Week Two: Joie de musique!
Hello and welcome to the WEEK TWO 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 16 - 23 I hope to be reading your daily updates in this very thread right here!
Please use the following format when commenting (feel free to copy & paste!):
- Piece you worked on:
- One thing you found easy:
- One thing you found difficult:
- (Optional): a video of you performing it!
Sample daily update:
- Piece you worked on: Ravel's Prelude
- One thing you found easy: Learning the notes, and rhythms were rather straight-forward, and not challenging!
- One thing you found difficult: Shifting the Hands was a bit tricky to get smooth!
Feel free to make these updates as short or long as you wish!
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Hi all,
I made a practice video of the first 2 pages of the etude today.
- Piece you worked on: Alkan Op 35. no 5
- One thing you found easy: The main theme is very catch after hearing it a few times and is easy to memorise
- One thing you found difficult: Taking a video of myself playing. I found it very distracting and added to my stage anxiety. LOL. I purposely played at a slower speed for the video recording but I still kept messing up the notes and found it hard not to accelerate as the piece progressed.
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Jeff It's sounding very good! You shouldn't be worried about messing up in it. I barely heard the errors, and besides, I think audiences are more forgiving of technical mishap in challenging works like these.
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Jeff Sounds great. Hard to believe you are playing at a slower speed for the recording. Looking forward to hearing the full piece.
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Jeff wow!!!!
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Jeff You sound amazing!
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Gail Starr BTW, I had only known about Bartok's "Allegro Barbaro" before. Thanks for introducing a cool piece to us.
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Gail Starr So Alkan published this piece 6 years before Bartok and gave Bartok the inspiration to write his own version of Allegro B谩rbaro. I also found out that Alkan lived next to Chopin while he lived in Paris and they were friends who admired each other鈥檚 works. Alkan also wrote 24 Etudes in all keys but because he was Jewish, during this life time anti-semitism was ranpant in France, along with a scandal of siring a illegitimate child, very sadly his music was never recognised by the society and was left in oblivion.
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Jeff What amazing info. Thank you so much! Did you read a biography of Alkan that you could recommend?
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Gail Starr Hi Gail, Ronald Smith, who was the president of the Alkan Society wrote a book on Alkan: The Man/The Music, he was also the first pianist who championed the revival of Alkan's music and brought these gems out of obscurity from 1940s. There are also a few pages of information on Alkan's life on Wikipedia. Also, Jack Gibbons who recorded some of Alkan's music has written a short biography that makes an interesting read. Here is the link below:
http://www.jackgibbons.com/alkan.htm
Enjoy the read :)
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Jeff that biography was very interesting! Your video was very high energy! Exciting.
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Jeff sounds great! Well done!
Thanks also for the biography-link, very interesting! -
Jeff Very good playing, Jeff! Powerful!
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I apologize that I didn't get any work done this week; I had a wedding to play for today, and so that took a lot of time (I didn't play any French music for it... It was all German, now that I think about), and I also have to finish learning the prelude from the Bach prelude and fugue that I had shown during Bach month. I hope to work some on it next week. I've listened to some of the recordings this week, however, and you all are progressing very well! I'm looking forward to here the completions next week!
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Thurmond R Same here! I had to go out of town and couldn't practice.
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Piece you worked on: Faure鈥檚 Romance Sans Paroles Op 17 No 3. Made it to the end of the piece this week (with a few blips of course).
One thing you found easy: Memorizing the piece. A lot of patterns (especially in the left hand). Also has very clear sections so it鈥檚 easier to learn in small parts.
One thing you found difficult: Maintaining the tempo, especially in parts where it got louder.Next week hope to get more secure with the notes and incorporate better dynamics.
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Vidhya Bashyam beautiful piece Vidhya and sounding very nice!
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Derek McConville Thanks!
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Vidhya Bashyam I love your playing, and I never knew about this lovely piece. However, your video is REALLY soft when I watch you on my Macbook. I've turned up my volume and my end, but it's still hard to hear. Maybe you record with your mic a bit closer next time?
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Gail Starr Thanks! Yes, realized only earlier today that it was really low volume. My mike was actually sitting right on the piano. Just did a bad job with the settings. Will test it out better next time :)
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Vidhya Bashyam it鈥檚 sort of the opposite of my recording problem! I have a ton of echo in my house which makes things too loud.
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Gail Starr It was too late at night and I obviously need to pay more attention to the mike gain settings. I was just happy to get through the piece without too many mistakes and posted it too quickly.
Hopefully will record a better version this week. -
Vidhya Bashyam I played it again on my phone with my earbuds and you sounded great!
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Vidhya Bashyam beautifully played :)
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Jeff Thanks!
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Vidhya Bashyam Wonderful playing! I need to add this piece lovely to my library!
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Vidhya Bashyam Beautiful played, Vidhya! You keep very well an appropriate tempo throughout the piece.
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