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!

 

162 replies

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    • Simon_Payne
    • 2 days ago
    • Reported - view

    I would like to try Rachmaninoff prelude op 32 no 5. I had some lessons on this, years ago but stopped before any real progress was made. Best wishes Simon 

      • Akzent oder Diminuendo? • Hanon/Herz student
      • Maria_F
      • 2 days ago
      • Reported - view

       I half-finished Prelude in G Minor (Op. 23 no. 5)! 

      • TT2022
      • 2 days ago
      • Reported - view

       You mentioned the magic words half-finished — that would qualify perfectly for this "Unfinished Business" challenge!! 
      (Along with the several other half-finished pieces you mentioned too of course)

      • Akzent oder Diminuendo? • Hanon/Herz student
      • Maria_F
      • 2 days ago
      • Reported - view

       The problem is that my hands are too small. 

    • Kerstin
    • 2 days ago
    • Reported - view

    I want to use this challenge to finish relearning my own composition from 1987. I have started it already and can play it somehow, but I want to bring it up on a stage-performance-level. 

      • Noel_Nguyen
      • 2 days ago
      • Reported - view

        Can you tell us a bit about your composition? What was your inspiration, musically and extra-musically? Or perhaps you prefer not to tell yet?

      • Kerstin
      • Yesterday
      • Reported - view

       Hi Noel! That was almost 40 years ago. I had my last piano exam in the special school of music before my study and I needed to play a modern piece too, but I couldn’t find one I liked. So I composed one by myself. It has three parts. When I look at it today - the first part is okay, the second part is terrible and the third part/Scherzo I still like. I can’t remember, that I have thought about something special. The only thought I remember is, it has to be difficult enough. 🤣 The other things are only my feelings how it should go. I don’t even know why I called it scherzo. It’s not in 3/4 it’s in 5/8. 😊

      • Akzent oder Diminuendo? • Hanon/Herz student
      • Maria_F
      • Yesterday
      • Reported - view

       I look forward to hopefully hearing your composition!

      • Kerstin
      • Yesterday
      • Reported - view

      I will post a record in the next weeks.

      • Noel_Nguyen
      • Yesterday
      • Reported - view

        Looking forward to hearing your ... anything, really!

      • Akzent oder Diminuendo? • Hanon/Herz student
      • Maria_F
      • Yesterday
      • Reported - view

       I have composed some, but I don't particularly like any of my compositions. 

      • Kerstin
      • Yesterday
      • Reported - view

       Oh, but it’s great you tried it. Composing is a hard job. I haven’t done it again. But funny enough I dug it up this year and played it for some piano enthusiasts and all like it. And one person want to play it. All is possible. If I had more time, I would like to compose again. 🙋‍♀️

      • Akzent oder Diminuendo? • Hanon/Herz student
      • Maria_F
      • 16 hrs ago
      • Reported - view

       I enjoy composing but I don't enjoy my compositions. I am currently trying to write Lieder but I haven't liked what I have come up with. 

    • Pianist, composer and piano teacher
    • Sindre_Skarelven
    • 2 days ago
    • Reported - view

    As we are about to start on this journey into the galaxy on May the fourth, should we perhaps take with us this quote from master Yoda: “do or do not, there is no try”  ? Looking forward to hear everyone! 

      • Pediatrician
      • a_weymann
      • 2 days ago
      • Reported - view

       oh, I didn’t even think of that wonderful quote in this context, but it obviously is the PERFECT motto! 

    • Graeme_Cameron_Wilkinson.1
    • 2 days ago
    • Reported - view

    The 3rd mvmt of the Ravel Piano Concerto in G is my ongoing challenge.

      • TT2022
      • 2 days ago
      • Reported - view

       Whoaaa! Can't wait to see/hear your progress on this! 

      • Pediatrician
      • a_weymann
      • 2 days ago
      • Reported - view

       I imagine that one would remain an ongoing challenge for 99% of pianists. 😂 Didn’t Ravel have to ask Marguerite Long to play the première of this concerto because he couldn’t get it performance-ready in time? I think I remember reading something like that… At any rate: it’s a beast. Kudos! 

    • Amateur piano enthusiast
    • Marc_M
    • 2 days ago
    • Reported - view

    I'm working on the Liszt Eroica etude (i.e. doing LOTS of RH arpeggio reps and octaves lol), but I really ought to finish the Scriabin prelude op 11 no. 11. I learned the second page a while back and made a little headway on the first page, so it shouldn't be too hard to wrap it up this month!

    • Akzent oder Diminuendo? • Hanon/Herz student
    • Maria_F
    • 2 days ago
    • Reported - view

    I am playing Chopin's Mazurka in G Minor Op. 67, no. 2, and probably also his Waltz in E Major KK IVa/12. 

    • Mel.1
    • 2 days ago
    • Reported - view

    what an amazing list so far! this is my first participation in this community and I'm excited to join. I just restarted working on Beethoven's Sonata #30 op 109 as part of a real return to piano the last few years. I stopped being satisfied with a SERIOUSLY uneven skill set, and with new attention to dynamics, pedaling, voicing I want to see how far I can go. 

    • Paul_Larson
    • 2 days ago
    • Reported - view

    I'm working on Schubert's Standchen "Serenade" arranged by Liszt. S.560 No. 7

      • hot4euterpe
      • 2 days ago
      • Reported - view

       Hi Paul! This is an absolute favourite of mine. I performed it several years ago in a faculty recital and still come back to it now and then. I actually enjoy Liszt's song transcriptions more than a good chunk of his own original repertoire! Looking forward to hearing your work on this fantastic piece =)

      • Paul_Larson
      • Yesterday
      • Reported - view

       Thanks, I have work to do on it. 

      • Paul_Larson
      • Yesterday
      • Reported - view

       

      Here are measures 1-22. 

      https://youtu.be/b_yYmZtWGB4?feature=shared

Content aside

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