WEEK 1: Discovering Schubert Month
Dear Pianists,
Welcome welcome! It's always a highlight for me to hear your playing and get to celebrate in your achievements with you. This is the thread where we'll all be posting our biweekly updates.
Make sure you've read the rules before replying!
Twice a week between February 1st and February 22nd, I hope to be reading your daily updates in this very thread right here!
Please use the following format when commenting (feel free to copy & paste!):
- Piece you are working on:
- One passage you are satisfied with:
- One passage you are not yet satisfied with:
- (Optional): a video of you performing any or all of the piece you've been practicing!
Feel free to make these updates as short or long as you wish!
-
Hello everyone!
I have wanted to participate in these community events in the past but have been very self conscious about my playing. I played as a child and then took 22 years off :) I started again during the pandemic when I moved and inherited a very old piano from the previous owners of the home I moved to. I got addicted and bought a new piano a few months ago (the pedal breaking on the other piano was the last straw).
Schubert has always been my favorite composer and with this challenge I feel ready to share. I decided to learn Schubert's "Little" A Major Sonata D664. I am uploading a video of the practice session I took this morning when I tried playing the first movement. My partner didn't realize I was recording and decided to "sign" along. It made me laugh and given that Schubert was famous for his lieder I decided to just use this one and not record another. Hopefully you will appreciate it.
The piece is probably a bit of a reach for me at the moment (especially the 3rd movement). But I am trying to do it the best I can.
Not sure right now what I am most happy with. I feel like I have a lot to improve. What I hear (comparing to recordings) is how detached all my notes feel. I cannot seem right now to get the legato in this piece and I am using way to much pedal. Also a few things seem awry with the polyrhytems. I think it seems fine when the triplets are in one hand , but I seem to be doing some weird accenting when the triplets are in the RH.
This piece is just so pretty so I really hope I can clean it up in 3 weeks
-
Qingzhi , I think that shows how important our mindset is when playing the piano. If we think of it as "work" it's going to feel difficult, but if we think of it as a fun challenge, it will be much more enjoyable. It's great you can afford two pianos. I just scheduled my next piano tuning after just 2 months since the last one since I've been playing so much more.
-
Michael This was very enjoyable and fun! I'm so glad that you are posting, these challenges are so great to participate in! Your playing is beautiful. Congratulations on your wonderful grand piano, and good luck with the practice!
-
Michael Very good job, Michael! It sounds great, it is a beautiful sonata. Thank you for sharing it!
-
Michael I LOVE your partner's background singing! You guys have to do a lieder next time!
-
Gail Starr haha, he has been doing DuoLingo for German practice so maybe I could convince him to sing one :)
-
Qingzhi thank you for your kind words. While there are so many things about the pandemic that was frustrating, the one positive about it has been bring music back into my life. I had no idea how much I missed it.
I was very motivated after watching playing the piece. You inspired me to do a bunch of metronome practice and it sounded some much better with your smoother handling of the rhythm. I can wait to hear your complete piece.
Are you planning on doing the other movements s well? I started playing the second movement today and it's so lovely as well. I *might* try to do both for the end of this challenge. The third I think for me though it just too hard. I need more scale practice for sure :)
-
Juan Carlos Olite thank you. I don't know why I was so hesitant to share before. I am so glad I did. It has been so wonderful to have such a supportive group of people to share these with.
-
Michael I'm so glad that my recording was helpful to you. Yours to me as well. That's the point of the community right? I am sure your first movement is sounding better now after practice, will you send another recording of the first movement?
I was thinking to learn all 3 movements for this challenge, because I love them all, maybe will refine after the challenge. I just recorded my 2nd movement, will submit :)
Also, I want to share this, if you can watch tonebase lessons. I find it helpful!
-
Michael I have found this piece, which you and your partner might like?
-
Qingzhi thank you for
pointing that out. I hope there are more lesson from Andrew Tyson is the future. That was so instructive.
I also loved his tone and dynamics. It was so beautiful to hear him play like that. It also maybe me realize just how rough my playing is. I wish I had more time to devote to making beautiful music.
-
-
Fabulous, in so many ways!
-
Roy James-Pike Hi, Roy. It is Pauline. I did not know quite where to place this note so I chose here. When I made my word "virupt" and I shared the definition at the last minute before the LiveStream ended, I didn't know if you saw it. You had asked me what was the word I came up with.
Since then I saw that word - "virupt" - online with a different meaning than I ascribed to it.
So "my" new word is this: "lirupt" - with supporting comments:
lirupt – adjective - the feeling of longing one gets when a pianist beautifully plays only a portion of a piano piece to illustrate a point or demonstrate a concept, and then abruptly shifts to human speech/words to extend the educative moment
So even though one eagerly awaits human speech and edifying words to extend the educative moment, there is that unmistakable - inexpressible - longing for the beauty of the music to continue.
Maybe it could be compared to watching a bud beautifully unfolding on the branch of a tree, then - hold it - the scene shifts to words...I am not suggesting there is anything wrong with it. It has to be that way.
The point is: the beauty of the piano, guitar, dance, visual art, singing - when executed with grace, expertise, humility, passion and I don't know what all - is THAT powerful! Powerful enough to seize the human heart and create longing.
I have submitted it for possible inclusion in the OED - Oxford English Dictionary. We'll see!
-
Roy James-Pike And it would be helpful to say at the beginning of the definition of "lirupt" -
When an artist is giving a lecture/lesson/Livestream, and embarks on playing the instrument to illustrate a point...and they do so so beautifully that the listener/viewer feels "lirupt".
:D
-
Pauline I saw your email but have only just found where you placed this post in TB. I love the poetry of your description. This is justification alone for the inclusion of 'lirupt' in the OED! Please work on its inverse - a word to describe when the pianist, Dominic , or say, the splendid Garrick Ohlsson [in yesterday's excellent live stream - I think he's the only American to win the Chopin competition in Warsaw?] is speaking to their audience but their whole body is gravitating towards like a magnet towards the piano and then they erupt like a volcano ad fly up and down the keyboard in a bravura display!
-
Roy James-Pike Thank you for your kind comments. I appreciate your description, too, "speaking to their audience but their whole body is gravitating towards like a magnet towards the piano and then they erupt like a volcano ad fly up and down the keyboard in a bravura display!"
Perhaps "rilupt"? Or "lurupt"? I'll think more about that. I know the words do not "roll off one's tongue", but these are situations that captivate our minds and hearts, and I love words so I believe we can have words to express these experiences (as much as words can).
You are right. Ohlsson was the only American to win the International Chopin Competition thus far. His win was in 1970.
I, too, watched the video of the LiveStream with Ohlsson yesterday, and I so enjoyed it! I think the thoughtfulness of everyone involved is striking. I particularly liked the way Ben asked the students what they thought. He drew them out and inspired them to think more deeply. Excellent!
And the nimble and efficient way Dominic manned the cameras and produced just the right view - of people or scores - to enrich our experience is excellent, too! All around - superb!
-
-
Hi Hilda , I’m not sure I’m responding correctly. At any rate trying to learn 142 # 2 My last piano lesson was when I was 10 and that was in 1954! I fool around but this challenge pushes me to actually try to learn something. I will try to memorize piece as well but don’t know if I have enough Betz cells to pull this off. At any rate here is attempt at Allegretto section. Gerry W
-
gerald Sounds great, Gerald!
-
Sindre Skarelven
-
gerald Good job, Gerald! I like this impromptu very much. Thank you for sharing your playing!
-
Juan Carlos Olite Thank you for kind words. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to play it the way you do which I enjoyed immensely! Have to really work on the trio section
-
Sindre Skarelven Thank you for listening! Have a lot of work to do!
-
gerald Nice! Nice piano to!
-
Aline Valade
-
gerald
-
gerald Thanks. Too bad nice pianos don’t have a better pianist to play them!
-
