Week 2: Arpeggios, Dynamics and Repeated Notes!
Hello Everyone, welcome to week 2 of the Practice Plan Challenge!
This week we will focus on
Optional: Sightreading
HOW TO START:
1. Take the Practice Plan Quiz if you haven't already!
2. Choose a repertoire piece that you really want to work on the next month
3. Let's focus on the above skills this week
4. Watch the appropriate level video for you from the courses above, and start working through the different concepts and apply them to your repertoire!
Optional: Download the Practice Breakdowns!
The Goals:
- The #1 goal is to improve your pieces/playing by using the tonebase Practice Plan!
- We will all focus on three abilities each week (+ sightreading because this is ALWAYS good for you!).
- The 3 new skills will be announced on Monday of each week so that we can all work on things together!
- We are all different levels, so by clicking on the course links above, you can scroll down to your appropriate leveled video. That is what YOU should watch/work on for the given week.
- Then, you will write or post a video demonstrating how you are working on the different abilities!
- You are encouraged to show how you are trying to apply the abilities in your pieces! (Ex. you watch a scales video, then write how it may have helped improve the ending of Chopin's G minor ballade!)
- With the focused work of this plan and challenge, we should all be able to improve our repertoire over the next month, and post submissions of our final performances to be watched in a "Watch Party!"
- Optional: Use the Practice Breakdowns to help guide your work!
SHARE WHICH REPERTOIRE PIECE YOU HAVE CHOSEN, AND POST EITHER WRITING OR A VIDEO TO SHARE ANY PROGRESS!
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Here’s a reference video for my starting point for the Chopin Etude Op 10 No 4. I took it last week. It’s messy and needs a lot more speed, so I recommend a sense of humor if you watch the video, haha. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fqol6wJWuDY [edit: final submission is https://youtu.be/wOciCHLlS00 ]
It’s a great piece for exposing my weaknesses at the piano, and for working on them. Hopefully my ending video will be noticeably better! We’ll see.
So far I’ve gone through a number of levels of Dominic’s module on scales, particularly to help with my struggling left hand, which had hit a speed wall. For LH scalar passages I tried grouping (mainly groups of 2, 4, and 8 notes for starters) and “sprinting” today, and it made a significant difference. Thanks Dominic Cheli ! (Btw listening to Dominic sprint through scale groupings while watching at 1.5x speed was hilarious.)
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Marc M what a wonderful start!
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Marc M I think this is great, Marc. I look forward to seeing your progress!
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Marc M this has amazing energy and rhythmic drive and sounds very promising already! I think everyone who has ever worked on this piece will listen to you and think "great job!" during many passages, and in other sections "oh yes, I remember well how dreadfully hard THAT is!".
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Alexander Weymann Thank you for the encouragement! It's looking like upping the speed will eventually become the main challenge...I definitely can't play 180 bpm, even with the left hand alone. My left side just doesn't move that fast, haha. I suspect for this challenge I'll just pick a lower tempo that I find barely manageable and run with it!
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Alexander Weymann Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind, and try to think of it more as a march. I haven’t played this etude in front of a teacher or anyone experienced, so I appreciate the feedback!
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Marc M Super happy to hear that the modules are helping you! And LOL at 1.5x speed hahaha!
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Marc M This is going to be good! Pieces like this have a tendency to push us into rushing. I think s l o w - p r a c t i c e is an important way to keep it super clean. Never allow a wrong note, don't worry about building speed, and instead focus on musicality.
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Thank you, Giovanni V.. I appreciate the kind words!
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Here is the first half of the piece I decided to use for this challenge. My teacher gave it to me just last week, so it's super new, but I wanted to post so I could see my progress over the next 10 days or so! Fritz Spindler, "Song Without Words."
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Michelle R good so far!
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