MUSICAL NOTATION HAS ALWAYS been an area of ‘creative inventiveness’ – sort of like parking in Paris. Tempo, loudness, crescendos – all of that has to be indicated, somehow. Hopefully in universal terms.
(Not always true, though – tempo markings, for instance, are notoriously unreliable. My favorite is this one: tempo giusto: at [...]
Read the rest of this entry »IT’S PROBABLY TOO EARLY to seriously look at another piece, at this stage, but I’m finding it irresistible to at least scan Chopin’s Opus 40 – ‘Polonaise Militaire’ and maybe see what some of the fingering entails.
Of course, there’s the impossible (for me) left-hand span in the first chord of measure 4 – I can [...]
Read the rest of this entry »A squeaky upgrade sustain pedal (made by M-Gear) has been driving me crazy – squeaking like rat in a trap being stepped on in time with the music. I figure it’s about time to dig out the WD-40 and fix the thing [...]
Read the rest of this entry »Running the Bach Invention #4 with the metronome, again, to force even-ness. I have yet to run it fully with the metronome running. Also, taking a glance at Chopin’s Polonaise Militaire
Read the rest of this entry »It’s not learning a piece that is difficult: it’s perfecting it and getting it accurate and precise. Learning it, committing it to memory, and getting it to the point that you can run it takes a certain amount of time. Getting it down takes a lot longer…
Read the rest of this entry »Playing piano blindfold can perhaps be an aid in memorizing the keyboard [...]
Read the rest of this entry »LOUSY PRACTICE, last night. Fingers twitching, it seems – hitting random keys at random moments. Runs wouldn’t run, arpeggios wouldn’t arpeggio.
What is this thing in front of me? And why won’t my fingers go where they are directed, at least in my head.
Performance Jitters
Part of the reason was attributable to a new [...]
Read the rest of this entry »Good, long practice, last night, after a few days of light run-throughs.
Last night, I spent about four hours until 2AM running through everything in the current set. The good news is the Inventions are smoothing out, the Beethovens are getting more expressive, and I’ve got the second half of the Scarlatti K380 committed and [...]
