Mastering Large-scale work: Tips and advice!

Since I started this - Goldberg Variations. Also on my wish list - Carnaval (don’t know if I’ll ever get to that one). 

I would like to hear about tips for Schumann´s Fantasy op 17 that I worked on for a long time. I am looking for new and creative ways to complete the three movements and to put them together. How do you feel about stamina, technical approaches especially the end of the second movement with coda? Thanks so much!

I started working on the Bach e-minor Partita during our Bach Challenge, so far playing the Toccata and Allemande. But actually I still have problems maintaining concentration even during the Toccata. While I can play all passages individually, they are a lot of accidents on the road when I play through the whole movement. Will be happy for any advise! Otherwise I agree with Harriet Kaplan - would love to learn more about approaching the Goldberg Variations as a whole. Thanks for setting this up! 

Liszt Spanish Rhapsody Difficulties 

(1) In the Molto vivace section, I found the Interlocking octaves challenging to play evenly (wrist relaxation) and without missing notes. When try to play leapings and switching between Staccatissmo and Marcato, l tend to rush after the chords.
(2)  I found the Arpeggio Octaves both similar and contrary motion difficult to play (wrist relaxation) and challenging to play evenly and without missing notes. 
(3)  I found the wide leaps with left hand leaps in contrary motion difficult to play them accurately.
(4)  P.12 - P.13 Semiquaver triplets (Wrist moving), Accuracy and relaxation, coordination with left hand chords
(5)  P.15 and P.18 - P.19 Double notes with single notes (Wrist moving), I have adpoted your suggested fingerings and allocated some notes to the left hand.  It definitely helps ease the burden a lot :). However, I tend to build up tensions when I play the whole passage and it  becomes difficult to maintain coordination(and to not miss notes).

I’d love to learn the Chopin B flat minor sonata. I’ve learnt to notes of all the moments but perfected none (of the movements). It took months to learn the notes and I’ve put it aside to learn some shorter pieces. I had begun to loose interest in this mammoth work (for me). 

Id still love to be able to play the complete sonata. Any ideas on how I could approach this? I feel it could be a year or two before I will be able to put all the moments together (at my learning pace). 

I know it varies on skill level/amount of practice/difficult of the piece/etc but I would like to know generally how long should it take to learn a long piece- like all the movements of a sonata (I have been slowly going through mozart 331), 20 page Chopin scherzo #2 (which I am hesitant to learn because of the 20 pages) or any long piece. Knowing generally how long it would take would help with knowing if you’re on track and hopefully keep the motivation level up.

Mozart's Sonata in A Major

I wish I could have participated in the event live, but I was at my piano lesson this morning! This was possibly the most interesting one I've listened to at Tonebase thus far and brought up memories (many not so pleasant!) of my interactions with teachers over the years. This way of approaching music has always made much more sense to me than going at it as if it's a piece of needlepoint or a paint-by-numbers project. A lot of food for thought here, thank you.

I watched the recording and am excited to try this advice of big to small. I think I generally have been somewhere in the middle of the two approaches - but I would be interested to see how it will work for me to let go of more details and follow the process Dominic suggests. It would be great to have more momentum and finish pieces sooner. Thank you Dominic! Your talks are always more informative and helpful than I could even ask for. 

I also wasn't able to see this live, but I'm so pleased I caught the recording. Thank you Dominic, your expertise and advice is always so amazing, and even though I'm a relative novice (compared to the many amazing artists here on Tonebase). I always find you share nuggets of gold that are applicable at every stage of the musical journey. Glad I had a notebook handy, I want to remember the "suitcase of the mind", the "musical stew" and the "musical solar system"! This has helped me focus my practice on the areas that I need to. Thank you so much.

Hello Dominic. I just wish to thank you for your insights and very broad knowledge and experience in this morning’s topic. I was the one who asked for advice on learning the Chopin B flat minor sonata. 
I am approaching 70 years of age so I don’t have time to learn everything I’d like to, so I refuse to see any piece of music as being beyond my abilities. I use to play the piano as a young man and learn for about 12 years. Alas life took me in a different direction and just recently I have returned to my music. 
your presentation was second to none. Your analogies and metaphors made perfect sense…. Put everything into perspective (for me). The one thing which stood out for me was the learning process - NOTES FIRST. That is the way I’ve been taught but because I defer to YouTube for my music instruction, the advice is contrary to what you were saying. Now I feel I can justifiably go back to the way I use to learn!!  Once more, thank you very much for your presentation. 

A real pleasure to listen to and thank you for the good and useful advice! Regards, Lars