Week 2 Assignment

Kerstin Hi Kerstin! This looks great to me! I also appreciate your attention to the articulations and lifting the pedal when the repeated staccati occurs, which will help clarify the character. And also keeping the pedal within the same harmony works well for this Beethoven concerto. For moments when the pedal lasts longer, I would suggest to apply half-pedal, rather than all the way down, so the notes do not become too 'wet' sounding. Looking forward to hearing how it works out when you apply these markings!

Kerstin This sounds terrific, Kerstin! I love the color changes and attention to the articulation you are giving into this excerpt. And very well done with the pedal! You are indeed correct that each piano is different, and the way we pedal will often need to adjust depending on the room we play in as well--some rooms give more resonance than others. So what we have 'originally planned' could sometimes change even during the performance itself. It is a lot of experimenting even while having a mapped out plan, but that is the beauty of music! Bravo work to you!

Kerstin Hi Kerstin, Wonderful work with the Chopin! And your recording sounds great. This excerpt in particular has a lot of chromaticism, so it is a challenge indeed to apply the pedal in a way that we are able to hear those notes clearly while giving color enhancement. I just reviewed your pedal markings, and I can tell you are already paying attention to this. Bravo!

Just a few personal suggestions: the damper pedal can return at the last quarter beat of m. 124 (half pedal) so that we can hear that RH tied high C into m. 125. But of course, change the pedal at the downbeat of m. 125 since the LH harmony changes. And then for the remaining part in m. 125, the RH descending: that can be finger-pedaled with a relaxed arm/flatter finger touch. Another technique you can apply in this measure (m. 125 + and all similar sections that have more chromaticism) is flutter pedal. Of course, feel free to experiment many ways until your liking. I love your detail attention at m. 133-134 of the slurs. I would apply the damper at just the beginning of each of those sets (as you marked) to help enhance that unique phrasing. Hope this comes in helpful for some ideas. Excellent work!

Michelle R Wow this is a beautiful method of practice! Thank you so much for sharing. I loved it, Michelle! I often suggest students to sing while practicing because our natural voice is the 'goal' we want our piano playing to imitate-so that is fantastic that you added singing the RH while working on the pedal choreography with your LH. Naturally, your LH was also playing with a very natural sounding longer line because it followed along with the lyricism of your RH  singing. The pedal pacing also sounds great too! Bravo!

Michelle R Thank you so much for your kind words, Michelle! And thank you for sharing that book suggestion! I have heard about many great things about Joseph Banowetz, but did not know about this particular textbook, so that is very helpful for my own self too!

That is a terrific suggestion from your teacher about watching the dampers. I appreciate how you opened your piano to see what is physically going on. Indeed is very fascinating to see the science behind how the mechanics work, and understanding this takes us to a better level of timing the appropriate choreography and plan for our pedal technique. 

It makes me so happy to hear that this TWI has been helpful for you, and so wonderful to have you! I look forward to seeing your next video when you are able to share with us

Ellen Weaver Hi Ellen! The pedal plan looks great! I like your attention to the details of the melodic line and also releasing at the rests. I look forward to your video of applying this to the excerpt when you are able to record :)

Ambs Hi Ambs! Impressive work! This looks terrific to me. I like your detail attention to both the release and pressing-down of the pedal. At measure 16, smart idea to release the pedal so the turn embellishment of the RH is heard with clarity. Bravo to you! I am excited to hear how this works out when you physically add this altogether to your playing, and feel free to share any videos too

Sheetal Patel Fantastic job, Sheetal! This sounds beautiful, and I am seeing much improvement with the flatter finger and relaxed movement technique! The application of the pedal sounds great. I totally understand this flatter finger and applying that relaxed arm motion technique may feel a bit foreign at first but you are already adjusting well into it  Bravo! Sending my cheers to your continuous practicing for this work!

Sheetal Patel My pleasure! That means a lot to me. Wish you all the best for your continuous music learning, and so happy to have you here at this TWI!

Sedef CANKOCAK Hi Sedef! Thank you so much for sharing this. Your pedal plan looks terrific to me. Very sensitively done! In this particular excerpt, the pedal-ing will be coming down just slightly after the 1st beat rather than right on it. The physical action of the pedal going down usually comes right after we press the note so that we can 'catch' it. We call this "legato pedaling" or "delayed pedaling" for the reason of how it is timed. However with that said, there are occasions in other piano repertoire (often in some romantic era works) when the pedal goes down before we even press the very first note, in order to 'open the strings' and start pieces with a more resonant rich sound atmosphere. I would not apply this particular pedal-ing for the Mozart, but it is a useful tool to know

Wonderful to hear you are starting with the LH only and pedal first. It is best to break it down and take it steps at a time to achieve more solidity in the practice. Bravo!

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!