Category: Reflections

Catastrophic Practice lately

It’s January 2025. I’m planning to do Grade 8 ABRSM by the end of the year but the practice schedule has fallen apart. In a way, this was foreseeable; I travelled for a lot of November and most of December; access to a piano has been unreliable to say the least. But I have been home for almost 3 weeks now, and I have played just twice. I’m ashamed, especially given that I have a hard road ahead of me to do that Grade 8 by the end of the year. The pieces are a big step up and also, when I attempt to play them it is obvious that I have not been practising. But I guess it’s part of being an adult; a piano is not a pair of running shows and you cannot bring it everywhere you want.

I did touch one new to me piano during the holidays; where I was in France had a rather nice Gaveau, recent enough to have probably been built in Germany when Schimmel were building some of the French branded pianos. I must confess I liked it, but also, I had little to no confidence to play it.

So I need to tidy up some aspirations; get the Rameau back under some level of control, move further through Reverie. The least damaged of the 5 pieces I am looking at the moment was the Rachmaninoff and I wasn’t very far through that anyway so…For the Liszt and the Chopin, from which I should chose one, I was too cowardly to look at them. I did not look at the Chopin Ballade which is my escape piece. I merely battled with the Rameau and that was it.

Not practising is bad for me. It places doubt in my heart. Can I really aspire to doing these tests that no one else does outside ex British empire colonies? If I cannot manage Grade 8, what’s going to happen with those lovely pieces I was lining up for the diplomas. Am I faking it?

Am I just wasting my own time when I look at beautiful pianos, be they old French heroes or glitteringly shiny Steinways? Am I faking it?

So yes, the piano practice needs to get back into place, around work and around health management. I don’t know how this is going to work out especially if I insist on doing nothing, and reading (this may be why I have not played so much).

It’s 8pm on a Sunday night. I spent a good chunk of the weekend in the company of Alexandre Kantorow and now I want to play more Brahms.

it’s just, I have no idea when I’ll have time to do so.

20240922 Random notes

Couple of things to note:

Daniil Trifonov has a new album due next month and Apple Music is already streaming a couple of tracks from it. I can’t find his recording of it on YouTube but definitely worth checking out his recording of China Gates by John Adams. You’ll find other recordings of that piece on YouTube including by Yuja Wang (the piece is currently on my TBL list which is almost longer than my reading list). The other thing to take a look at is this:

Daniil Trifonov When I Fall in Love

Very understated. I love it. He did the transcription and from what I can see, he doesn’t publish them. This is gorgeous though.

Also on Apple Music/Apple Music Classical, Deutsche Grammophon have been good enough to curate a bunch of playlists. If you’ve any interest in classical music at all, it’s worth looking through them and my particular recommendation is their Piano Masters list which includes Yuja Wang’s rendition of Philip Glass’s Etude 6. It’s worth taking a look around their other play lists as they have some good composer specific lists.

Yuja Wang playing Etude 6 by Philip Glass

I haven’t listened to it yet but Ben Laude, late of ToneBase but now doing nice stuff on his own channel, was interviewed for Behind the Tech, which is a tech podcast. You can find a taster here:

Ben Laude taster of interview with Kevin Scott

They talk extensively about Scriabin’s Opus 8 number 12 which is to be fair, a great piece of music. I came across it on Boris Giltburg’s Instagram channel. In particular, they discuss Horowitz’s playing of said piece but personally I like Garrick Ohlsson’s recording and Daniil Trifonov played it on at a Yellow Room concert for Deutsche Grammophon and it’s definitely worth you time too.

God plays Scriabin

I see there’s a Nikolai Lugansky version as well. I must check it out at some point.

I want to learn this but it will have to be for the LRSM I guess, feel sure it would be acceptable difficulty wise. Annique Gottler had a go at it here. She said it was hard and she definitely is better than I am atm.

In other news, the Leeds Piano Competition has been running. Jaeden Izik-Dzurko won in the end and you can find his Brahms II concerto final here. I also recommend taking a lot at the second placed Junwan Chen’s Rachmaninoff 4 if and when it’s been posted. I don’t see it there yet. The competition’s YouTube is worth an exploration though so find it here.

Last two things to mention: Alexandre Tharaud has a Bach release on the way, again check it out on your streaming service of choice as a couple of tracks are already available and my little piece of joy to listen to from Vikingur Olafsson is the Bach No 4 Organ Sonata, transcribed by Stradal. It looks like IMSLP is the main source for the sheets. I hope that link eventually takes you to the right place.

Here he is on YouTube with a rather sobering video.

Morning Piano

This week I have had five minutes for the piano before I left the house to go to work. It’s autumn and the morning light is changing. And I am working on Consolation No 2 by Liszt.

Normally I’m not sure about only giving this five minutes in the morning but it truly makes the morning beautiful when those notes fall into place. I love it.

Store visits – Steinway in Hamburg

Steinway Pianos

Factory visits are not generally easy but Steinway and Sons have a nice flagship store near the factory and if you are interested in their pianos, it is worth a trek out. One of their technicians was voicing a Steinway D while I was there so I did not get to play much while I was there (although I did touch a Boston for pretty much the first time that I think).

How did I get out there? Number 3 Bus and number 180 buses. The 180 was not 100% reliable that day but this is hardly Steinway’s fault.

I did get to see a Noa in blue. It was a B, and it was gorgeous to look at. Someone had already reserved it. I envied these unknowns.

Steinway Pianos

The most beautiful piano to look at was one of the Crown Jewels in Olive – I’m sorry I did not have an opportunity to play that but it was truly beautiful to look at.

Steinway Pianos

In the recital room, there were three Concert Ds, and at least one was fitted with Spirio. I have always had some rather mixed feelings about the idea of player pianos but in a discussion with the technician and the store manager, I’m increasingly sold on it. The technician, whose name has escaped me now, pointed out that they can now stream live concerts from a concert hall to a Spirio R equipped piano and had done it for Vikingur Olafsson’s trip to the Elbphilharmonie. I could fantasize about a winter evening sitting in my living room having a concert by one of the best concert pianists in the world streamed to my piano with the sound benefits that go there. Although I’d love to see how they replicate Daniil Trifonov’s touch.

A brace of Bs and a C

Steinway also had a pop up shop in Alsthaus, the main department store in central Hamburg. I believe it ends end of September 2024. Claudia recommended that I go and have a look at the Sunburst upright there because it had a particularly nice sound. So I did.

Sunburst

They were also running weekend concerts there, and the morning after that concert, I went and had a look at the Steinway B that was in the pop up shop and I did play both it and the Sunburst. There are radical differences between the grand and upright Steinways – the uprights are slightly heavier to play – but it’s interesting to do it. I might aspire to a Steinway B at some point in my life but my journey has, afterall, started with a digital Kawai CA59.

One thing I do have to reiterate is that I spoke to several Steinway staff between both the Flagship and the Pop-Up. Steinway’s staff are unfailingly polite, very open and welcoming. In particular (despite not remembering his name), I would like to underline the very interesting and broad conversation I had with Steinway’s technician (who was voicing the D when I arrived) which covered the need to be not so conservative, views on several top concert pianists, the recognition of how some pianists make you want to play more (Olafsson in particular here).

I’m always honest to say I am not buying today but I’ve found that many Steinway sales staff put the time. Unfailingly they know what they are talking about and I have never met any who do not play themselves. They understand.

Repertoire selection, reflections and more

One of the things I do when I finish one exam – okay, it looks like I have done tonnes of them but really I have not – is allow myself to look forward to Exam N+1. In practical terms, this means that when I finished Grade 5, I could select pieces for Grade 8 and now that Grade 6 is done, the next up is ARSM.

I don’t have a teacher at the moment so there is an element of suggesting that maybe I should wait. But I have one very clear criteria about pieces that I prepare for exams and it is this: I have to like them. Thus, I’m going to choose them, and while I’ll take general advice like “cover several time periods”, I’ll not be told what to learn to play. I’m 52 years old I don’t have all that much time to be lived. You can see the current state of affairs in my exam planning here under Goals and Objectives.

The ARSM recital length is 30 minutes. Assuming I go for the highest choices on my list so far, eg, some Brahms, Fauré, Gershwin and Ravel, I have accounted for 21 minutes. So I will look at adding possibly one of Granados’ Goyescas too. I will still need to find something vaguely Baroque and I probably can’t escape Bach this time. Or possibly Scarlatti.

One of the approaches I take there is to just listen to the options. There may some nice things in WTC that appeal, there may be some Haydn. The issue is the time balance. I can’t give 12 minutes to a Bach piece I don’t actively dislike but don’t really want to learn when Pavane Pour Un Enfant Defunt is there and has been on my learning list forever.

In any case, for both Grade 8 and ARSM, learning playlists are being put together and this will hopefully allow me to identify a 5 minute piece that demonstrates depth.

Hothouse flowers

I’m inclined to think that I should spend less time on social media. There’s an ABRSM focused group on FaceBook and during the week, a teacher noted that she had several 8 year olds passing ABRSM Grade 8 and she wanted to know if this happened much internationally.

Leaving aside the fact that the whole grade thing is a British-colony centric thing, the general view was that no, it wasn’t all that common, and additionally, was not positively considered.

There’s no way I would have been ready for Grade 8 at the age of 8 and I was generally precocious. I’m not sure how kids would be able to complete the required Grade 5 theory by that age to be honest. Nevertheless, I assume there are occasional cases.

I don’t have children and I am not a music teacher but I realised a while ago, that as an adult, I didn’t find the streams of tiny children playing Fantasie Impromptu by Chopin to be all that impressive. I mean, it’s impressive for the kids that they can make their fingers do it, but it’s not impressive for the society that causes it to happen. I’m inclined to the Let Children Be Children mode – they should be out playing with friends, getting their hands dirty and all and yet somehow…And childhood geniuses don’t magically appear or spring out of nowhere. An awful lot of work goes into creating one. The question is whether it is a benefit to the child or not…on that I’m not sure the answer is a clear yes.

Not least that for every 100 prodigies which get flagged by the media at an early age, not many of them make it to adulthood as successful musicians. I’m inclined to look more at those who are still playing gifted at the age of 17 or 18.

Meanderings

It’s the last Saturday in July and to be honest, I’m not really sure where this year went, and especially, where the last six weeks or so. I have piano time booked in a couple of hours time and I haven’t been practising so nothing much is going to come out of that.

The opening ceremony of the Olympics was last night and we were gifted the sight of Alexandre Kantorow playing Ravels in what has to be the worst rain storm I’ve seen in Paris. My heart went out to the organisers, and yet…it was a superb ceremony which touched on loads of facets of French life, and not merely the ones thought “worthy”. The right wing are blowing fuses this morning.

I’m not sure what audience I write for here – I don’t push the site much – it’s kind of a place for me to do social media without the social bit, I guess. Lately, Reddit has been depressing in ways that it’s hard to respond to without being heavily sarcastic. So many people want to be able to play the piano; so few of them willing to actually work at it. Yesterday I came across a thread from someone who can’t play, doesn’t want to learn, will not engage a teacher. Bet someone some money they could learn the opening movement of the Moonlight Sonata without lessons, without a teacher.

The main issue I have with people like this is not so much that they have stupid ideas – I still want to learn to snowboard after all – it’s that they think anyone who can play the piano has an obligation to be polite about what is essentially a very impolite question. There are a lot of people who want to play the piano, are willing to put in work but still won’t pay teachers and expect the online community to teach them for free. I don’t see the likes of Sam Altman and Elon Musk living on vapor but any number of rich people in the tech sector expect other sectors to implode and provide work for free. I’m reading Chip War at the moment which isn’t helping my mood.

Anyway.

My Grade 6 Certificate arrived this morning. It still has HMS Queen as patron on the certificate which feels a bit funny given I grew up in a republic and don’t really like this whole inherited power thing at all. Plus she is dead. But the certificate made me happy when it arrived yesterday. Oh, yes I ordered it, and yes I knew it was coming. But…

I needed it to show up. I get mixed results, especially from people not close to me, when it comes up that I’m back doing piano exams. Why would I bother, people ask.

It’s the tone of voice that really doesn’t help. It can be dismissive. People are impressed that I might play every day (oops to that lately) but the idea that I might align it with a goal….it’s problematic. Rationally, I know I can ignore this but often, it doesn’t do my somewhat fragile self esteem much good.

I’m always delighted when people tell me they are starting any project. It can be further education, or it can be tactile, like building a Lego piece, or training for a triathlon. There’s a point at which it’s important to have goals for yourself. If you’re minded to ask why someone would bother doing something you don’t value, remember they might value it differently.

Now what

I stand at a crossroads. This must have happened before but I don’t remember it. I spent most of my teenage years pending exams or on summer holidays from the piano. The only time I insisted on doing something I wanted to do, I was learning some of Rach II at 17.

I learned Rach II at 17
A piece not meant for Irish teens.

Treasa Lynch on a Saturday night in June

Anyway, after a week of work, I recorded and submitted Grade 6. I dread something going terribly wrong here and me having to unpublish a whole pile of posts around this in utter shame. The question, is what do I do now? I see two options:

  • Start working on the Grade 8 repertoire (and find a teacher, for the love of god)
  • Take a 2 week break and inflict scales on my neighbours. It cannot be worse than Solfeggiettio has been.
  • Do something completely different from the monster pile of sheet music I own.

Yes, that’s 3 options now that I look more closely.

The four pieces on Grade 8 are pieces I actively want to learn. There are also some pieces for “later” that I could play with too. Brahms 118/2. Chopin’s Ballade No 1. Some of Fauré’s stuff. The world is wide open.

What will I play next?

Every once in a while there is a wave of questions on Reddit of the kind “I can play Fantaisie Impromptu [or other early advanced/advanced piece] what should I play next.”

I often wonder where these questions come from. I mean, if you are playing a Liszt Consolation or anything by Chopin, and you don’t know what else to play, this isn’t actually your core problem. Much like we tell would be writers that they need to read more by other writers, I think pianists need to listen to a lot of other pianists. Chop and Liszt on their own have a metric tonne of music – if you can play one of them, why not listen to more of their music and explore it? You’ll surely find stuff you want to play that way.

The world is full of amazing stuff. Fauré’s piano output. Brahms. Beethoven. Mozart. Genuinely, if you have to ask a piano forum, the issue is probably that you are not listening to enough music.