Week 1: A New Hope
Starting on May 4th...
Welcome to the Unfinished Business Challenge — and the beginning of our four-week musical adventure!
Every great journey starts with a first step (and some hope!) This week is about choosing your piece: something you’ve always wanted to learn, something you started and left behind, or something unfinished that keeps calling you back.
This Week’s Mission
Choose one piece (or excerpt) to stay with throughout the challenge.
A few ideas:
- A piece you’ve always meant to finish
- Something abandoned years ago that deserves a second life
- A new piece you’ve been waiting for the right moment to begin
- A small excerpt from a larger dream piece
Big or small, all choices are welcome. What matters is that it feels like your unfinished business.
This Week, Share:
- What piece did you choose?
- Why this piece?
- Is there a musical challenge or goal you hope to work through this month?
If you’d like, post a recording of where you’re starting from — even a rough first read. We’d love to hear it.
Over the next four weeks we’ll build momentum together!
166 replies
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Having been inspired by the Live-stream today, I must say in regards to one of the points from Dominic that boredom has never been an issue for me (as a reason for leaving pieces). The main issue is always that the Unfinished Business list is long and keeps growing and can distract. The contributing factor in this is Tonebase as everyone here (yes I'm looking at you) keeps reminding me of pieces that I want to work on or need to revisit. Let's just say, Sindre, is the latest example of this as you will see shortly (thank you very much!).
I have a list of four pieces. I am going to pick one for this next month. The others will follow hopefully in the time left in 2026. It is time to remove the cobwebs away and revive the past and take care of unfinished business!
1) Beethoven: 32 Variationen in c minor
2) Schumann: Fantasie Opus 17 in C major, 1st movement
3) Rachmaninoff: Moment Musical No. 1 in b-flat minor
4) Chopin: Scherzo No. 2 in b-flat minor (yes, this one is Sindre's fault. Thanks for the reminder ;-))
It will be a struggle session today. I'll test out the waters today and see which way my mood will take me. Hopefully, I'll know soon.
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Hi,
I mentioned in today’s livestream that there are three left-hand root-7-3s (see attachment) in the Keith Jarrett piece Heartland (in F Major) that I have been struggling with for aeons. I have been stretching at and away from the piano and I am getting closer but it is taking soooo long. Any advice on technique/stretching/anything else that might help will be much appreciated. My teacher says that my hand is big enough and that I will be able to crack it if I carry on, but I need to make progress so I can move on..
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This challenge will inspire me to carry on learning Schubert Moments Musicaux no.4, which I was about to abandon.
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I have 3 choices and haven't decided yet. 1. JS Bach "Sheep May Safely Graze" (I had to set this one aside because of elbow pain - I think it was those inner melodic voices!!) 2. Liszt/Schumann "Widmung" (I started this last year but other pieces took precedence and I put it aside) 3. Earl Wild/Gershwin "Embraceable You" (I brought this to my lessons a year or so ago, but it also got moved to the parking lot while other pieces took over. My mother sang this at my wedding - It was her favorite piece. Hmmmmmm....I think I better chose this one!!!)
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I think I’ll use this challenge as an opportunity to complete Chopin’s Grande Polonaise brillante op. 22! I learned the first half about 8 years ago before life got in the way, would love to finally finish it off. (If I have time, I’ll throw in relearning the Andante Spianato as a bonus)
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Wow, I’m so impressed by the dedication and enthusiasm of the members of this community, fantastic !! Looking forward to hearing all these contributions.
For myself , my ‘ unfinished ‘ business is actually preparing pieces for my upcoming AmusA examination in August / September
so I plan to present movements 3 and 4 (adagio and allegro) from Handel’s keyboard suite in F . The allegro is a fugue , so I’ve been rewatching Dominic’s talk on this subject , very helpful !
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Thank you Dominic and Tonebase for providing us such great opportunity and encouragement.
I have two pieces in mind: either Liszt: Liebestraum no.3 the last section «dolce armonioso» or the last page of Chopin prelude op.28-13.
I have chosen the Chopin prelude because this one is dear to me. I just love this one.
I wanted to learn the prelude during Chopin challenge, but time was running short. I need to work with the last half. -
Well, I just tried out the coda of the Barcarolle after learning the notes for the first time a few months ago. (I had to put it in cold storage over the past few months due to other commitments taking precedence.) I just tried it out today and cold recorded myself and it’s patchy and I’m hunting around for notes here and there. So I’m debating whether to share a shambolic Week 1 video as a baseline or not 😅
Will see if others do the same! Nothing like solidarity in collective week 1 beginnings…!
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I’m going to pick a hope-themed motto for each week. This week, it shall be: “Hope is no strategy”. 😆 Although I guess Dominic will give different titles to subsequent weeks…? 🤔
