Week 1: Choose your piece!
Welcome to the latest Community Challenge!
For this challenge "A Fresh Start" the goal is to pick a BRAND-NEW piece to work on this month.
This is the time to finally open that score that you have been thinking about and get to work!
What are we doing in week 1?
- Select your New piece to work on, and share it below! Let's see what everyone is choosing!
- Submit one video of your practice this week, perhaps featuring your favorite passage of the opening bars!
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I would like to do the 3rd Novelette of the Trois Novelettes by Poulenc. I'm already quite familiar with playing the 1st two, but haven't started on the 3rd one yet. It has a lovely languid feel with a theme inspired by Falla's opera El Amor Brujo.
As this is a 4- rather than 3 week challenge, I'd like to try learn another piece - Rachmaninov's Etude Tableau op 33 no 4 in D minor. I've fingered it through once or twice, but now would really like to put my mind to learning it. This is my 1st encounter of a Rach work outside of his Preludes, and I think would be a nice companion to the Preludes in D minor Op 23, and G# minor in Op 32.
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Vidhya Bashyam Thank you. I’ve been busy for a while and happy to have some time to return to TB. Will you play something too? We re still waiting for the transcriptions challenge!
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Ching Lee Goh can’t wait to hear this!
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Ching Lee Goh Yes- I am going to play a more manageable Rach piece- moments musicaux #5.
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Ching Lee Goh great choice; I love that étude! Very excited to hear you play it.
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Ching Lee Goh Wonderful choice! Can't wait to hear your playing it!
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I've played No. 1 from Scriabin's 3 Morceaux Op. 2 years ago, and always thinking about finishing the other two. This is a hint to start working on them.
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3 minute video of my first day in learning the Scriabin Etude Op. 8 No. 8.
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Jack vreeland I also found doing a lot of preparation / work away from the piano to be helpful for learning the Scriabin etude I'm working on! Especially some of those "1 minute, 10 minute, 1 hour" challenges on YouTube - can really glean some helpful hints on how to approach the tricky parts.
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Jack vreeland I love your methodical approach and organization. Sometimes I feel like all the pieces I’m working on are sort of scattered and then I start and forget about some. I’ll have to check out that app you use
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Judy Kuan Thanks. I don't know about the YouTube time challenges. What is that about?
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Andrea LeVan I have learned the hard way to go really slow at the start. The app is a bit old school with its interface, but I find it really helpful as it generates a playlist list that sorts what I am working on in order of last time practiced. Mostly I like to track just how long I have worked on each piece. And to see how long I spend in any given month or year. Keeps me on focus.
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Judy Kuan have you looked at this doc? 242 pages. FYI: It downloads automatically when you click the link. https://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za/server/api/core/bitstreams/8451f163-9fde-422d-a22c-88c99435dbb7/content
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Jack vreeland This is one made by Annique Gottler that I watched for Op. 8 No. 12, which was requested by a lot of her viewers. If I see one for No. 8, I'll let you know! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6cDOpDpqp8
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Jack vreeland Wow, what a great resource! Thanks for sharing
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This is where I am so far. A long way to go, but I'm enjoying it!
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maijahildur So charming! Thank you for introducing me to this piece.
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Lit! The Gershwin Preludes have been in my bucket since I was a kid, and it is the only bucket piece that appears in my Tonebase "level", so I'm watching the lesson by Peter Dugan and listening to my friend's trio album repeatedly, Steve Boudreau Trio (https://music.apple.com/ca/album/preludes/1198742281). The RCM never graded them, so that's probably why I never played them.I think No. 1 is doable for the month, though I'm shortening some of the large stretchy chords for now ...
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Grace Love these preludes! (No. 1 is my favorite) Good luck with them!
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I spent the first couple of days just listening to various recordings of Prelude No. 1. I worked out the fingering that I feel comfortable with, compacted the gross LH chords by bringing in the furthest note an octave. I think it sounds okay for now while I’m just learning.
I also learned & started practicing A-flat Lydian & Locrian scales for the final run. I’m not used to playing scales as 32nd notes.New for me is trying to use Zoom for my recordings. It was suggested by Honens laureate Ilia Ovcharenko.
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Attached is my 3rd time through the first page of the Mozart Sonata in C, 2nd mvnt. It's pretty rough, but it's a start. I had never heard it before so I had no preconceptions of what it should sound like. At least I got the melody right.
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Randi A great start! This piece is so beautiful
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Sindre Skarelven thanks! I know I have a long way to go.
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Randi Good start! I look forward to hearing your progress over this month.
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Randi One of my favorite Mozart sonata second movements! Great start!
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Randi you did an amazing job!
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