Week 1: A New Hope

Dustin Anderson I haven't seen anything yet either.

Dustin Anderson As I didn’t get around to posting in Week 1, I was wondering too, but haven’t seen anything yet.

Dustin Anderson yup, same here. I checked very frequently today - nothing. Of course, Dominic is on the West Coast where it’s still in the early evening hours. 

Peter William Hi Peter - thank you for sharing your progress on this great work. I know this concerto quite well; it was the first concerto I ever learned and performed =) I can hear a sparkle and gliding quality emerge at times which really suits the piece well. You also have a certain energy that conveys how much you enjoy this piece. I am curious what drew you to this concerto in particular?

Since you used the word struggle, I just want to say that if you ever have any questions about this work, I am happy to help if I can. I am sure others will too!  

Thank you again for sharing - I know it is not easy to put ourselves out there!

Dustin Anderson Thank you Maestro!! for the words of encouragement!. This is what I absolutely love about ToneBase - that there is a space for all levels - rank beginners ( like myself ) to fairly advanced players. I have seen your video above and cannot even dream of playing like that ! :-).

To your question about what drew me to this concerto? At the time I was watching a lot of YT videos of the great masters and came across Vladimir Ashkenazy conducting and playing this concerto in a small setting. Heard the second movement and really liked it a lot.  My musical level is rather low ( no real training ) so went to IMSLP and got the score. Then I heard Eschenbach's version ( liked that a lot as well ) and found Murray Perahia's version. This wonderful version somehow resonated a lot with me and so used the YT version ( slowed the tempo to about 80 .. and started to follow Perahia's playing with the score - little by little - until I could hear it exactly on the beat ) The journey started about 2.5 years ago so as you can easily tell the playing sounds like a struggle even to me   :-).. But I have set this as a learning piece and am deriving lots of little nuggets from playing sectionseveryday (except when on vacation  )

To your question, why do I say it is a struggle? Yes because when I listen to the playback like above - I feel it doesn't sound very musical and smooth. I wanted to hear some feedback hence decided to post and hear what the accomplished players would spot immediately. Here are my thoughts on my playing on what to do. 

1. Split into sections of just 2 pages

2. I have done a very poor job of memorizing - as I was always focussing on improving my sight reading, but did an experiment on learning the 1st 30 bars and got it mostly memorized in a 2 sessions. So need to now just focus on memorizing 2 pages at a time.   

3.  I should lower the tempo down to about 108bpm to the quarter note for the memorization and only after move it higher.  The experiment above was around 120bpm.

4. There are aspects of phrasing, arm movement, articulation that I know nothing about !.. which will most likely be addressed after the points 1 & 2 are worked on.    

Any advice that you have on this concerto will be invaluable for me ( I may have already put several hundred hours on this - and can easily continue just this concerto for another year .. :-) ) Specifically what TB courses I should work in parallel. I have done about 12 so far - which are helping a lot! Thank you! again for your words of encouragement.

Peter William Hi Peter! Sorry for long delay in follow up. I wanted to have a chance to think about what to suggest and have a quick look at the concerto again myself. There are so many little technical moments that a person could discuss but I think I would best summarize as follows:

- I would suggest isolating your LH practice and explore the motions required to play the figures easily sooner rather than later. The gestures of the arm and wrist are a key part of the notes being manageable. You have some Alberti bass figures and some tremolo passages. Rotation is a key part of playing these types of figurations easily and lightly.

I looked up what Tonebase has on this and I would really suggest exploring the lesson series "The Pillars of Piano Technique" with Penelope Roskell. One of the lessons is on rotation but you will find that a number of those lessons relate to this concerto.

- The scale passages in the LH can be hard or easy depending on fingering. I would review those parts and explore what is getting in the way of you playing them as evenly as your RH scales. I would also suggest leaving out the ornaments until you have greater note security.

- I would encourage isolating smaller sections / phrases and locking down the alignment between the hands to a metronome. You mentioned some bpm above but the precise bpm doesn't matter as much as your adherence to it. If you can play these passages in control at a moderately slow pace, you are setting yourself up for successfully execution at faster tempo. Proper proportion of the note values is more important than any specific tempo.

I hope that helps and is not offering too much. With your story of how you fell in love with this piece I am certainly invested in you playing it to your satisfaction =) If you have any specific questions, please feel welcome to follow up. Happy practicing!

Dustin Anderson Thank you Dustin! for the terrific feedback.  Totally agree with what was pretty easy for you to spot !.. :-) .. Para 1 on LH.. smaller sections. So I did some more experiments after posting .. 

1. I went back to thinking slow practice is what I need to get back to. During the recording I was playing at a pace way way above what I can do. 

So this morning's session I should have recorded but didn't. I looked at one of my favorite recordings Christoph Eschenbach.. ( YT ). I think his tempo is set at 136bpm ( please correct me - I always use a digital metronome as a tool to check if I am hearing correctly ) . So I moved the slider to 0.85  and could hear the first movement rather clearly without distortion.. Then I went to the piano and set the metronome to 108 bpm and started to play all the 12 pages with only the RH. I could get through the first 9 pages without feeling stressed out but I left out the entire LH section.  This felt ok. The page turning stops are there,but I am going to get foot pedal in about a week and will abandon the pages and just use the iPad with the foot pedal for turning. But for now I am going to do a late evening practise session at 108 only LH and then try putting both together at 108bpm.. I suspect there will be very major breaks so may have to lower it further to get at least the notes and the rhythm precise. Not sure how the experiment is going to go. But the weekend is coming up so there will be plenty of room to practise as rain is on the way.. I will post on YT again in a couple of days on the new experiments. :-)