Week 1: Status check! (also pick your piece!)
Hello and welcome to the WEEK ONE Main Thread for this challenge! 
Alright everyone - this is the thread where we'll all be posting our daily updates.
Make sure you've read the rules before replying (<- click)
Twice a week between January 23 - 30 I hope to be reading your daily updates in this very thread right here!
Here is this week's assignment!
1. Pick your piece!
2. If a new piece, post your sight-reading of it (never hurts to practice this valuable skill!) If it is an old piece, let's try and dust it off, and play through what we can, to evaluate its current condition. Let us know what your "piece status" is!
3. Optional: Tell us WHY you picked this piece that you love so much!
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To keep up momentum (with the added benefit of challenging my feelings of vulnerability) I am sharing today's progress. To frame it generously, I can now mostly read through Beethoven Son12 Op26 Andante Variation 5. (I certainly don't recommend that anyone watch this save for the morbidly curious. Even my dog abandoned me for this recording).
The melody is covertly conveyed on the weakest beats of the measures at the beginning. This is perverse. Am I supposed to "bring it out" from its concealment? It then surfaces as the first notes of Alberti-like figures in the bass--kinda sneaky. And then it ups the ante by claiming the middle voice under cover of trills above. I'm in way over my head.
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Michael being morbidly curious, I listened and thought you handled everything quite well.
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Michelle R I’ve long suspected that the most morbidly curious can also be among the most supportive.
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Hi to all,
joining this really late because my piano has been getting some tender-loving care from the tuner.
I’m choosing to play Sonata in A Op 664 by Schubert.
the first time I heard the piece, I fell in love with it. Made me feel young-er again and falling in love with love and life…
I’m working through this sonata for an exam (ARSM) together with a few other pieces (Bach, Debussy and a jazz piece). Started working on it about 2 months ago. I struggle big time with recording and performance anxiety. I hope through the exposure here, I’ll learn to overcome this huge hurdle as a musician.
Thank you.
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Serene Beautiful playing, Serene! I share your love with this piece. <3
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Serene your performance comes across with such elegance! Your piano thanks you for your tuner’s kind ministrations.
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Serene Lovely playing! It is such a beautiful sonata.
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Serene so very lovely.
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Serene I share your love of this piece and I'm so impressed that you are preparing for exams. I'd be too scared!
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Serene Delicate and elegant Schubert, Serene!
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Serene Such a wonderful piece Serene! Thank you for posting. Looking forward to hearing more!
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Determined to have read through my selection by the end of the first week, here I document (again mainly to reinforce my practicing habit) the Beethoven Son12 Op26 Andante Variation 3, my least favorite one. Sandwiched in between the much funner ones, it is in every sense minor, and its treatment of the theme so sparse as to render it virtually undetected. I feel compelled to mess with timing to create some interest. The video makes evident my dog's dislike of this variation too.
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Michael I like this variation too! I think your dog was trying to balance out some of the darkness :)
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Michael LOVE IT Michael !!! Wow, what progress and beautiful display of understanding, deepening each moment !! THANK YOU <3
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Michael Your “I feel compelled to mess with timing to create some interest” made me smile. I am struggling with that now, too, in my (very short, elementary-level) piece for this challenge.
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Michael It can actually be a sort of "mysterious" variation, so your elastic rubato will enrich it. ( I grew up with a nearly identical dog and mine had a great dislike for contemporary music!)
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Michael Hi Michael, I love your playing of this variation! Cute dog...I think he was cheering you on and wants you to take it further!
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Michael I like this variation. Beethoven in his element. You dog has a great sense of rhythm. :)
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Rach 2 first movement recap, the excerpt I practiced today. It’s improved compared to the first video from earlier this week for sure. Next step—cleaning up the pedaling and inner lines, and more shaping.
https://youtu.be/n3Z4ybLcnzI-
Tammy this is soo beautiful, Tammy!!
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Tammy I feel like I’ve just stepped into Carnegie Hall. Tears of joy in my eyes.
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Tammy beautiful playing, Tammy!
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Tammy I was thinking about how much I like the sound of your piano. May I ask which model you have?
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Michael Thanks Michael, very kind of you, Rachmaninoff’s writing itself is stupendously lyrical. The playing is still bumpy here and there so will have to smoothen the lines out.
The piano is a Yamaha Avant Grand N3X. It’s a hybrid — it has regular piano wooden hammers but they hit an electronic soundboard instead of strings. And I just used my plain old iPhone to record it. -
Tammy Very beautiful playing!
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Tammy Wow, sounds very beautiful, great playing Tammy!
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