Week 2: First Steps

Ken Radford Significant to the structure / form of that particular piece of music. 

Edit: Now that I am re-reading in less haste, I am not certain if you were joking and asking or just joking =)

Dustin Anderson For some notes to be considered musically significant would imply that other notes are not significant, and if these can be identified maybe I can just not play them :)

Mark Cooper Bravo Mark! Very nice attention to clarity of articulation and convincing imitation. Very cool to see your individual hand work and how it remains intact when you combine it all. This attention to the parts and their combinations is top tier fugue practice. Sounds great!

Dustin Anderson thank you Dustin!!

I put in a bit of work into this .

I’m trying to apply this separate hands approach to my other exam pieces. What I’ve learned so far is that just because one can play two hands by memory doesn’t necessarily mean you can play separate hands by memory. That requires additional work. My teacher advises me to at least memorise the left hand of at least part of the pieces. 

Mark Cooper Super cool! I love the clarity.

Mark Cooper Well done Mark. You make it look easy (and I know it is not).

Ken Radford thank you Ken!

I thought this might interest you 

Keith Jarrett playing this piece , it’s pretty good I think 

https://youtu.be/Lbo-yITNMo8?si=VNFReytNCTZyts39

Mark Cooper Thanks for sharing Mark. I have marvelled over Keith’s playing for the last 4 decades, and without his inspirational playing I may have given up my quest for piano competency. Have you heard his interpretation of J.S. Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier?

Ken Radford Hi Ken, I didn’t even know he had done a recording of the WTC, but I did hear a CD of him playing the preludes and fugues of Shostakovich 

Mark Cooper He is one talented musician. To be able to play classical pieces and to be able to improvise in front of large audiences is nothing short of amazing.

Ken Radford Rick Beato did a recent interview with him on you tube . Unfortunately he is very disabled from a stroke . I honestly found it difficult to watch , quite upsetting. 

Mark Cooper Yes, I watched the Rick Beato interview and it made me feel very sad. Mr. Jarrett has surely suffered for his art.

Mark Cooper Well done! I love the hands separate memorization!

Sachi Hi Sachi! Thank you for sharing your work on these tricky measures. You have a nice balance of layers developing. I feel that your melody sings clearly and spins out naturally over chords. 

No need to be apologetic about using pedal btw. When Chopin does not indicate pedal, it does not actually mean 'no pedal'. The pedal marks he does give are just particularly important such as where a change should take place to avoid obscuring the harmony; to prevent a pianist from perhaps making too many pedal changes; to sustain important bass tones that you have to release to continue playing with the LH; or to help express an important rhetorical moment. This prelude in particular definitely needs pedal throughout. If you only use it where he has pedal markings, your sonority will constantly change! He even marks this section 'sostenuto' which indicates a sustained sound throughout. So your instincts are correct! With the dense texture you may also find half pedal to be desirable. 

Dustin Anderson Hi Dustin. Thank you so much for listening and generously offering me your feedback. I don’t have a teacher at the moment, so your advice feels like rain in the desert🌵

I will use pedals according to Chopin’s pedal marks, and by listening carefully. 

Sachi Sounds great! I am working on this one too. So much more difficult than it sounds but so worth the effort to learn this one.