question and builds the tune from its skeleton.mandolintrainer.com/workbooks/bluegrass/week-10/

• Violin Partita No. 3 in E major, BWV 1006Alexander Schneider, 1950, violinThe recording from the rest of the week, movement 3, heard complete twice.Listenhttps://imslp.org/wiki/Violin_Partita_No.3_in_E_major,_BWV_1006_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian)