Jan 29
My program is Bach French Suite No 6 in E Major, Chopin Etude No 9 Op 10 in F minor (also Mozart Sonata K332 in F Major and Debussy Arabesque No 1) I'm concentrating on Bach and Chopin for the time being. Bach is new to me, I heard it on Youtube and fell in love with it. Also, I've always felt a kind of easy communication with Bach and I felt it was time to re-examine it. Chopin has been completely the opposite; when I was young I learned it because I had to. It doesn't mean I don't like Chopin's compositions, but I never felt the connection - as happens with Bach, Mozart and the Impressionist composers. Some days ago I watched an interview with Emmanuel Ax and learned that when Chopin moved to Mallorca he only took two music books: Bach's Well Tempered Clavier and Mozart. Interesting! As I was conscious of the need of a hard working piece for my left hand, I grabbed the Etudes and picked up the Op 10 No 9 that I had already learned as a student and is good to strech the left hand but at the same time, quite demanding in its musical interpretation. I'm delighted with Bach's French Suite. And, as I watched the first video of Marina Lozanov's series on Chopin Etudes, I'm enjoying the practice greatly, experimenting with different groupings, accents and more in the left hand. I have always enjoyed very much my practice. It's very nice to give myself permission to go back to it again.
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All wonderful pieces! I liked Lozanov's series as well--great practical advice, though I'm not playing Chopin etudes, yet. Looking forward to following your practice diary :-)
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Practice Diary 1 Feb 23
I 've been distracted from my practice this week. For a good reason, nevertheless. I've mentioned before I've been composing pieces. Well, I found a music notebook from 2010/11 with some pieces that really surprised me. I've been playing them, made a few corrections and, this is the most important part, I'm trying to learn them well to be able to play them. I will be going back home (Caracas-Venezuela) next week for a month. The first challenge is that I don't really know how good the internet service is. I hope everything works well and then I will be able to keep in touch with tonebase. The other challenge is that I don't have a piano where I'm staying. It'll be fun to go from one friend's house to another. We'll see how that works, I'll let you know.
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Mariela That's wonderful. Very inspiring. I'd love to hear your pieces. Have fun with your family and friends in Venezuela!
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