Week 1 Thread: Exploring the 18th Century!
Welcome to the Main Thread for the third week of "Mozart & Haydn - Music from the 18th Century" challenge!
- Make sure you've read the guidelines before replying (<- click)
- Watch the kickoff livestream! (<- click)
Most of the time, the music for keyboard instruments written during the 18th century is defined as simple, pleasing, and overall superficial. And yet, the works written during this period contain the seeds for the development of larger musical forms.
This week we will start looking at music from a different perspective and consider the musical elements as building blocks of a structure that is meant to communicate a message.
Pick a piece from the suggested repertoire according to your level or share any piece written during the 18th century that you have been working on!
Post in the forum what you discovered playing your piece and your goals for this challenge!
If you want to describe your process, feel free to use the following template.
- Piece(s) you have been working on:
- Things you found easy:
- Things you found difficult:
Happy sharing 
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My bestie in France (Monika) and I decided to be "accountability partners" for the Haydn Sonata in b minor. We are starting with the 2nd mvt (Menuet). Here's my Day 1!
Monika had the excellent idea to divide the main figure between the two hands, in order to avoid a "bump" in the jump to a higher note.
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Gail Starr Sounds beautiful! I just love the clarity of your playing.
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Vidhya Bashyam Thank you, Vidhya. I am using the new stand you recommended...BUT, now I can't use the little microphone that attaches to my phone because then the phone it won't fit on the stand.
UGH. I normally love technology, but nowI may have to spend more to get a REAL microphone, I guess?
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Gail Starr Ahh. You must have the Shure mic? I guess it would work with your iPad but that is what you are using for your sheet music. I bought the apogee hype mic, which connects with a cable to the IPhone or iPad but I wish I had waited for the excellent tonebase event by Martin on how to record your piano- he made some great recommendations. https://app.tonebase.co/piano/live/player/recording-yourself-what-do-you-actually-need
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Gail Starr wonderful music beautifully played, Gail! A perfect start for this challenge. Thanks for sharing.
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Gail Starr Beautiful! So nice that you are posting right away! Looking forward to hear more.
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Gail Starr beautiful! What a fun idea to collaborate. Helpful too it would seem as “two heads are better than one” for problem solving.
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Vidhya Bashyam Nope, I haven’t bought the Shure mic yet…I did watch Martin’s excellent classes and decided to wait a bit before I purchased one. All I use is a tiny mic that plugs into the charging port on your phone. I need a Shure now!
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Susan Rogers Monika is a great learning partner...even though we live an ocean apart, we try to talk often and do 4-hand pieces sometimes, as well. We both love learning languages, too.
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Sindre Skarelven Monika & I decided to work on small sections and post often to keep ourselves from reaching the final week of the Challenge and forgetting to post at all! (If I didn't have her help, I'd never post, LOL).
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Andrea Buckland This time we are trying to post little parts of the piece, as soon as we work on them. Otherwise, I get to the end of the Challenge and run out of time!
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Gail Starr great idea
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Gail Starr so beautiful! Bravo! Such a great performance for the short period of time. I love how you make the two repeated notes sound different. Those details make every performance very beautiful. Great job!!!
one small thing you could improve might be the upbeat notes to the beginning of the phrases: I have the idea of small beautiful pearls falling on the downbeat :) No rush in playing them. -
Antonella Di Giulio What an excellent suggestion! I will try that.
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Gail Starr Sounds great, Gail, elegant and beautiful.
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Juan Carlos Olite muchísimas gracias!
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Gail Starr that sounds really crisp and clear, really nice!
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Gail Starr and I are LOVING learning the Haydn b minor together. It's challenging enough to engage us, yet doable enough for us to concentrate on its structural and musical aspects. Here is the Minuet and Trio.
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Monika Tusnady Beautiful, this is really inspiring and helpful. Thank you for sharing. I noticed that when I practice for a long while (on much easier pieces btw) I actually choke, or gasp when I finish playing, because I forget to breath and noticed that you do it quite consciously. Any advise on this?
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Roy Good question! I actually breathe loudly when I'm first learning a piece - it's so embarrassing! Maybe mark your score with BREATH where you want to take a musical breath - maybe your lungs will, too?
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Monika Tusnady I love your light and fluffy trills! I’m really struggling with making mine clearer. I’ll record the Trio after my morning run!
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Monika Tusnady that's a great idea, thank you, I will try marking down what I think are musical breaths on the sheet and see what happens. And to my humble opinion, it's anything but embarrassing, piano can feel a little synthetic compared to some other instruments and this gives another layer of closeness to the player and his thoughts. In this line, I also love watching pianists, it's so much more informative and interesting than only listening (some pianists more than others).
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Monika Tusnady very beautiful! I love your beautiful trills and the phrasing.
great job!I would start working a bit more on soma nuances in the dynamic, now that you are that far.
if I might make a tiny correction: check the last measures of the second section of the trio. It feels like you are holding the first notes at the quadruplets a tiny bit longer.
Other than that… super great job. Loved listening to your performance.
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Roy yes, Piano might be a very uninteresting instrument. And our job is to make it as interesting as human beings can be.
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Gail Starr look at how she is playing the trills… the weight of her arm is off the keys and the wrist goes a bit lower. I do not know if Monika Tusnady does that consciously or unconsciously, but that is the reason why her trills sound so brilliant
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