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20240914 Practice Log

According to Tonic, I am on a practice streak of 14 days. I find this difficult to believe because it doesn’t feel like I’ve touched the piano every day for two whole weeks. On the other hand, I was on the Silver League last week, made it [just about] up to the Gold League and I’m leading that now so I will definitely pass to the next one which is either Diamond or Platinum. I can’t remember. I also finally accumulated the crazy number of points I needed to move from Level 7 to Level 8 on their scale. So on that gamification front, looking good.

On the music front, where are we, really? I’m prepping Grade 8 for ABRSM, so that bit hasn’t changed anyway. Until some day this week this meant Rameau and Liszt. As of the day before yesterday, there is a bit of Debussy and Rachmaninoff in the mix now. So roll call on the pieces:

Rameau Les Cyclopes: this is moving forward very slowly. But it is moving forward and I feel hopeful that a lot of it will be done by Christmas this year. I’ve solved the fingering issue I mentioned here. Now the question is internalising the notes so that I can play them at the required pace (it’s funny how fast I come to a grinding halt here). Mostly I spend time touching out the notes in line with a metronome – I’d film this except this morning I was practicing in my night dress – to ensure that I get them at an even pace. I’m happy with this.

Liszt Consolation No 2: I like to think this will enable me to play Brahms 118 at some point in the future – for some reason it gives me a similar vibe, I don’t know why. Anyway, this too is moving forward, albeit more slowly than I expected. I have some major challenges coming up when I pass through this pass but truly the problems I have are the memorisation issues.

Debussy Reverie: In a fit of pique on Thursday night and against the advice of my inner teacher who seems to feel I should get more of Les Cyclopes and Consolation No 2 under control before siphoning off practice time to the French and the Russians amongst my aspirations, I pulled out Reverie. Page one is not very difficult to read so why not. I’m happy I did (take that, inner teacher). The challenges are, needless to mention, in the musicality and with the timing here and there. There is a polyrhythm I need to get under control. But I like the feeling of it, and while it seems counterintuitive, I’m starting with the metronome early here.

Rachmaninoff Moment Musical 16/5: This comes with a lot of baggage. It is in the key of D flat. It is a neverending train of triplets on the left hand. There are few if any impossible chords to play (unique for the composer in question). The target set for this for the next few weeks is short. It is 5 whole bars. There is a chord split between right and left hands which is just soul destroyingly beautiful to hear.

On the pieces front, so good. I’ve also been doing a lot of sight reading but I’m going to split that out to a different entry.

All in all, it’s been a good week. I’m quite happy with it. The target date for Grade 8 was initially set at the end of 2025 because I thought I’d be doing the older syllabus and the exams had to be done by 31 December. But since I am doing the newer syllabus, this is no longer necessary. In part, I gave extra time because I was skipping the Grade 7 exam [didn’t much like the syllabus when I reviewed them and anyway I had other targets on the diploma front]. I’m wondering how much of the extra time I will need. It’s quite confusing because when I sit at the piano, I don’t feel it’s going particularly quickly – my most recent comparison was the Solfeggietto which went really fast compared to the other 3 pieces on the grade 6 = but against that, it’s making the kind of progress that suggests with a good run, I could see this come in before next summer. Being realistic though, this won’t happen because I will miss most of December and a couple of weeks in November as well. That being said, the practice time is moving in the general direction of 90 minutes. This is reasonsable I think if 4 pieces are on the schedule.

Okay, that’s it for this.

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.

Sight reading practice

I set up this idea of having a target of 40 odd pieces this year and I even made a list. But although I intended to put together the pages on my iPad to have them ready to read I never got around to it, and then I was highly occupied by the Grade 6 pieces. So it’s only recently that I started looking at The Problem this was supposed to solve, ie, not being confident enough with the sight reading.

The internet is full of quick fixes to sight reading Problems. Basically, I’d like to read fluently enough to play fluently a lot of pieces. I’ve mixed feelings – sometimes I think the reduced speed sight reading helps with the memorisation. But either way, needs must.

There were a few issues of Pianist and Pianist lying around near the piano and while I would not normally bother with beginner pieces I decided to start with those and see how far I got. What I’ve learned is that even for the easy/accessible to beginners pieces, the grading is not always consistent with the way I play. I find Beginner/Intermediate easier than Beginner sometimes.

This post is really for me to trap a list of what I’ve been doing for the last week or two. Nothing very deep.

So in no particular order other than the pile of magazines beside me here:

Pianiste (FR) No 146

  • Czerny Les Heures du Matin op 821, no 1 (GD)
  • Felix Le Couppey, Op 17/3, The Alphabet (GD)

Pianist 139

  • Antonio Fragoso Aria (I)
  • Melanie Spanwick Eastern Promise (B)
  • Christian Gottlob Neefe Minuet in F (B)
  • Theodor Oesten The Echo No 14 from May Flowers OP61 (BI)

Pianist 136

  • Felix Le Couppey No 17 from ABC du Piano [wonder if this is the same set as The Alphabet above]
  • Melanie Spanwick Mountain Stream (B)
  • Theodore Latour First movement from Sonatina No 1 in C (BI)

Pianist 137

  • Mel Bonis Raindrops OP 103 NO 9 (B)
  • Melanie Spanwick Glorious Day (B)
  • Charles Villiers Stanford (BI)

I think this exercise started about 10 days ago. Maybe a week. Not sure. Anyway, the abbreviations are GD Grand Debutant, B Beginner, BI Beginner/Intermediate. I see there are 12 pieces there already. At this rate, I could probably touch my 40 pieces target provided I do 10-12 a week.

It’s the start of September. I’m missing from the piano for about 5 weeks between here and Christmas.

20240902 Practice Diary

Oh god they have changed the interface a bit again. I hope I manage to be able to post stuff in the future.

Okay, the practice stuff, I am trying to get back under control. To this end, I wish I could read music more efficiently.

So, currently I am working on two pieces – Consolation No 2 by Franz Liszt and Les Cyclopes by JP Rameau. It’s tough being back at the start of the journey, although to be fair, if I had actually not taken a chunk of July and August off, I’d not be at the start. I hope, at least I would not be at the start.

I love both pieces but they both in the early stages have some challenges which I am struggling with. As I spent more time with Franz Liszt, the original rock and roll superstar, let’s start there.

Liszt Consolation 2
Consolation No 2, Liszt, opening measures

Strictly speaking, this is entry level Liszt. Compared to some of his other fireworks, this is reasonably approachable. I draw the line at calling it easy but there is nothing overly shocking here. No polyrhythms for example. But those quaver rests in red are causing me undue difficulty when trying to put these bars hands together. It’s not a straight rhythm problem either because the bars with the squares around them are not posing the same problem for some reason. I understand what they should sound like, I’m not struggling to read them but I am struggling to coordinate them. Even being mangled and interpersed with assorted swearwords, the piece is beautiful. So I don’t intend to give up (and given there is Rachmaninoff and Ravel to come afterwards, I hope this all works out.

I have doing some reading of the pages to come – I can see I will have similar issues but hands swapped. I hope it goes okay – that the click turns up soon.

For the Rameau, it’s mostly okay. The challenge here is memorisation and speed with one or two things for which I will need to spend a lot of time with arpeggios.

Rameau Les Cyclopes Extract
Les Cyclopes by Rameau, opening measures

I just cannot play the circles bars fast enough. So slow practice and arpeggios are the name of the game. Also, I’d like a new piano stool as the one I have isn’t really stable enough for my liking. The highlighted pieces I love playing.

Currently I am also sight reading all the beginner pieces I can find in assorted issues of Pianist magazine. So since I last spoke, what I have done are:

  • Minuet in F by Christian Gottlob Neefe, one of LvB’s teachers. This was not all that difficult and I recommend it.
  • The Echo No 14 from Mayflowers, Op 61 by Theodor Oesten, from Berlin direction. Pianist has a lesson from M Spanswick for this if you have access via Pianist. Issue 139
  • No 17 from ABC du Piano by Felix Le Couppey from issue 136

All three of these were from today’s practice session. I tend to focus on the pieces which means I’m not doing enough work on the technique side of things. I’d like to be better at reading so I am working through all the beginner stuff and then intermediate stuff that I have in Pianist.

Scales we have loved this week: E major.

Repertoire Management: yes I played 3/4 Grade 6 pieces.

I was listening on Tonic today and I heard someone working on Hanon 31. I like the sound of it. Additionally, Annique Goettler has a tutorial on Hanon 1 on her YouTube channel.

Annique Goettler on Hanon

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.

20240824 Practice Diary

It’s been a while since I’ve been practising, sadly. When I got to Hamburg I had not played in about 3 weeks. But I am getting back there this week and what am I working on.

Liszt Consolation Number 2. This is a gorgeous piece of Accessible Liszt for which the left hand starts on a half between the first and second beat. It’s not a polyrhythm but I am finding it a bit counter intuitive. There are moments it comes right for me and I think god, how can I create something so beautiful, and then there are moments it does not.

Rameau Les Cyclopes. I love this and the first page of it is mostly a joy to work with. It’s not listenable (sorry to my Tonic stream audience) as a performance yet as there is a pesky arpeggio in it which must surely have been easier on a harpsichord. So this is very much the subject of slow practice and I need to start putting time in on metronome practice with arpeggios in general.

Repertoire: I keep practising three of the pieces I did for Grade 6 as they are appropriate for, inter alia, playing Steinways in piano stores. Those pieces were by Mendelssohn, Rebikov and CPE Bach. CPE Bach does not work most mornings for some reason and yet it’s the one I use to warm up mostly.

Sight reading: this week I took two pieces from the issue of Pianist sitting on my piano (well one of them =- I have two). It’s the August-September Edition and the two pieces were:

  • Aria by Antonio Fragoso. He was a young composer when he died – 1897 to 1918 so this is basically late Romanticish. It’s a pretty piece in Gminor which makes extensive use of the sustain pedal. Worth a look if you are looking for sightreading practice. Pianist marked it Intermediate
  • Eastern Promise by Melanie Spanswick. This is in A Minor with one or two rhythm tests in it for all that it is a short piece. Again, good sightreading practice if this is a weak point you are trying to fix.

Neither of these pieces are on my 40 pieces challange which has pretty much fallen apart. With 4 months left in the year, I will need to scale that done and reassess how I manage it as a project for next year (or I could star the project a new this week which which case I am 5% in. I will reflect on that the next time I am staring out the window of a bus. At some point, I need to write a bit on sight reading, how I feel about it, and what I want to be able to do.

I did no scales this week. I am a very bad person.

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.