Week 2 Assignment

Marc M Hi Marc! Thank you so much for sharing your video and notes! This sounds beautiful, and the tone you achieve is very fitting with this Schubert. You give a sensitive attention to the details of the score too. And the dynamic differences and shaping are portrayed very naturally. Yes, to answer your question about the "pp" in the trio, I do agree that it should still maintain a singing line; therefore, we actually should not take that "pp" dynamic 'too' literally. Maintaining a deeper touch there so we still have a 'substance' the tone is very important--and you do that. As an experiment though, you could also try applying the soft pedal at the beginning of the trio section, while maintaining the same deep singing touch in the fingers physically. This might not work for every piano/every room, so it is best to also follow your instincts and listen very sensitively to the whole space. 

I just have a couple suggestions that I hope comes in helpful for your next application in your practicing:

Physical motion: The balance you maintain sounds terrific. I think we can apply a more relaxed arm motion though to help the singing melody have more lyricism and natural breathing in between the phrases. This arm motion can be applied in the longer note values (when you have dotted half notes or longer tied notes in the melody). At the very opening, the right and left arm can move outwards in contrary motion. I like to give an analogy with swimming: as if we are in pre-"butterfly" stroke mode. But just like when we push our arms underneath water: the speed should not rapid, but applied with breath control--hope this makes sense, haha. It is also important to make sure that the touch we maintain in the fingers are still deep without tension. This arm motion can also be applied the trio section when the RH hand reaches for the higher register: B-E-G# (m. 41-42) and F#-C#-E (m. 45-46) phrases: the arm can help navigate in the direction of the notes so it helps for a more singing quality. Feeling the shoulder, arm, hand as one 'bone' is a good way to think in piano playing.

Pedal: Your pedal application sounds great in this recording! I like everything you are doing. As a personal suggestion, in m. 47 and m. 56: rather than changing each quarter beat, it could also work to add pedal just at the first downbeat and letting go of the pedal in the remaining measure so the RH melody can sing out the scalar eighth notes cleanly, and the LH quarters just pulsing close to the keys. However, with that said, if you are performing this in a 'dry' space, I would just stick with the pedal that you are already doing.

Hope these suggestions help, and thank you again for all your dedicated work! All the best to this Schubert--he is certainly one of my favorite composers!

Ellen Weaver Hi Ellen, thank you for sharing your video! Your pedal application sounds terrific. It adds a nice color while still maintaining that classical era sound. Bravo. I like how you are paying attention to the alignment of the arm, which is very important, and I also know takes a lot of getting used to. The balance sounds great too between the melody and accompaniment.

As a small suggestion for the RH: it will help for the hands to stay a bit more physically closer to the keys while applying the relaxed arm movement. You maintained this very well at the beginning of the excerpt. When you get into the octaves, which is very tricky for that section to connect lyrically: it might help to play with a slightly lower wrist, and lifting in between each octave just slightly less above from the key. That way, the hand is moving more laterally and maintains the open hand position. Applying more weight to the top of the octave can also naturally assist with this positioning. But of course most importantly: we should make sure there is no feeling of tension.

Your tone sounds beautiful, and I am so happy you are applying this exercise to this Beethoven movement. Great work!

Ellen Weaver Thank you for your kind words, Ellen! And so delightful to have you here. I agree! We are all guilty of sometimes over-pedaling or not having quite a plan of what to do. But once we break it down, step at a time, it makes the process a little less intimidating and also gives more clarity when it gets to the performance stage. Cheers, and happy practicing!  

Tran Le Hi Tran! Thank you so much for sharing your videos! These sound terrific. I like the how you recorded yourself both slow and close to tempo. You are paying great attention to all the details of the score, phrasings, etc. Bravo! The pedal application sounds excellent too.

As a small suggestion: in the slower version of practice, I find it useful to exaggerate the motions (especially the arm/relaxed gestures) to help get adjusted to that physical part. And then those physical gestures start to become less visually obvious as we get more closer to tempo but the muscle memory still remembers how to do it--therefore helps an easier application to our sound.

You sound wonderful, and applause to all your hard work!