Week 2: Beethoven in Focus “Mastering a Passage”
Welcome to Week 2!
Goal: Work on a challenging excerpt or section of your Beethoven piece.
- Challenge: Pick a passage from a Beethoven piece you admire (or struggle with!) and aim to master it by the end of the week. Whether it’s a movement or entire piece, break it down into smaller sections
- Practice: Focus on technical aspects like fingering, articulation, and phrasing. Consider using a metronome to gradually increase tempo.
Share with us your progress from "day 1" to the end of the week! Let's get focused this week!
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Hi, everyone.
Working with tricky parts. Day 2 (it’s Tuesday so).
1) ghost notes here and there, voicing right hand2) tempo: my favorite recording is Ashkenazy. Listen him carefully
3) dynamic: same. Listen Ashkenazy
4) pedal: it’s too much. how to less pedal without losing flow of music…
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Sachi Lovely! Sounds so clear. I like Ashkenazy’s Beethoven recordings too!
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Vidhya Bashyam Thank you for your kind comments. Nice, you like Ashkenazy, too. Yes, I’m really fond of Ashkenazy’s Beethoven. I guess it’s because his timing and phrasing appeal to me, making the music so alive and interesting to listen to.
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Sachi And you combine a light, détaché LH with a singing line in the RH. Lovely!
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Gail Starr Thank you:) I watched again Tonebase turotial by John O`conor. His interpretation sounds pretty different from what I hear from Ashkenazy`s recording. Both are beautiful, maybe I will practice the way John O`conor tells us. He is great pianist and has such friendly earthly personality. I like his tutorials :)
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Sachi He's great and his courses are very well done! After all the wonderful listening and learning, I think you should take a look at the score and see what it tells uniquely to you.
Ciao!
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Letizia I will try my best
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Sachi that sounds very nice! We are indeed twins with this selection:)
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Hi everyone, please see my update for the Pathetique Sonata which I am coincidentally working on for another challenge. Just the first part this week and main challenge is balancing the voices which is work in progress!
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Derek McConville pretty warm and soothing sound - lovely
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Derek McConville I agree with Priya- very warm and soothing!
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Derek McConville oh, this is good!
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Derek McConville Played like a true professional. Lovely tempo.
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Derek McConville Hi, you are my twin :) Good luck to both of us
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This week I post the Second movement of Moonlight Sonata. To match the dear fellows' Pathetique II.
Take a listen and let me know!
https://youtu.be/l2aDBB4BYds?si=lFpmKsGSkMcpvPH8
Ciao!
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Letizia Love both second movements! Nice playing!
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My work in-progress on the Bagatelle op33 no1 after a week of bringing it back
https://youtu.be/RAV3mVmRulA?si=35jfuoIuIx_hS2jH
Still rough on the edges: can do more with the phrasing, dynamics and crispier runs, so that will be my focus next week.
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Priya Viseskul what a funny happy and bright piece! I like it!
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Letizia yes - not very often we get to hear a happy Beethoven!
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Priya Viseskul Great playing of an interesting piece! Love your dynamics.
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Beethoven sonata no 24, Op 78: I have worked a lot on different passages this week. Here are two of my practice session videos to check on my progress:
(1) development and begin of recapitulation 1st mvt
https://youtube.com/shorts/ExVPpe7SdsA?si=uTQ7vEoEGgrMd5XX
(2) end of 1st mvthttps://youtube.com/shorts/Ycx4IWwJceA?si=ZIjc9Y7g9bEXoAMy
I didn’t have the time to make a full recording. Hope to do that tomorrow evening
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Ursina Boehm Even these smaller practice videos are so wonderful to listen to!
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Here’s some metronome practice, starting from the middle. For fun (and added challenge) I set my loop pedal to a samba beat.
https://youtu.be/TCQFGPD9xgYI goofed the transition at the end of the minor section…Will need to fix that.
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Marc M I like your samba loop! I need to create something similar for myself and my students. This mix of pop and classic is so funny
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Hi all
this probably should have been included in week 1
anyway , here is a run through of first movement sonata op101
happy I got through it without too many mistakes, but still a fair bit of detail to work on
comments welcome!
Beethoven sonata
Op101
First movement
