Week 1: Taking your first steps!
Hello and welcome to the WEEK ONE Main Thread for this challenge! 
Alright everyone - this is the thread where we'll all be posting our daily updates.
Make sure you've read the rules before replying (<- click)
Twice a week between May 22 - May 29 I hope to be reading your daily updates in this very thread right here!
Here is this week's assignment!
1. Pick a Lyric Piece of Grieg to study and let us know!
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I've always meant to learn some Grieg, and this is just the motivation I needed. Thanks, Dominic!
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I just started reading waltz and arietta today. Arietta seems more challenging for my small hands.
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ALICE Looking forward to hear you play it!
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ALICE EVERYTHING is challenging for our VERY small hands!! If you look at my practice video, you'll see the weird way I have to play octaves...my hand becomes a little claw to reach that far, LOL!
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Sindre Skarelven I got covid and wasn't able to practice very much. Now working on them again, but won't be ready for performance any time soon.
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Gail Starr I am only able to practice 10 minutes at a time to avoid injuries on my hands. But I do think it's a good stretch for small hands.
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ALICE Glad you feel better now then. Good luck practicing, and take care!
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ALICE I totally know what you mean! I did 90 minutes of the Brahms f minor piano quintet yesterday, and I could barely sign a check today. I have to play it this weekend, though, so I need to review/learn it again!
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Gail Starr hope the Brahms went well - I envy you! Hands down, my favorite piece of chamber music ever. It's been decades that I've played it; it's hard to find (amateur) chamber music partners in the U.S., I think.
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Alexander Weymann I had a fabulous vacation playing in TWO amateur chamber music festivals...I have a VERY nice, long list of all the pieces we read through. I only performed 2: The Piazzola Tango (Verano) and the Mendelssohn Octet adapted for 4-hand piano. But I read ALL kinds of great wind quintets/sextets, plus I tried to do Brahms and Dvorak Quintets.
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Gail Starr Wow, you were busy! That sounds amazing - especially the Mendelssohn octet arranged for piano 4 hands!! I had no idea that existed. Such an exuberant, glorious, radiant piece.
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Alexander Weymann I'm so happy you love the Mendelssohn as much as I do!
If you like, we could TRY to do a video version together. I have done a couple of fun video collaborations with Monika Tusnady and they work fairly well!
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Gail Starr let's talk specifics off line! :-)
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Alexander Weymann We can use FB Messenger, if you like.
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I will try to get op 57-2, "Gade", back up to an acceptable level. Unlike most of the others, "Gade" is not a descriptive title, but the name of Niels Gade, a Danish composer and teacher. He was one of Grieg's teachers. The piece is clearly a dialog between an upper and a lower voice, so teacher and student?
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Sam Smith Thank you for the backstory and insights! Good luck with the piece!
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New to tonebase and this community forum so I hope I am doing this correctly. Knocking 30 years of dust off this one. Lots of technical work to do, but the basic framework of the piece held up pretty decently. Cringing when I listen to all the mistakes but hope to be able to identify them and clean them up shortly. Thanks for any advice to help get this into performance worthy shape.
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Chris Knox bravo! Quite amazing, and thanks for really sharing your progress with us and letting us in on the earlier stages of your working on this music. I especially love how carefully you observe the p and pp instructions in this piece that is often played much too uniformly loud.
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Alexander Weymann thanks so much!
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Chris Knox thanks for sharing the video, Chris. Nice playing! Looking forward to your next video!
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Chris Knox Sounds great! Thanks for sharing!
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Chris Knox sounds wonderful! Thank you. I look forward to hearing it as you practice. It sounds great now.
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Chris Knox Great playing, Chris! Well done having it under your fingers already! Looking forward to hear your progress with this piece.
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Chris Knox Bravo, Chris! Truly wonderful playing!!!
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Welcome to the Tonebase family, Chris! You are doing a great job resurrecting this lovely piece. Can't wait to hear more.
