Sneaky Business

Martha Mier is an American teaching composer whose character pieces have been published widely through the Alfred Music catalogue. Sneaky Business is a short piece in a jazz-flavoured idiom — chromatic, syncopated, with a slightly mock-furtive character — written explicitly to give students at this level a real piece in modern style.

The piece is in A minor and tests rhythmic precision and clear articulation. The right hand carries a stealthy, syncopated melodic line that uses chromatic neighbour notes for colour; the left hand provides a sparse, off-beat accompaniment that must lock in with the right hand's rhythm. Hand position stays comfortable; the technical demand is rhythmic rather than physical.

Two pitfalls. First, students often play the piece too fast — the sneaky character lives in a slightly held-back tempo with sharply-articulated accents, not in a fast scurry. Second, the chromatic notes get played as accidents rather than as colour; lean into each chromatic neighbour and let it speak before resolving.

Mier's pieces are commercially published; for an editorial reference, listen to any short piano piece in mid-twentieth-century jazz-flavoured pedagogical idiom (Norton's Microjazz is a near neighbour) to calibrate the right rhythmic and articulative weight.