Week 3: Seeing the Big Picture
Hello and welcome to the WEEK THREE 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 August 14th-21th I hope to be reading your daily updates in this very thread right here!
Here is this week's assignment!
I am sure that you have been busy at work on your pieces, fixing fingerings, dynamics, articulation, and so-on!
But this week I want us to focus on big picture work (outlined below) as a lot of us may be gearing up to play in the "back to school" recital OR use recorded videos from this challenge in a Watch Party! (Watch Parties are "pre-recorded" video celebrations, Community Concerts are LIVE performances of pieces).
Assignments:
1. Try and focus on playing larger chunks of your piece this week. Focus on broader strokes.
2. Record yourself in "run-throughs" of the piece, share with all of us! :)
3. Why? because we always need to remember to strike a balance between working on fine tuning the piece, and making sure the gestures and larger picture remain in focus, not becoming to "granular".
103 replies
-
Here's week 3 where I'm trying to play through the entire Etude, bringing out interesting LH harmonies where possible. Still not at the right tempo, but it sounds too rushed when I play faster.
Any suggestions to help retain the lyricism without making it sound like I'm running late to work?
-
Hello, busy week for me again with family around. I have continued my practice of the beginning and the ending of the Polonaise-Fantaisie. This time the video of Part 1 covers bar 1 - bar 116 and the video of Part 2 starts at bar 214. Watching the videos I've realized that I still feel tense when getting to the more challenging passages. You can see it in my body language. I will continue to work on that, and I also need to breathe more. Next week I will focus on the middle part, with the beautiful second theme. Well, I knew it already, it is going to remain unfinished business at the end of this challenge ... :-)
-
I squeezed in a playthru/recording yesterday after hiking & before dinner 😅 Confession that the Grand Polonaise hasn't been somewhat missing on my repertoire practice list this week, and in the couple of run-thrus I did do, I conveniently skipped the Tutti intro 😄... But it was helpful to give it a rest and see what I retained from last week's practice sessions.
Here's the video: https://youtu.be/Ramr3PBZ6EI
Endurance is clearly an issue for this one, and I empathize with what everyone else is saying about hands tightening up after a certain point in their pieces.
I think I tend to pick up the pace for the recap (because I'm more warmed up and settled in by this point), but then that pace is not sustainable for all the RH passagework in the coda - both physically and also how fast my brain can work mentally to remember the LH harmony. This is also usually where things break down when I'm performing this piece for others, since my perception of time changes due to nerves and I play faster than in practice settings.
I'm definitely not ready to perform this piece anytime soon, but I definitely feel like I know it better than before the challenge began - especially the middle portion that doesn't repeat, and also value to motivation to practice "getting myself out of trouble" - make mistakes and practice getting out of them.