Khoa's Practice Diary
(update 2022.11.26)
Hi all! Thank you for joining me along my practice sessions. A quick summary about me -- I played piano for 11 years before stopping in college. I'm now 26 and I recently got a piano and have been reviving my piano skills since!
I'll list below pieces I'm learning (still going through the nuts and bolts), pieces I'm improving (getting the sound right), I'll also share my RCM Level 10 Exam repertoire in May-June 2023 and its current progress. The repertoire is tentative – I'm still exploring changes as my practice progresses!
Pieces I'm Improving
- Bach, Prelude in G Major, BWV 884
- Beethoven, Sonata #8 in C Minor, Op. 13 (Pathetique), Mvts 1 and 2
- Beethoven, Sonata #23 in F Minor , Op. 57 (Appassionata), Mvt 1
- Schubert, Impromptu in G-flat Major, Op. 90, No. 3
- Chopin, Grande valse brillante in B-flat Major, Op. 18
Pieces I'm Learning
- Bach, Fugue in G Major, BWV 884
- Beethoven, Sonata #8 in C Minor, Op. 13 (Pathetique), Mvt 3
- Schubert, Impromptu in E-flat Minor, Op. 90, No. 2
- Chopin, Nocturne in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 27, No. 1
- Dett, Dance (In the Bottoms)
RCM 10 Repertoire (tentative 2022.11.26)
- Bach, Prelude and Fugue in G Major, BWV 884
- Beethoven, Sonata #8 in C Minor, Op. 13 (Pathetique), Mvts 1 and 2
- Schubert, Impromptu in G-flat Major, Op. 90, No. 3
- Rachmaninov, Prelude in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 3, No. 2
- Dett, Dance (In the Bottoms)
- Chopin, Etude Op. 10, No. 3
- Dohnanyi, Postludium, Op. 13, No. 10
-
2022.11.27
Here’s my recent attempt at playing Schubert’s piece by memory. https://youtu.be/GASE1nMWXuU
still lots of work to do! I do want to pick up the pace a bit more without rushing. I think my speed is not consistent for this piece yet.
-
Khoa Phan Howard Sounds great. Good luck with your exams- you have a great selection of pieces.
-
Vidhya Bashyam Thank you so much!
-
Khoa Phan Howard I thought that sounded fantastic! I didn't feel the tempo was all over the place. It had a good pulse, and you played very expressively. I'm so happy that you got a piano! Looking forward to hearing more pieces. You've got a lot of exciting repertoire in front of you :-)
-
Leah Olson Thank you so much Leah!
-
-
2022.12.04
I've been going through a few Tonebase videos, especially the Pillars of Piano Technique ones that have been so helpful.
Here's my current progress on the Bach Prelude and Fugue in G major. The Prelude I've finished learning, but still need to work on phrasing. The Fugue I'm almost done learning as you will see.
Prelude: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOTzGoNq-ck
Fugue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2evCtPn-64s
The plan for the Bach pieces is to finish the Bach intro series on Tonebase to get more baseline familiarity with how to understand and play Bach. Before getting back to piano recently, I was very much stuck in the Classical/Romantic periods, so it is very good to get myself more familiar with other periods!
I did my first run-through of Appassionata 1 with my piano teacher, and it was a MESS. Alas, gotta start somewhere! My teacher suggested that I go through the piece at 40 BPM and without pedal. These suggestions have been extremely important (and also a test of patience), as I've been a reckless player of this piece. So there's PLENTY of work to do on this!
I've also signed up to perform the Schubert piece at the Piano Society in my area in a few weeks. My goal is to perform as many of my exam repertoire pieces in front of an audience as possible, to get myself more comfortable with public performance.
Thank you for following along! --Khoa
-
Khoa Phan Howard The prelude sounds solid and the fugue is coming along well. Have you listened to Andras Schiff play Bach? He does a great job of capturing the personality of each separate voice through phrasing and articulation. It's helped me a lot in my interpretations.
I love the idea of setting a metronome to 40. I get reckless as well :-) I'm thinking of two spots in my current piece where I should try that. Thanks so much for mentioning. Good luck at your upcoming performance!
-
Leah Olson Thank you! I love Schiff and I use his versions as my guide also. For this G major piece in particular, the Glenn Gould version is pretty wack. I'm curious what you think of it!
-
Khoa Phan Howard This one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd1E8ICE2qs? He is so sassy. I think Gould is interesting. To my ears he has a percussive, aggressive, rhythmic sound, and I don't mean that in a bad way. It's like watching a drum corps perform--very exciting. I think it's hilarious that his version is 2 minutes, and Schiff's version is 4 minutes. I actually think the extreme speed detracts from the performance, rather than making it sound virtuosic, but some people really enjoy speed.
My teacher likes to say that whatever the pianist is listening to in the music, the audience will hear. When I listen to Gould or Schiff, I can tell that both of them have a clear understanding of polyphony. They're not hearing melody and harmony; they're hearing multiple voices simultaneously, and then choosing which one to shine a spotlight on in each moment. Sometimes it's the soprano, sometimes a duet between alto and soprano, sometimes the bass steps forward to add a little flourish. Oftentimes when people play Bach, it sounds like a wall of sound, not three or four unique voices.
The only way I know how to practice this is lots and lots of time rehearsing each individual voice after I have the piece hands together. I've only been playing for five or six years, and polyphony doesn't come naturally to me. I need a lot of time listening to each individual voice on its own, then soprano and bass together, then alto and soprano, then alto and bass, etc. Eventually, I can keep track of them all while playing hands together. I still don't sound like Schiff, though!
-
Leah Olson I love your thoughts here on speed on these two pianists! At my current stage, striving for Gould's speed would be utterly foolish! Listening to Gould's again though, I really like how his speed allows for the movement of the melody comes through in the first 7 bars (where the melody is staggered in between Ds on the right hand As on the left).
And yeah, when I was learning piano in grade school, I found Bach so boring, and I was much more fixated on the Romantics. Now, I really appreciate Bach and am pushing myself to learn more of his work. And a big part of that appreciation (and difficulty) comes from embracing the polyphony of it. My teacher also nudges me to break up pieces to voices and decided when to highlight which -- this really applies with the Schubert 90.3 and Beethoven's Pathetique 2. So yeah, plenty to learn! Also a reminder for me to finish learning the Intro to Bach series here!
-
-
Hi all! It's been a while since my last update amidst the hectic weeks. I've definitely gotten a decent amount of practice in! The two new pieces I've worked on in the last few weeks are Chopin's Nocturne 27.1 and Rachmaninoff's Prelude 3.2. The Rach piece is a delight to learn! And the Chopin piece has been... brutal, especially the left hand.
I'm finishing learning Debussy's Girl with Flaxen Hair, and next on the list would be Mozart's K332 Sonata in F major!
Here's a clip of where I am on the Nocturne!
-
Khoa Phan Howard wow! Nicely played.
-
Khoa Phan Howard There is so much despair in this piece. I think you're capturing that, as well as the shift to a gentler and more hopeful mood at the end. Well done!
-
Leah Olson Michelle R Thank you so much!
-
Khoa Phan Howard Beautiful playing!
-
Khoa Phan Howard BEAUTIFUL !!! XXXXXX
-
-
So I just got through the Debussy piece. Slightly on the slower end, but it's a good start! The next one on the list is Mozart's KV 332!
-
Khoa Phan Howard Beautiful! I just love playing this piece. It's like instant peace. Have fun with K332. The middle movement is especially beautiful.
-
