Dominic Cheli Me too, if I had to choose, but then they are breath-takingly beautiful so why be exclusive?
We heard Mitsuko Uchida play the 4th a few weeks ago. We had a terrific view of the keyboard and her feet! Her use of the left pedal was amazing to watch - so much of it, even from the piano's first entry! Also, the rotation in the double trills - so much!
Going off-topic, as often I do, I did not join the scales intensive two weeks because my scales aren't good enough to justify your spending time on them. Please be assured that this is a reasonable assessment of my current technical ability on scales - and the piano generally!
I have developed an 'understanding' of all of the major scales and arpeggios on the piano since joining TB - thank you so much! This meant that I practised all of the majors and harmonic minors over several months to get them all under my belt and then continued to practise the ones that I found more difficult on a daily basis.
I have inverted your 25%, which was my deduction from the timescales you gave. I am retrieving so much in this area so I am spending 75% of my practice on scales, arpeggios and dominant 7ths.
This has come from your intial talk on scales three to four weeks's ago, which has led to my extending my 'understanding' to include contrary motion and thirds, and dominant 7ths. Huge inspiration! Thank you so much!
I set myself a personal challenge, which is to add in the extras you had said should be standard practice. My plan is to do three majors and three harmonic minors every three weeks -so this is a personal three months' intensive. I am in the second set of three weeks and loving it!
My rationale for writing this post is that I don't think that the surveys we have been asked to complete provide TB with sufficient information. The questions need to be 'open' questions rather than 'closed'?
I am not nervous about playing to others, just not happy to do so until I can at least get around the basic choreography of the piano, that other TB students have done for years.
Some are playing and teaching for a living and its great to hear all of their lovely performances in the challenges. We learn so much from the teachers' observations and teaching of those terrific students.
The second string to my personal plan is to work through all of the TB on-line resources to implement the technique that I am developing.
You must know from our comments that everyone thinks you are so amazing, which you are! Thank you again and to Tonebase!
Roy J-P