WEEK THREE Updates: Main Thread - Finishing up the Challenge!
Hello and welcome to the WEEK THREE Main Thread for this challenge! 
Awesome job everyone! As we are nearing the end of this community challenge I want to commend everyone for being so determined and committed to holding ourselves accountable to practice! This is great stuff :)
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 June 17th - July 8th I hope to be reading your daily updates in this very thread right here!
Download the music:
Handel: Chaconne in G major HWV 435
Please use the following format when commenting (feel free to copy & paste!):
- Variation you worked on:
- One thing you found easy:
- One thing you found difficult:
- (Optional): a video of you performing it!
Sample daily update:
- Variation you worked on: No. 1
- One thing you found easy: Learning the notes, and rhythms were rather straight-forward, and not challenging!
- One thing you found difficult: Playing the trills/ornaments in an elegant way was what challenged me the most.
Feel free to make these updates as short or long as you wish!
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- Variation you worked on: I was on vacation for over a week so missed practice time (and wasn't able to post updates), but as today is the last day I decided to just record playing the entire piece (all 21 variations) through all my mistakes but at close to what would be my desired speed for all the variations.
- One thing you found easy: The minor variations were easier (and my favorites).
- One thing you found difficult: Although I can stumble my way through all the variations it would take weeks to get it to "performance" level (let alone memorizing!) and I made more mistakes while recording because I was a bit nervous. Variation 8 was the most difficult for me and while I finally got it down in practice I choked in the recording and relied on the pedal for cover. :)
In any case, this is my play through of the entire piece in one sitting. Even though I missed a bunch of practice days, I got through all the variations per my original goal and realized many weak points in my technique that I can work on.
I found this community challenge incredibly useful and look forward more. Congratulations to everyone who worked on these!
p.s. I checked out the Henle edition from the library which is why it might sound a bit different than the tonebase version. Less ornamentation. Would be interesting to discuss the different editions...
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Brett Gilbert Really enjoyed listening to you ! Bravo !
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Brett Gilbert Well done Brett. That was impressive. I liked the first half a lot, and the way you did 13, which I´m having trouble with.
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Thanks Richard , 13 immediately brought to mind Bach WTC No 2 (C minor) for me so I thought of playing in a similar way and as the start of build-up to 16, which I think of the "apex" of the variations. I found the remaining variations (17-21) a bit less interesting. :). btw, - there is a great tonebase lesson on the Bach prelude I mention above that's worth checking out!
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- Variation you worked on: ...well, still (and only) 9!
- One thing you found easy: Recording audio and not video! Much less setup time!
- One thing you found difficult: I would still like to polish, in listening to my final recording - there is a lot I would like to change, but we are drawing to a close and when I look back at where I started - hands separate, no ornamentation etc... I can see the improvement. I can play slightly better than this recording, but decided this was good enough for now.
THANK YOU to everyone that participated in the challenge, it has been a great journey with all of you and I know a lot of hard work went into all of this... thanks for giving me the courage to participate as well. Thank you for your kind words of encouragement!
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Tim Your variation is so sensitively played .. like your trills .
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1. Theme and 1
2. Sightplaying the music roughly was easy. My husband thinks it is beautiful. I do too.
3. Playing it without hesitation is difficult. I have memorized it while learning because memorizing is very difficult for me and I want to challenge my brain. I have recently learned Handel Prelude in G HWV442, Mvmt1. When I tried to go back and play the prelude after practicing the Chaconne, I had a lightbulb moment. I could totally tell that both compositions were by the same composer. Then I started getting confused between the two pieces, especially because I was playing from memory
Thank you for organizing this challenge. I think it is a wonderful thing to do. I did practice most every day. I did not post twice a week. I will try to follow that rule better next time.
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I played 9-13 last week and made a couple of videos but failed to realize that yesterday was the last day until it was too late to upload. I really enjoyed working on this piece. My first pass at each variation was basic - now time to go back and play with repeats and add some ornaments. I really need to explore that improvisatory side of baroque music more. Very fun challenge! I liked seeing other’s posts.
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Hi Everyone - don't miss the watch party next Monday!
https://piano-community.tonebase.co/t/m1hknzv/handel-chaconne-community-challenge-watch-party
